Latest / DISGRACELAND / Kendrick Lamar: The Streets, the Studio, and the Struggle for Mercy

Transcript

Kendrick Lamar: The Streets, the Studio, and the Struggle for Mercy · DISGRACELAND

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. This is a
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: story about a good kid, a story about a mad city,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: about Compton, about chaos, about drive bys, missed funerals, red hats,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: blue laces, blacked out in Paula's and the devil on
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: both shoulders.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: This is a story.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: About hip hop and about the rapper who didn't just
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: survive it. He saw through it. He told the truth
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: and somehow he lived. This is a story, though, about violence,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: and about trauma, and about the long, slow, brutal climb
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: toward mercy, mercy for yourself, for your city, the people
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: who nearly killed you, and the ones who still might.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: This is a story about Kendrick Lamar, a man who
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: makes great music. Unlike that music. I played a few
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: at the top of the show that wasn't great music.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: That was a preset loop from my mellotron called Northern
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Exposure MK.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: Two.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: I played you that loop because I can't afford the
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: rights to One More Night by Maroon five. And why
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: would I play you that specific slice of Oh Man,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: who gives a Shit Cheese?
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: Could I afford it?
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Because that was the number one song in America on
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: October twenty two.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Twenty twelve.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Then that was the day Kendrick Lamar released Good Kid,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Mad City and changed the rap game forever. On this
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: episode setups the streets near Trauma, more Mercy and Kendrick Lamar.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: I'm Jake Brennan, and this this disgraceland. There were just kids,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: really barely old enough to be able to live on
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: their own, to make their own mistakes, but wise enough
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: to know that change didn't happen overnight, that it took
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: time and energy to swing the pendulum away from the
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: darkness toward the light. Try as one might, it's impossible
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: to make that change with a positive mindset alone.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: You have to use.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Physics, each action having an equal and opposite reaction, you know,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: all the rest. You have to grab the pendulum and
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: pull that motherfucker yourself, fill it with your energy, your will,
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: and your strength. And so while Paula Oliver saw the
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Gangster Disciples as a means to an end there on
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: the South Side of Chicago, where she and Kenneth Duckworth
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: were trying to make.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: Ends meet, the pendulum weighed heavy.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: She didn't want him to be affiliated anymore, even if
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: that's all it was, an affiliation some adjacent relationship to
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: a notorious criminal organization. The streets, the drugs, the tough
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: guys like gangster Disciple leaders Larry Hoover and King David Well.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Paula wasn't about to knock the hustle, but it wasn't
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: a hustle she wanted a part of anymore. The Disciples
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: were a darkness that the young lovers had to get
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: away from if they wanted to survive, even if that
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: meant cutting.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: Ties, starting fresh from the bottom.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: But again, they were young, they had time to do it. Over,
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Paula gave Kenneth an ultimatum. He was leaving the Disciples
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: and they were leaving Chicago or else she was leaving him.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: So Paula, Oliver, and Kenneth Duckworth grabbed hold and swamp.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: Days later, they were boarding an Amtrak train, five hundred
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: dollars to their name, with all their belongings stuffed into
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: two large garbage backs. They rode the train all the
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: way to the West Coast to Los Angeles, more specifically
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: to the city of Compton, where Paula's sister helped them
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: settle into their new life. Three days later, in nineteen
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: eighty seven, they walked out of the Domingees hospital with
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: their newborn baby boy. They called him Kendrick, name for
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: the smoothest member of the Temptations, their favorite Eddie Kendricks.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: They buckled little Kendrick into the back seat, and during
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: the car ride back to their little three bedroom house
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: one hundred and thirty seventh Street, they christened his tiny
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: ears with the hip hop gospel of Big Daddy Kane.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: Hold up, this is how the Kendrick Lamar origin story
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: has been told that the first thing he ever heard,
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: after the sound of his own cries at his parents' voices,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: was Big Daddy Kane's Ain't No Half Step in East
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: Coast bounce, booming from the shitty speakers of the family car.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: But this was June nineteen.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: Eighty seven, and The Juice Crew Icon's debut album didn't
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: even hit stores until one whole year later, so it's
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: highly unlikely that Big Daddy Kane was the soundtrack to
