Good Kid Maad City Album
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Find album reviews, stream songs, credits and award information for Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City - Kendrick Lamar on AllMusic - 2012 - Hip-hop debuts don't come much more 'highly.
Kendrick Lamar's good kid, m.A.A.d city is fearless and brilliant, an unvarnished and nuanced peek into the rapper's inner life that ties straightforward rap thrills directly to its narrative.
- Good Kid: M.A.A.D. City is a classic, already. Kendrick Lamar (aka K. Dot) drops his first studio album with Dr. Dre & it's an instant hit. The album is the first in a long time that I can play straight through without skipping.
- Everyone, that is, except for Kendrick. “Bumping Jeezy first album, looking distracted.” The premise of Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City is that the outside world has the power to corrupt.
Featured Tracks:
The first sound we hear on good kid, m.A.A.d. city is a prayer: 'Thank you, Lord Jesus, for saving us with your precious blood,' voices murmur, evoking a family dinner gathering. The album's cover art, a grubby Polaroid, provides a visual prompt for the scene: Baby Kendrick dangles off an uncle's knee in front of a squat kitchen table displaying a 40-ounce and Lamar's baby bottle. The snapshot is such an unvarnished peek into the rapper's inner life that staring at it for too long feels almost invasive. This autobiographical intensity is the album's calling card. Listening to it feels like walking directly into Lamar's childhood home and, for the next hour, growing up alongside him.
Lamar has subtitled the record 'A Short Film by Kendrick Lamar', and the comparison rings true: You could take the album's outline and build a set for a three-act play. It opens on a 17-year-old Kendrick 'with nothing but pussy stuck on my mental,' driving his mother's van to see a girl named Sherane. As his voice darts and halts in a rhythm that mimics his over-eager commute, Lamar explores the furtiveness of young lust: 'It's deep-rooted, the music of being young and dumb,' he raps. The song is interrupted by the first of several voice mail recordings that delineate the album's structure: Kendrick's mother, rambling into his phone and pleading for him to return her car. These voicemails appear through the record, reinforcing that good kid, m.A.A.d city is partly a love letter to the grounding power of family. In this album's world, family and faith are not abstract concepts: They are the fraying tethers holding Lamar back from the chasm of gang violence that threatens to consume him.
All this weighty material might make good kid, m.A.A.d city sound like a bit of a drag. But the miracle of this album is how it ties straightforward rap thrills-- dazzling lyrical virtuosity, slick quotables, pulverizing beats, star turns from guest rappers-- directly to its narrative. For example, when 'Backseat Freestyle' leaked last week, its uncharacteristic subject matter ('All my life I want money and power/ Respect my mind or die from lead shower') took some fans by surprise. But on the album, it marks the moment in the narrative when young Kendrick's character first begins rapping, egged on by a friend who plugs in a beat CD. Framed this way, his 'damn, I got bitches' chant gets turned inside out: This isn't an alpha male's boast. It's a pipsqueak's first pass at a chest-puff. It's also a monster of a radio-ready single, with Kendrick rapping in three voices (in double- and triple-time, no less) over an insane Hit-Boy beat.
Lamar grew up in Compton, and ghosts of West Coast gangsta-rap haunt this album's edges, casting shadows on Kendrick's complicated relationship with his hometown. When 'The Art of Peer Pressure' brings Kendrick and his friends to Rosecrans Ave., the music downshifts into menacing G-funk mode as a salute to hallowed ground. Ice Cube’s “Bird in the Hand” is invoked to set up “m.A.A.d city” (“Fresh of out school, 'cause I was a high-school grad..'), which appropriately marks the moment when real violence erupts. Here, Kendrick sounds like a terrified kid: 'I made a promise to see you bleeding,' he raps, his voice pitched at a pleading, near-hysterical sob. In response, the voice of Compton's Most Wanted rapper MC Eiht leers, 'Wake yo' punk ass up,' like a father figure of the Darth Vader variety.
Which brings us to the album's most visible benefactor and most unsettled presence: Dr. Dre. In recent months, Dre has availed himself of the fresh-career oxygen Kendrick's rise has pumped into his atmosphere, lumbering out of his corporate airlock to stand with Lamar on magazine covers. But the role he plays in Lamar's story feels muddled and unresolved. On an album that manages to seamlessly work a smirking Drake and a highly recognizable Janet Jackson sample ('Poetic Justice') into the fabric of a larger narrative, it is only Dre's appearance, on the final track 'Compton', that feels like an uneasy outlier.
'Compton' is the victory lap, the coronation. Coming after the stunning 12-minute denouement 'Sing About Me, I'm Dying of Thirst', in which Lamar delivers a verse from a peripheral character that is the album's most dazzling stroke of empathy, it can't help but be a small deflation. The moment of arrival in any artist's story is always less interesting than their journey, and there's a disconnect in hearing Lamar and Dre stunt over Just Blaze's blaring orchestral-soul beat. Dre's music is part of the landscape that Kendrick grew up in but his actual appearance has a certain Truman Show feel to it.
