good kid, m.A.A.d city (a glimpse into Compton)

“Adolescents and young adults listen to quantitatively more music than previous generations,” (Chesley, 2011, pg.2) So music is a plausible and important outlet of influence amongst my generation, and also an important outlet to learn about what goes on by offering outsiders an in depth view into the lives of minority families.  Rap music “encourages a more fine-grained and nuanced understanding of Black males and their ideas about the family.”(Oware, 2011 pg.328) Recently, as I was listening to Kendrick Lamar’s “good kid, m.A.A.d city,” I realized that the album was connected to the minority family more closely than I had previously thought. Set in Compton, and rapping about alcoholism, poverty, violence, and desperately trying to escape the ghetto, Lamar vividly paints the struggles of growing up in a minority family, and the fear of never being able to escape alive.

I think an important thing to point out is that Lamar rarely mentions his Father, which to me translates to common minority family issue of an absent father. He isn’t concerned with school, and he is living in poverty. He longs to be one of the few black boys to “fly” out of Compton, but he must dodge bullets both real and metaphorical as he works through violence, alcoholism, and gangs.

The Art of Peer Pressure

“I never was a gangbanger, I mean I was never stranger to the folk neither

  I really doubt it

  Rush a n**** quick and then we laugh about it

  That’s ironic ‘cause I’ve never been violent, until I’m with the homies”

Surrounded by gang members and seeing his friends fall into trouble, gangs are an everyday part of Kendrick’s life. He tells us that although he isn’t in a gang, nor is he violent, when he was with his friends he would participate in random acts of violence. The peer pressure influence of his friends forced him into being a person that he isn’t, which is a prime example of a good kid falling down a bad path because of his friends.

This reminded me of my childhood friend “Dontrelle”, we played baseball together for years, but he fell in with the wrong crowd and ended up in a juvenile detention center. He was a good kid, but his older cousins were connected to a gang and they exerted a great influence on him. It began with trying drugs and drinking with his cousins, and escalated quickly to robberies and violence. He was a gifted athlete, but his life was ruined by a gang’s influence.

Swimming Pools (Drank)

“Now I done grew up round some people living their lives in bottles

  Granddaddy had the golden flask

  Backstroke everyday in Chicago

  Some people like the way it feels; some people wanna kill their sorrows

  Some people want to fit in with the popular that was my problem”

Alcoholism has run in Kendrick’s family, and he has grown up surrounded by people drowning in their alcohol addictions. He states that some people drink because they like it, or because they are sad, but in his case he drank just because he wanted to be “cool.” Alcohol is a substance that can destroy a family, like a swimming pool, it is something that can be fun, but it is also something that you can drown in.

Black Boy Fly

“I used to be jealous of Arron Afflalo, he was the one to follow”

Kendrick is talking about basketball player Arron Afflalo as one of the lucky ones who used athletic ability to escape Compton, which relates to the harsh stereotype that the only way for some of these kids to make it out of the ghetto is through sports or music. He talks about how motivated Afflalo was by constantly shooting hoops and studying, and how in contrast Kendrick and his friends were focused on listening to music and drinking.

“I used to be jealous of Jayceon Taylor when I was young, Taylor made a career out of music from writing songs.”

      Jayceon Taylor aka “The Game” is a Compton rapper that Kendrick looked up to as a kid. Using him as an example furthers the classic urban stereotype that music or sports are the only way out of the hood. Lamar uses the term “Black boy fly” as a metaphor for making it out of Compton.

“I wasn’t jealous cause of the talents they got, I was terrified they’ll be the last black boys to fly out of Compton.”

In the end, Lamar isn’t jealous of those who made it out; instead he is scared that they will be the only ones who do. 

      Lamar offered listeners a beautiful glimpse into the harsh vicissitudes of growing up as a minority in the ghetto, and the cruel realities that it entails such as alcoholism, gangs, and violence, and the slim chance that these kids have to "fly"...

-Ryan Haas

Questions

Reflect on the stereotype that as a minority, music and sports are the only ways to escape the ghetto.

Obviously Kendrick managed to “fly” out of Compton, how do you think he feels about those who didn’t make it out?

Do you know any minorities that are living lives similar to the story told on the album?

Works Cited

Chesley, P. (2011). You Know What It Is: Learning Words through Listening to Hip-Hop. Plos ONE, 6(12), 1-10. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0028248

Oware, M. (2011). Decent Daddy, Imperfect Daddy: Black Male Rap Artists' Views of Fatherhood and the Family. Journal Of African American Studies, 15(3), 327-351. doi:10.1007/s12111-010-9155-9

Lamar, Kendrick. (2012). The Art of Peer Pressure (Recorded by Kendrick Lamar). On good kid, m.A.A.d city (Digital) Los Angeles: Interscope. (October 22^nd, 2012)

Lamar, Kendrick. (2012). Swimming Pools (Drank) (Recorded by Kendrick Lamar). On good kid, m.A.A.d city (Digital) Los Angeles: Interscope. (October 22^nd, 2012)

Lamar, Kendrick. (2012). Black Boy Fly (Recorded by Kendrick Lamar). On good kid, m.A.A.d city (Digital) Los Angeles: Interscope. (October 22^nd, 2012)