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Kendrick's first day on Earth. But that's just a minor
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: detail in the grand scheme of things. Because, in addition
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: to heavy rotation staples like Marvin Gay and the Isisley Brothers,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: contemporary rap music was the soundtrack to the Duckworth Household
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: that Kendrick Lamar grew up in in the late eighties
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: and nineties. Kendrick would later remember hearing Biggie Tupac and
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: Jay Z playing during his parents' house parties, which were
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: frequent and which underscored Compton's deep sense of shared community.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: It was a community that propped up their own, like
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: the drug dealer turned rapper Ecee, whose debut single Boys
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: in the Hood could be found at the Compton Fashion Center,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: better known as the Swap Meet, local flea market that
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: sold the easies hot wax when more traditional outlets refused
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: to touch it. It was a community of like minded families,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: all of them trying to make sense of their own
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: heavy pendulums. The uncles slinging drugs, the friends tossing up
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: gang signs for Paula and Kenneth. It was like Chicago
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: all over again, only.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: This time they weren't going to run from it. This
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: time they didn't want to run from it. This was
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: their home.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: This was Kendrick's home now too, and it was the
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: home that they taught Kendrick through their actions and through
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: their words and through their deeds to honor, values and
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: morals above all else, above the narrative that there was
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: no free will, that the pistol was the only logical
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: choice over positivity in times of real struggle, and the
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: struggle was right here Incompton, rolling down Crenshaw, the US
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: Marines going slow as shit in their camouflage hom VI's
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: while the city burned, and LA's biggest gang, the LAPD
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: that thug life out in the open, Or at least
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: that's what White America saw when they sat down in
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: their faux wooden panel dens and living rooms and turned
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: on their TV sets. The things that were happening right
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: in your neighborhood in front of you, shaping the person
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: you were going to become. That was so personal it
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: was almost impossible to put into words. Nineteen ninety two,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: five year old Kendrick Lamar pedaled his bike up the street,
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: turning around at the top of the block and coming
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: back down again, and the bike's plastic training wheels rattled
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: behind him.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: Up against an apartment building.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: One of his uncle's friends, one of his uncle's associates,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: the affiliated kind, was looking to unload some dope. A
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: car around at the corner and began to approach real slow, methodical,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: and then it stopped in front of the apartments. The
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: passenger side window came down, and Kendrick stopped his bike
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: to watch the scene play out. The affiliated associate one
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: with the drugs. He looked around to make sure the
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: coast was clear, and then he began to walk towards
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: the car, ready for that deal to go down, make
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: that money.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: And then.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: Kendrick jumped at the sound of the shotgun blast, hopping
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: back onto his bike seat and flying back to his
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: house as the family friend lay on the ground, his
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: chest blown open and the baggy still gripped tight in
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: his dead hand. Fast forward three years later, nineteen ninety five,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: Kendrick was eight. He was walking home from McNair Elementary,
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: passing through the parking lot of the legendary TAM's Burger Joint.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: His stomach started to rumble as he caught a whiff
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: the burgers sizzling on a grill, and a car pulled
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: up to the drive through. Its brake lights came on
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: as the driver stopped to place his order. Right then,
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: another man came tearing around the block on foot, rushing
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: past me on Kendrick as he trudged through the lot
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: with his backpack slung.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: Over one shoe.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: That's when Kendrick saw the flash of steel in the
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: man's hand. He froze, watching as a man ran right
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: up to the car and the drive through, raised his gun,
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: aimed it through the car window, and pulled the trigger.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: This was the realness of Compton. It was so real that,
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: after witnessing this kind of violence up close and personal
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: a few times, Kendrick, just a little kid eight years old,
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: plainly accepted it as.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: Part of his life.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: These weren't random acts, These were to be expected. It
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: was the unexpected aspects of Compton life that made all
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: the difference, Like the day Kendrick's father threw him up