But the true ending of good kid, m.A.A.d. city takes place at the end of the previous song, 'Real', which represents the spiritual victory that the album's story has thrashed its way towards. Finally grasping that 'none of that shit'-- money, power, respect, loving your block-- 'make me real,' Lamar embraces what does, as his parents put the album's central concerns to bed: 'Any nigga can kill a man,' his father admonishes. 'That don't make you a real nigga. Real is responsibility. Real is taking care of your motherfucking family.' And his mother: 'If I don't hear from you by tomorrow, I hope you come back and learn from your mistakes. Come back a man.. Tell your story to these black and brown kids in Compton.. When you do make it, give back with your words of encouragement. And that's the best way to give back to your city. And I love you, Kendrick.'
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The Plot of Kendrick Lamar's Good Kid M.A.A.D. City
Since the Grammys a lot of folks have been talking about Kendrick Lamar and Good Kid M.A.A.D. City. Most people know that the album is supposed to be a 'concept album' and contains a story, but at least to me, I've always found it difficult to coherently follow the story through the album. So I listened to each track, took notes on what happens in each song and attempted to piece the plot together. I’ll first list the original track listing, and then I’ll make a chronological list of plot events, with the source songs in parenthesis. It’s worth noting that outside of the plot elements, the songs themselves more abstractly deal with the major themes of the album (i.e. the struggles of growing up in Compton, gang culture, bad influence in that culture, lack of opportunity, the importance of God and family, etc.). I haven’t spent time walking through these because they are a bit more evident and also less necessary to follow the details chronologically.
Track listing:
Sherane a.k.a Master Splinter’s Daughter
Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe
But i can say for sure that if im able, i will make it much closer to emerald. Right now i'd like to make it so the player deals with the legendary pokemon in a double battle, instead of just the one in the caves. Click to expand.No promises, because im really relying on editing tools to do this, like ohana3ds and pk3ds. Bare in mind that this is DELTA Emerald, so there will still obviously some differences so its not just the same exact thing.Backseat Freestyle
Art of Peer Pressure
Money Trees
Poetic Justice
Good Kid
M.A.A.D. City
Swimming Pools
Sing About Me, Dying of Thirst
Real
Compton
PLOT:
Kendrick (17 at the time) meets Sherane at a party over the summer and continues to stay in touch with her (At the beginning of “Sherane” kendrick narrates this and “Swimming Pools” is a more first person view of the party they met at, up until the change in the song when the women’s voice says Sherane)
Kendrick borrows his mom’s van to go out and meet up with his friends (very last line of “Compton” the last song on the original version of the album
He and his friends cruise around LA during the day, hassling people and just being a nuisance (this is from the Art of Peer Pressure, which is really the beginning of the chronological first person narration in the album)
Later in the day, the boys stage a robbery and almost get caught (Art of Peer Pressure)
Digital microscope camera. After getting away from the cops, his drop Kendrick off at his momma’s fan to go meet up with Sherane. They make plans to meet up again later in the night. (End of Art of Peer Pressure & Sherane)
While on the other side of town, Kendrick gets jumped by some hoodies who aren’t happy that he is over there to see Sherane (End of Sherane)
Mom calls Kendrick to get her van back (End of Sherane)
Kendrick gets picked up by friends to drive around partying and rapping to a beats CD they have (Backseat Freestyle)
They continue to drive around getting messed up, Mom keeps calling to get her car back (Money Trees, Good Kid M.A.A.D. City)
Later in the night, they see the hoodies that jumped Kendrick and shoot at them (end of Swimming Pools)
During the exchange of fire, Kendrick’s friend Dave gets shot (Swimming Pools)
Dave's brother and Kendrick talk about the situation, as well as Dave's sister and Kendrick rapping about her in his real life EP Section 80 (Sing about me, dying of thirst)
The boys get guidance from a matronly figure, who sees blood on their shirts, on the need for religion (Sing about me, dying of thirst)
Dave's brother wants to go after the people who shot his brother (End of Sing about me, Dying of Thirst. This also ties back to the praying at the very beginning of the album)
Kendrick’s dad calls and leaves a voicemail, giving condolences for his friend being killed, but saying that they shouldn’t retaliate and that they should instead focus on family and god.
Kendrick’s mom calls again about the van, which still hasn’t been returned, and says she thinks it was a good idea that they went and prayed. She also says that Top Dog wants Kendrick to stop by the studio and reminds Kendrick to take his music seriously. (Real)
Mortal kombat vs dc cheats. Kendrick’s mom’s phone call is the end of the chronological plot line in the studio version of the album, with Compton being more of a CODA and then looping back to the beginning of the plot with the last line. (Compton)
In the deluxe version of the album, the themes continue basically into Kendrick’s redemption through successfully getting out of the toxic Compton environment and achieving his improbable success in music.