himself to Tupac Shakur. But Tupac
wasn't from Los Angeles and didn't
know his father growing up. By the
time Tupac was 23, he had already
been shot multiple times and begun
serving a prison sentence. Lamar, on
the other hand, was born and raised
in Compton. His parents are still
married. He's 23, and so far he has
dodged the almost inescapable
bullets that dart through what he
calls his "mad city." Enjoying this
Kendrick Lamar Biography? Keep
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Even so, Lamar seems to share
Tupac's soul; better still, he seems
an evolution of it. The line between
"Pac the Playboy" and "Tupac the
Tortured Poet" was drawn with an
indelible marker, but the sides of
Lamar's personality bleed into one
another. The chorus of "P&P" (an ode
to "Pussy and Patron" punctuated by
a girl pouting, "Hey, what's up,
daddy"), for example, is cookie-
cutter braggadocio. Its first verse,
however, stacks a precarious tower
of thoughts almost tipped over into
rage by an incident at a gas station
— and leaves him searching through
his phone for a comfort he admits is
temporary.
Candid vulnerability and a voice that
sounds as though he's just inhaled
great mouthfuls of smoke (even
though he abstains from weed) are
why Lamar is on everybody's lips.
Last November, Dr. Dre (who was led
to Lamar by Eminem's manager) said
out of the blue on Power 106′s
popular morning show Big Boy's
Neighborhood that he wanted to
work with the rapper.
By now, Lamar has not only worked
with Snoop Dogg and Dre, he was
snapped, paparazzi-style, sitting
courtside at a Lakers game with the
legendary producer. His buzz has
ratcheted to such a roar that he's
considered a shoo-in for XXL
magazine's "Freshman 2011″ cover.
But he doesn't want to hear that he's
the next in line to wear hip-hop's
crown. No wonder, considering that
honor can be as sturdy as the ones
you can get from a box at Burger
King. Lamar says he still wants to be
making albums when he's 45.
"The hardest thing for me to do is to
get you to know me within 16 bars,"
the rapper says on a track from last
fall's O(verly) D(edicated), "Average
Joe," in which he relates a story of
being shot at by a gang, even though
he's not affiliated. The problem isn't
that Kendrick Lamar can't reveal
himself. It's that there's too much he
wants to reveal. His thoughts tumble
furiously; words swarm so frantically
that in one song he eventually
chokes on them.
"Goin' crazy in your head is wanting
to say so much, but you can't. I think
it comes from my struggling
relationship with God — my whole
life, I go to sleep every night and just
think about God," he says, faltering
for a moment. "Is that a trip? That's
me trying to find myself in a
relationship with Him. Righteous,
but at the same time being so
[caught up] in the vanities of the
world … it messes me up inside."
Lamar's parents moved from Chicago
to Compton in 1984 with all of $500 in
their pockets. "My mom's one of 13
siblings, and they all got six kids, and
till I was 13 everybody was in
Compton," he says. "I'm 6 years old,
seein' my uncles playing with
shotguns, sellin' dope in front of the
apartment. My moms and pops never
said nothing, 'cause they were
young and living wild, too. I got
about 15 stories like 'Average Joe.' "
In school, Lamar was a quiet,
observant kid who made good
grades. "This is always in my head:
There was a math question that I
knew the answer to, but I was so
scared to say it. Then this little chick
said the answer and it was the right
answer, my answer. That bothers me
still to this day, bein' scared of
failure."
Maybe the memory of that missed
opportunity is what landed 16-year-
old Lamar in front of the "dude to get
your music to" in Compton,
DudeDawg, chief financial officer of
TopDawg Entertainment. "He threw
me in the booth. I freestyled for, like,
an hour. He said I got raw talent."
He's been with the company, along
with one of last year's XXL Freshmen,
Jay Rock, ever since.
When Kendrick Lamar was growing
up, his father used to cheat while
playing basketball with him. A few
days ago, standing in the middle of a
court in a park not far from a sign
welcoming you to Compton, Lamar
looked up at a hoop and shrugged.
"He wanted me to know that was
what was gonna happen in life."
Lamar ends sentences with smiles.
He's friendly and funny, offering to
share the lunch he eventually lets go
cold and teasing that he wants to
switch interview roles. Yet there are
a few instances when he retreats,
suddenly looking harder, older.
At the park, he's laughing as he
bounces onto the basketball court.
He calls a friend who lives a couple of
houses down to bring over a ball.
But shortly thereafter, sitting on the
back of a bench, he stares up at a rare
overcast sky. "I wish it was like this
every day. Not raining, 'cause I hate
the rain, but cloudy like this," he
says. The slight gloom seems to have
seeped into his mood; the shift is
abrupt and barely perceptible, but
definite.
When Tupac pleaded, "Peace," he
sounded like he'd already lost hope.
Lamar struggles, too. But when he
interjects that same refrain between
strings of gang names in "Compton
State of Mind," he first sounds
insistent, then imperative.
These Compton streets was built not
to win …
Standing just beyond the three-
point line, Kendrick Lamar shoots the
ball.
It arcs, then slips soundlessly
through the hoop.
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