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: on his shoulders and walked them briskly down to the
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: Compton's Swap Meat, not to buy an easy e record,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: but to watch history being made.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: There.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: Surrounding the former Sears Building, an unassuming cultural landmark, a
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: crowd had gathered and Kendrick could see lights, he saw cameras,
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: and then he saw why Tupac Shakurra walked by in
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: his white tank top and black fedora, flanked by Compton's
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: own doctor Dre wearing a button down black shirt, both
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: looking fly as fuck in every bit the cultural icons
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: that they were. In this moment, Kendrick squinted from where
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: he was perched high up on his dad's back, looking
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: at Dre and Poc.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: Both ascended, both separated.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: From the bullshit of the streets, at least for now,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: and as they shot the music video for Tupac's California Love.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: Kendrick didn't know it.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: At the time, but at that moment, at just eight
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: years old, he was grabbing the pendulum in his mind
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: and pulling it to the opposite direction with all of
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: his might. The KFC off Rosecrans was like a beacon
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: in the night, a greasy oasis frequented by the hungary
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: and the stone, but also by those looking to escape
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: the shadows of Compton for a beat. For Anthony Tiffith,
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: the fast food joint was an easy mark. And this
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: is not Anthony Tiffith's the music mobile that I'm talking about,
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: not yet, at least at this moment. He's already known
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: on the streets as Top Dog. But this was years
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: before we founded Top Dog Entertainment, the mega successful hip
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: hop in our be label. This was the mid nineties,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: and so Anthony was still just another known neighborhood threat
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: hoodie up glock tucked, nothing to lose, He pulled his
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: car to the side of the street and put it
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: in park, the big red KFC beaming down from on
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: high and reflecting off the car's windshield.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: He stepped out and walked to the joints front door
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: with purpose.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: Purpose It went way beyond scoring a bucket of original recipe.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: Anthony was a known quantity, nearing thirty years old, street certified,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: handled his business with a certain level of finality, and
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: at this particular KFC, he was best known as the
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: guy who liked to walk in, take no shit, and
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: then take money from the register by force if necessary.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: He knew this to be true as he walked inside
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: now and the dude working the register instantly clocked the
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: menace better known as top Dog. But this particular employee
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: didn't seem to be phased by Anthony's presence.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: The guy didn't even flinch.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: He just went through the motions, went through this little
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: song and dance in which Anthony ordered some.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: Food, this scripted overture to the.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Reason why he was really there, and then before Anthony
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: could reach for his piece and tell the poor bastard
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: pull him down five bucks an hour to hand over
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: the cash and to till The employee looked Anthony in
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: the eye and said.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: You want some extra biscuits with that? They're on the house. Man.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: Anthony paused. He wasn't expecting this at all. He clocked
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: the dude's tone, his lack of fear. It wasn't a softness,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: it was something else, something stronger. Anthony couldn't pinpoint it
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: at the time, but it completely disarmed him.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: He took his food, took.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: The extra biscuits too, the ones that were on the house,
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: and turned around and walked out. No stick up, no confrontation,
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: just this strange quiet in his chest and a feeling
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: that there was a.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: Bend in the road up ahead.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: Anthony kept this particular story close to the vest, but
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: some years later news of his personal redemption is complete.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: One eighty.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: From street hustler to hip hop executive was the kind
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: of thing that teenage Kendrick Lamar was watching very closely.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: There were very few ways to dodge.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: Some of life's inevitabilities, but Anthony had cracked one of them.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: Music was salvation poetry rhyming. For Kendrick, that was salvation,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: and that was an escape hatch, just like the one
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: he glimpsed as a kid on his father's shoulders down
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: at the Swap Meat. And so when the rest of
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: his crew ducked down an alley in the neighborhood, Kendrick
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: ducked into a room with a pen and paper, or
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: into a studio with.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: A microphone in his hand.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: But leaning into his music didn't immediately lift Kendrick or
