The Sage from Compton

by

Danny Schwartz

Season Categories Published
MP00 Music

Oct 25, 2012


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In July 2011, Kendrick Lamar’s debut album Section.80 fell from the sky, released independent of a label, exclusively online. It peaked at 13 on the Billboard Top Rap Albums, good enough for the national hip-hop consciousness to let onto its outskirts 24-year old Kendrick, the 5’6” dude from Compton who didn’t really smell like Compton, who could contort his voice to make any two words rhyme, gifted with dexterous flow and lyrical wit. Section.80 was about what it meant to be a Reagan baby, and in spite of this heaviness it maintained an air of freshness.  Kendrick emerged, albeit quietly, as a rapper who could straddle the line between style and substance, who could OWN that line, who could wax semi- intellectual and give his songs artistic meaning without sacrificing hip hop’s seductive swaggadiocio. A couple days ago, he released good kid, m.A.A.d. city on Dr. Dre’s label Aftermath, and so it is likely to catapult thoughtful Kendrick into the mainstream.

GKMC has a pretty clear central conflict: Kendrick v. Compton. It is the story of Kendrick’s late adolescence, old enough to go forth with his friends to explore and experience the world of drugs and gangs and violence in which they lived. The cover of GKMC features a picture of baby Kendrick being held by his uncle, whose fingers are curled to form an unmistakable C, for Crip. Kendrick was born a child of Compton, a place that agitates the transition from youth to adulthood, and he is both seduced by and wary of the gangbanger lifestyle. At one point he asks, “But what am I supposed to do, when the topic is red or blue?”

It’s safe to say that the dominant trait of most rappers is their bravado, and that’s what makes Kendrick Lamar different: he exists internally. He stays within himself, perhaps in part from some instinct of self-preservation, in part from some inherent quality of his personality. GKMC comes alive in Kendrick’s imagination; he reaches back to his memories like a kind of dance, shifting toward and away and around them in a way that gives you a direct feed into his mind.

The album includes 15 songs, but is effectively 11 with 4 bonus songs. Almost all of the core 11 songs are characterized by interludes that act as segues between songs, so that they are less like songs and more like ‘scenes’. The interludes can be divided into 2 types – voicemails from his parents, or dialogue from his friends – this way, you know he’s out in the world, kickin it.

The interludes irritated me when I first listened through GKMC, because they are lumped onto the end of each song rather than allocated to their own track, thus making it harder to not skip over them. But eventually realized that the interludes deepen the world Kendrick creates. They give personality and ‘humanness’ to the opposing forces of Kendrick’s parents and his friends, because you hear their actual voices. This conflict plays out externally in the interludes, but also internally, in Kendrick’s lyrics, and in the space where these two planes intersect. Sometimes the tug of war between his parents and his friends occurs within a single song, sometimes indirectly from one song to another. It is to Kendrick Lamar’s great credit that GKMC is stronger when looked at as a single piece of work than as a series of individual tracks.

The tension that drives the album is established in the opening song ‘Sherane’, in which Kendrick tells the tale of his first girlfriend; in the final verse, he drives to her house, only to be confronted by two shadowy men en route to her door — the moment his phone rings. The song cuts to an interlude, a voicemail from his mom asking for her van back. Kendrick heightens the drama by squaring off the two opposing forces in a single place in time. In contrast, the interlude ending the 2nd track puts the 3rd and 4th tracks in context. His friend yells, “K-Dot [his nickname], we got a pack of blacks and a beat CD, get your freestyles ready.” Presumably, they are about to kick it.

The next song, ‘Backstreet Freestyle’, features the sort of mindless stuff that comes off the top of a 17-year old’s dome: “Damn I got bitches, damn I got bitches, daaamn I got bitches, wifey girlfriend and mistress.” This proceeds naturally to the next song, ‘The Art of Peer Pressure’ – Kendrick’s storytelling at its finest. Kendrick’s intro is something of his own quasi-interlude. He sings, “really I’m a sober soul…really I’m a peacemaker, but I’m with the homies right now,” at which the beat takes a turn for the melancholy and he dives into the first verse, young prospective gangbangers out one night on the town. “Me and my niggas four deep in the white Toyota/ A quarter tank of gas, one pistol and orange soda/ We on the mission for bad bitches and trouble.” Throughout this unsavory adventure, Kendrick wonders if his bad deeds will suffer karmic justice. Introspection, it seems, is not a trait Kendrick has developed over time. It is something he has carried with him all his life.

