“Swimming Pools (Drank),” “Poetic Justice” featuring Drake, and “B- Don’t Kill My Vibe” (which later featured a remix with Jay-Z) were all hit singles. Massive critical and commercial acclaim followed. He rockets through a galaxy of themes: love, lust, loyalty, fear, anger, divinity, spirituality, toxic masculinity, gang politics, gun violence, racial profiling, teenage innocence, police brutality, survivor’s remorse, hope, self-awareness and mortality.
The album itself begins with a teenage Lamar chasing after a girl named Sherane and ends with him witnessing the death of a friend and undergoing a spiritual awakening. Good kid’s cover art shows baby Kendrick sitting on a family member’s lap. “I learned, when I look in the mirror and tell my story, that I should be myself and not peep whatever everybody is doing … If I’m gonna tell a real story, I’m gonna start with my name,” Lamar, who had previously performed as K-Dot, told Vulture on the eve of the album’s release. Both fought to gain control over situations that threatened their sense of self and their lives.Īftermath Entertainment/Interscope RecordsĪnd as with Malcolm X, a name change is an important signifier. Feelings of powerlessness lead to ambitious and aggressive decisions.
Like Malcolm X’s autobiography, good kid, m.A.A.d city chronicles the life of a young black man, organized by fear and motivated to survive. But good kid is the album of the decade because it is The Autobiography of Malcolm X for our time, overflowing with black rage, hopelessness, fear of abandonment, and a sobering understanding (and sometimes reckless disregard) of death and rebirth. Yes, it was the 13-time Grammy winner’s major label debut. True, Kendrick Lamar’s 2012 opus good kid, m.A.A.d city is the longest charting hip-hop studio album in history.
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