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: k Dot as he was now being called out of
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: the fray, and he was squarely in the fray as
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: a teenager in Compton. Even if you weren't affiliated as
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: Kendrick wasn't, even if you didn't identify as a blood
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: or a crip, you still found yourself caught up in
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: it all.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: It was impossible not to be.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: You were stopped for no reason by the lapd who
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: were all too ready to reach for their guns when
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: they pulled you and your friend Moose over in that
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: dope green Camaro, and Moose took a little too long
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: for their liking to locate his driver's license. You watched
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: as your friends got jumped, and as your friends got
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: shot you watched people die in the street and in
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: the hospital. You cradled your best friend's brother's head in
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: your arms. This kid that everyone called a delinquent, the
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: kind of kid that all those talking heads on the
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: idiot box would say had it coming. But in your eyes,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: he was a reflection of you. And now here he
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: was bleeding out from a gunshot wound, drawing his final breath,
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: but doing so with the faith and the knowledge that
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: you were going to avoid such a fate, that you
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: were destined for something else, that your first mixed kate
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: was on the horizon. And so as this kid died
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: in your arms, he looked at you and he said
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: that if he didn't make it, tell his story sing
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: about him, some would call that a burden, but shit, man,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: you took it as an honor. Still that's when that
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: survivor's guilt really started to sink in. Why in the
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: hell were you still here? So many of the people
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: you came up with were either locked up or six
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: feet under. But the moment of your greatest crisis was
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: also the moment you decided to do something about it
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: all And the way that only you knew how you
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: were above all else a student, an observer, an absorber,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: And so you took it all in the lifestyle, the violence,
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Compton realness, and he wrote it all down, not to
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: glorify it, but to preserve it and to survive it.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: And he studied how the best of the best prepared
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: and delivered their own shit, not just Dre and Tupac
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: and J on your parents' stereo, but NAS and M
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: and M and DMX. You dissected their flows like you
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: were performing surgery on one of those fatally wounded friends
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: you could never save for Kendrick. The game, the rhyme game,
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: the spitting versus game, the mixtape game.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: It was a hustle, a grind, and it.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: Was loaded with this constant fear of being ignored, a
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: failing of recognizing in the most sobering way that you
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: were creating music in a city where talent alone didn't
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: guarantee success or survival. In two thousand and three, at
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: just sixteen years old, Kadot released his first mixtape, which
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: made the rounds throughout Compton. Unsurprisingly, it wound up in
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: the hands of Anthony Tiffis, the one time stickup man
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: who had just graduated on the streets and launched Top
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: Dog Entertainment in the Top Dog Studio, which they affectionately referred.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: To as the House of Pain.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: Anthony laid down the gauntlet by playing increasingly difficult beats
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: and asking Kendrick to get on the mic and flow.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: He changed the beats up on the fly, and he
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: suddenly split into double time.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: Anything to trip the kid up. Kendrick went hard.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: He met each challenge like a season pro, well beyond
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: his years. Top Dog gave Kendrick studio access, and that
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: gave him structure. The streets didn't go anywhere. They were
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: still there, still calling out, but Kendrick had a different
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: kind of crew now, guys like Jay Rock and Absol
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: and Schoolboy Q the foundation of the hip hop collective
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: that would be known as Black Hippie, and in Anthony Tiffeth,
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: Kendrick had found a mentor, a guy who could pass
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: down his own mistakes in his own lessons. Early on
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: in their professional relationship, Anthony sat Kendrick down and said
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: he wanted to tell.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: Him a story.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: It was a true story, but one that he rarely
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: told anyone. It was about this one night years ago
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: when Anthony went into a KFC planning to rob the
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: place and shoot anyone stupid.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: Enough to get in his way.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: Instead, he was stymied by an unexpected act of human kindness.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: It sounded GOOFEO as fuck, but again he reiterated that
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: it was true. Kendrick paused, Wait, He asked, what KFC
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: are you talking about? Anthony shrugged the one over on