Over and over again, peer pressure drives Kendrick to be more hedonistic – causing trouble, and also getting supremely fucked up. In ‘m.a.a.d. city,’ he explains his encounter with PCP-laced weed, voice tweaked to exaggerate his distress: “And they wonder why I rarely smoke now/ imagine if your first blunt had you foamin at the mouth.” In the concluding interlude, his friend chides Kendrick for “always acting all sensitive and shit”, then tells another friend to pass the bottle — a seamless segue into ‘Swimming Pools (Drank)’, the album’s first single. Kendrick externalizes the chorus — “someone said to me/ nigga why you baby sippin only 2 or 3 shots, Imma show you how to turn it up a notch” — in contrast with the second verse, in which he adopts the viewpoint and funky voice of his conscience. Clearly, Kendrick likes to kick it. But clearly kickin it in Compton is a slippery slope. Kendrick directly acknowledges this in the act of creating GKMC. Rapping is an escape from the “funk”, an alternative outlet of self-expression, and ultimately, a route to financial stability.

(Breath.)

As if GKMC’s themes weren’t weighty enough upon the listener, it takes 64 minutes to get through the 11 core songs — 5:45 per song. That is absurd. You might call it longform rap. And while GKMC has elements of Weekend-style R&B and Dre-style g-funk, it mostly reminds me of a jazz album, because of its length and also the ways Kendrick uses that length.

Jazz tends to put emphasis on the soloist rather than on the hook. Most of the hooks on GKMC take the backseat to Kendrick’s verses. The persistent interludes and the fact that a few songs are actually two songs in one track further dilute the importance of the hook. The interludes actually sort of serve as the hook for the album as a whole. It’s like how John Coltrane uses a specific melodic theme on A Love Supreme to bring unity between the four esoteric movements.

Improvising comes off the dome — there is a stream of consciousness to GKMC, both in the way the album looks back into Kendrick’s memories. Improvising is about phrasing, making shapes, variations on shapes, also shaping the entire solo and song into a single aesthetic whole. You see this in the way Kendrick uses different voices to set different moods. His main organizing principle is rhyme schemes rather than lyrics, putting him into a box and actually forcing him to stretch his imagination to find the right word and overall image. On ‘Compton’, he dubs himself “King Kendrick Lamar”, something he wouldn’t have done if it didn’t alliterate.

I don’t mean to put Kendrick in the league of Coltrane. But whereas some hip-hop invokes jazz by using jazz harmonies in beats, GKMC invokes jazz in the way it is constructed — the way it emphasizes Kendrick’s internality, the de-emphasis of hooks, the longform, and in the way his rhyme schemes function as chord progressions — giving himself parameters that in a way expands his melodic potential.

(Breath.)

If Section.80 showed Kendrick’s awareness of where he exists in time, GKMC shows his awareness of where he exists in both space and time, in the context of Los Angeles. The album reeks of LA. It features verses from the progenitors of LA hip-hop, Dr. Dre and MC Eiht. The first two big rap groups out of Compton were N.W.A., led by Dre, and Compton’s Most Wanted, led by Eiht. Both groups emerged around 1990, not long after the crack epidemic broke out. The Compton known to Kendrick was largely shaped by that influx of crack. GKMC is about the Compton of the last 25 years, the lifespan of Kendrick himself. Compton, Compton, Compton. Kendrick has trouble escaping it, and neither can the listener. A lot of rappers talk about life in the hood, but rarely do they do it with the detail and persistence of Kendrick on GKMC. He applies the constant heat and action of LA’s 12-month summer to his accounts of Compton, which seems both to him and to us as the unblinking eye.