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: rosecrans real quiet. Motherfucker behind the counter gave me extra
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: biscuits on the house, almost like he knew something may
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: have saved his life that day, Sure as fuck saved mine.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: Kendrick leaned back in his chair. Time came to a
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: slow crawl. That was my pops, Kenneth.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: They call him Ducky. He used to work at that joint.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: For a moment, Kendrick and Anthony were silent, each thinking
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: the same thing that they were both at these inflection
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: points in their lives because of Kenneth Duckworth, a man
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: of morals, of values, a man who acted the way
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: other men wanted to act, men who aspired to true greatness.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: And if it wasn't for Ducky, not only would Kendrick
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: and Anthony not be the men they were, but the.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: Entire course of hip hop would have been altered.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: Sometimes fate doesn't need a pendulum, sometimes just needs.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: A couple of extra biscuits on the house. We'll be
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: right back after this. We're we're, we're, she said.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: Her name was Charene, long hair, gold hoop, earrings, looked
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: good and low rise jeans, and seventeen year old Kendrick
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: took one look and felt like he'd been smacked in
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: the face.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: He went loopy.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: Suddenly she was the only thing at this house party
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: that mattered. They talked and he got her number, but
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: she played hard to get. Days went by and Kendrick
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: tried to get an address. They texted back and forth, flirting,
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: Kendrick trying to play it cool but knowing deep down
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: that she knew she was driving them wild. Finally, she
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: told him where she lived and said he should come through.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: He borrowed the Dodge Caravan from his mom and drove
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: it down Central, passed tams Burger's, passed the liquor store
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: with a sign that was always busted through a neighborhood
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: that he knew wasn't neutral. None of this mattered, and
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: his current state of mind at this moment, there was
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: only Charine and he pulled up on the side of
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: the street across from the apartment complex where she said
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: she lived, and he got out of the minivan and
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: he could see her.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: Out front waving at him.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: His heart raised, his blood was pumping. He looked both
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: ways and then jogged through the street to the other side,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: coming up on the sidewalk, getting closer, now already smelling
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: her perfume, her hair, and then right there, coming up
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: fast on his right out of nowhere, two dudes, their
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: hoods up, hands and pockets. They didn't ask who he was,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: didn't ask who he was there to see, and they
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: were just dead set on getting their hands on him.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: Kendrick averted his gaze from Charine, where she was standing
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: just a few hundred feet away. He wasn't about to
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: stick around and find out what happened when these two
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: dudes got any closer, so he.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: Spun around and ran.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: His feet pounded the cracks in the pavement as he
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: fled back across the street. A car nearly missing him,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: laying on the horn, and he tripped and almost at
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: the ground, but regained his balance and made it back
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: to the caravan, dove inside and peeled out the tires screaming,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: his heart jackhammering inside his chest.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: And there were no punches, no shots. He knew a
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: setup when he saw.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: One, and he knew when he was being tested, because
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: Compton tested you constantly, made you choose between instinct and
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: ego survival in pride.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: Kendrick passed the test that day, but he never forgot it.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: In fact, he wrote it down.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: This story may have been fictionalized to an extent, but
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: like all of Kendrick Lamurra's stories, it's based in truth,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: and it served as the inspiration for the opening track
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: on his twenty twelve breakthrough album, Good Kid, Mad City
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: is a coming of age story, a document of Kendrick's
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: teenage days navigating Compton's streets and crews, and about how
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: time and again he made the choice to observe instead
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: of act, to write instead of retaliate. And this is
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: not softness, in fact, it's the opposite. Just like his
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: father Ducky at that KFC, to be able to fight
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: the urge to as Kendrick himself once put, it make
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: the next family hurt, because they hurt your family. But
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: this is the thing about Kendrick, and it's what everyone
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: saw on him. Long before Good Kid, Mad City was
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: universally embraced by critics fans in the hip hop world
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: at large, including Compton's own resident taste maker, doctor Dre.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: Dre saw how Kendrick wasn't a showman, he wasn't flashy,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: but he had that hunger that control the way that
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: he could tell a story like he was building an
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: entire scene and walking you through it, transgression by transgression,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: body by body, beat by beat. Most remarkably, though, he
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: did this by not following a hip hop blueprint. He
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: flipped the script that had been written by all those
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: who came before him, from Dre, Snoop and Tupac to
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: Biggie J and Eminem. Instead of defining himself with braggadoccio
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: and persona, Kendrick turned inward, deconstructing the streets where he remained,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: if not a participant in all things, then certainly a witness.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: The next year, in twenty thirteen, he bore witness to
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: the entire hip hop game, which, in his eyes, needed
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: a swift kick in the ass. He jumped on Big
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: Sean's track control for a three minute verse of Biblical
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: fire and Brimstone, simultaneously putting respect on and calling out
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: the names of other rappers, from j Cole and Asat
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: Rocky to Mac Miller, Tyler, the Creator and Drake. Kendrick
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: wanted the bar raised, and he dared everyone and anyone
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: to meet him there. The verse sent to seismic shock
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: through hip hop. It did what Kendrick had intended to do,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: to shock, but to shock in a positive way, to
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: shock other mcs out of a slumber and out of complacency.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: Kendrick topped himself a few years later in twenty fifteen
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: with his album to Pimp a Butterfly, which boasted a
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: completely different production style than its predecessor. It was heavily
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: influenced by the music of Miles Davis in Parliament Funkadelic.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: It took the small scale of Good Kid, Mad City
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: and transposed it onto a national scale, delivering a state
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: of the Union for Post Trayvon post ferguson Black America.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: In two years after that, Kendrick's album Damn, which, in
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: addition to being his second number one album in a row,
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: earned him the Pulitzer Prize for Music. No Easy feat
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: seeing that in the history of the Pulitzer Prize, no
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: artists outside the classical or jazz genres have ever won it.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: As of this recording still holds that distinction. By the
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: dawn of the twenty twenties, Kendrick had established his domination
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: over the charts, the airwaves, and the intelligentsia alike, and
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: he landed in an illustrious prize, one that had always
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: seen far beyond.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: Hip hop's league.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: But despite all this resounding acclaim and unprecedented achievement, it
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: was room for misinterpretation, like those who were still on
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: this stupid trip, that hip hop was destructive, not constructive,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: that it was tearing communities apart rather than bringing them together.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking in part of the samples of news anchors
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: you hear at the beginning of Dan but I digress.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: And then Kendrick saw an opportunity to make himself perfectly clear.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: He saw it in the public persona of one of
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: the rappers he targeted in his control verse, Drake. But
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: Drake wasn't just another rapper. He was the opposite of
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: Kendrick in almost every way. Drake was a brand. He
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: was a performer. He was Toronto's slickness to Kendrick's Compton grit.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: He was also the.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: Biggest star on the planet, and Drake Kendrick saw a
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: target and so Kendrick the observer chose not to stand
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: by and observe anymore. Kendrick got Drake in his sights,
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: aimed and fired, all right, so.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: We had Drake Horsus meet Mill. A lot of people
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: were sweating that.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: To me, we kind of know the outcome of that.
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: But if Drake and Kendrick Lamargan in.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: A rap battle, who do you think would win?
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: Gotta go with I'm just saying I think Drake is
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: UH an outstanding entertainer, but Kendrick his lyrics, his last
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: album was outstanding, best, the best album I think last year.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: You gotta go.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: There's no better sign of weakness than to actually show
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: your opponent that they've rattled you, and Kendrick knew that
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: he had Drake good and rattled.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: It only took two weeks for.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: The Canadian rapper to respond to President Barack Obama's twenty
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: sixteen take on social media that Kendrick would trout him
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: in a rap battle. Drake's comeback, Yo, Barry, you got
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: it wrong.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: He was bulletproof. Yeah right. Tell that to your ego.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: Tell that to.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: Your pride, which just took one to the chest, and wait,
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: what's up with that? He's in words like bulletproof? Had
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: Drake actually seen a bullet before?
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: For real?
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: Kendrick smelled blood in the water, bad blood that had
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: gotten worse over the years. And once upon a time
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: there was no beef. Actually, that's not it exactly. There's
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: always beef. It's baked into hip hop's DNA. But once
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: upon a time Drake was guessing.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: On you Kendrick's tracks.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: And that was before Control, before the Cipher, at the
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: BET hip Hop Awards, where Kendrick dropped that line about
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: tucking a sensitive rapper back into his pajamas, before things
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: got really bad between Kendrick and Drake, they were all
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: these subliminal hints they both started taking out on each other,
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: stealth verses that, well, if you knew, you knew. Kendrick
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: liked to think that he had better evasive maneuvers, better
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: counter attacks when those hits came at him, and those
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: hits didn't always arrive as expected. They were smuggled inside
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: trojan horses, and there were wolves dressed.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: In sheep's clothing and all that.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: On Drake's twenty twenty three track First Person Shooter J
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: Cole wrapped it keyed Drake and Kendrick were.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: A big three in hip hop.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: Kendrick course corrected in early twenty twenty four in a
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: verse on Future and Metro Boomin's like that motherfucked the
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: big three, It's just big Me. It didn't matter if
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: Kendrick believed it. It was good for the dialogue, good
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: for hip hop. All got under Drake's skin. Kendrick didn't
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: run marathons, but he can only assume that the high
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: he got from fucking up Drake with his words was
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: exactly what those link he asked dudes felt when they
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: crossed the finish line.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: But Kendrick wasn't out the finish line, not yet.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: In April twenty twenty four, Drake came out him responding
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: to the Future Verse with the tracks Push Ups and
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: Taylor Made Freestyle. Kendrick hit back on April thirtieth with Euphoria,
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: which quickly racked up over nine million streams on Spotify,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: and then with six sixteen in La on May third,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: and yes, the dates are important, just bear with me here.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: The flurry of activity was part of it to get
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: Drake to react quickly, to overheat and to overwhelm. Kendrick
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: made sure he was overly prepared. He had producers like
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: the Alchemist and Mustard working on beats in the background.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: He didn't stop writing, plotting, planning, and so when later
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: that same day, May third, when Drake responded to six
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: sixteen in LA with the track Family Matters, Kendrick was ready.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: And by the time Family Matters hit, the days of
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: the subliminal discs were long gone. The gloves were off,
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: tossed in the trash bin, and rotting in the landfill.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: On Family Matters, Drake accused Kendrick of domestic abuse and
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: claimed that his son wasn't even his son.
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: Kendrick wasn't rattled. Kendrick didn't get rattled.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: Kendrick got inspired, and as I said earlier, Kendrick also
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: got prepared, so prepared, in fact, that twenty minutes later
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: Kendrick dropped Meet the Grams, his response track, which accused
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Drake of being a sexual predator.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: But he wasn't done.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: The very next day, May fourth, Kendrick released Not Like Us.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: The track was dripping in that La G funk bounce,
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: and it was catchy, hooky and at its core, it
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: was a cold, calculated and yes funny, master stroke of
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: character assassination. Like Us took everything that Drake built, the myth,
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: the image, the sheen.
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: And burned it down, and it delivered on the promise
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: of the leader of the free world from eight years earlier.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: You gotta go with Kendrick. The real point of Not
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: Like Us, however, was to separate the Drakes of the
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: world from the Kenneth Duckworths, those men of values and morals,
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: men whom Kendrick held in high.
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: Regard and aspired to be like.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: And in doing so, Kendrick made it clear this was
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: his culture, his people, his city. If you go ahead
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: and let some outsider or some insider turned outsider, a
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: Charlottan like Drake fuck with all that, grab onto your
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: pendulum and swing, well, that would be a disgrace.
• 32:47
  Speaker 4: I'm Jake Brennan, and this this Disgraceland.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: All right, hope you dug this episode.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: Apple podcast listeners, make sure you got auto downloads turned
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: on so you never miss a drop from disgracelam this
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: week's question, what's the greatest act of mercy in music history?
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: Okay? Was it?
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: Kendrick Lamar choosing peace rather than life on the streets.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: Was it Johnny cash at fulsom Was it Brian Wilson
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: forgiving his father? Or was it something smaller, something personal?
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: Text me, leave me a voicemail six one seven nine
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: oh six sixty six three eight. You'll hear your answers
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: on the after party. It's up next to the feed.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: And if that's not enough, you want the real deep cuts,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: the dirt we don't put.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: Into the main feed.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: That Become a member at disgracelampod dot com slash membership
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: get all kinds of free perks, including a bunch more
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: content because some stories are.
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: Just too raw for the wide release.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: All right, you know what we do here is myth work.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: We uncovered the truth, confront the story, reclaimed the music.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: Kendrick Lamar did that and so do you. Every time
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: you listen.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: Thank you. Discos Here comes some credits.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: Disgracelam was created by Yours Truly and is produced in
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: found on the show notes page at disgracelampod dot com.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: If you're listening as a Disgraceland All Access member, Thank
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it, and
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: if not, you can become a member right now by
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: going to disgracelampod dot com slash membership, rate and review
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: the show, and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: Facebook at disgracelampod and on YouTube at YouTube dot com
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: slash at disgracelampod, Rock a rolla, He's a Man.