Good kid, m.A.A.d. city is not the easiest album to listen through. It’s not very catchy, and it is easy to grow weary of the long songs and long verses and persistent interludes. This density is the album’s shortcoming, but at least it came from a conscious, artistic decision. GKMC is one of the greatest artistic achievements in hip-hop’s brief history. It establishes Kendrick Lamar as one of the most creative MCs and deepest thinkers in the game. He is emotional, but not emo like Drake in Take Care. Both are relatively internally inclined rappers, but the distinction is that Kendrick looks deep inside himself as a lens to capture the essence of Compton and the state of the black ghetto in America. Just as the chorus in GKMC’s final song croons, “Compton, Compton, ain’t no city quite like mine” — there is no rapper quite like Kendrick Lamar, who goes through life with his hoodie up.

The New Breed of Seahawk

by

Danny Schwartz

Season Categories Published
MP00 Sports

Oct 19, 2012


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This past Sunday, New England led the Seahawks 23-10 in the 4th quarter when Tom Brady locked eyes with dreadlocked Seattle cornerback Richard Sherman. “He looked at me like, ‘talk to me after the game,’” Sherman later said. “It’s just one of these things where I think Newton’s third law of motion applies. Every action has an equal or greater reaction.”

The Seahawks scored two late touchdowns to squeeze by the Patriots 24-23 for one of the most dramatic regular season victories in team history. Sherman took care not to do Isaac Newton right after the game.

“Me and Earl walked up to him and said, ‘We’re greater than you. We’re better than you. You’re just a man — we’re a team.’” An hour later, he tweeted the above picture, setting off an instant firestorm among the New England faithful. “Patriots fans mad lol…” said Sherman in his next tweet. “Talking bout Super Bowl rings…. What have u done lately? Oh ur 3-3 lol”

That is not a rational statement. One win does not outweigh 3 Super Bowl rings and 5 Super Bowl appearances in the Brady-Belichick era. Sherman doesn’t sound confident – he sounds arrogant.

And yet, I am delighted. Sherman has some attitude. It is significant here that he plays defense and not offense. Unlike on offense, everyone on defense plays with the singular goal of stopping the ball; to play defense, you need that strong carnal instinct. To me, this incident with Sherman shows that he possesses the type of competitive edge that’s essential to success on the defensive side of the football. If he is so happy with the Seahawks win that he talks trash to Brady after the game, then flaunts his trash-talking on Twitter, then backs up his flaunting – he is a real competitor.

Last year the Seahawks secondary anointed itself the Legion of Boom: Sherman, cornerback Brandon Browner, free safety Earl Thomas, and strong safety Kam Chancellor.  Sherman was the only member of the Legion of Boom not to receive an invitation to the 2012 Pro Bowl. Defensive backs are usually small and swift, like 5’11” Darrelle Revis. The Legion of Boom is huge. Chancellor is 6’3”/230, Sherman is 6’3”/200, and Browner is 6’4”/220. Sherman and Browner use their size best on bump-and-run and their length best to deflect balls. They aren’t the quickest, but they have a valuable counterweight in Earl Thomas, who at 5’10” uses his short legs to accelerate quickly from his position in center field; he has as much range as any safety in the league. So while these cornerbacks play an unorthodox style, their secondary is consonant as a whole.  Shit is working. Right now the Seahawks rank 5th in total defense and 3rds in scoring defense.

The Seahawks gave up 200 more yards to the Patriots than they had to any team all season. The Pats put together back to back 80-yard touchdown drives in the 1st half. But from then on, they scored only 9 points on 5 trips to the red zone. Sherman and Thomas each had a 2nd half interceptions, and the defense forced back-to-back punts with their offense down 13 points in the 4th quarter. They held Tom Brady to his lowest rating of the season.

Last night, the Seahawks lost 13-6 to the 49ers. They are 4-3. But still, this is the most exciting Seahawks season since they went 13-3 en route to the Super Bowl in 2005. Something feels different. New Nike uniforms help relieve the unsavory stank of the last 4 years (combined 23-41). The defense is young – rookie Bruce Irvin is on pace for double-digit sacks, rookie Bobby Wagner starts at middle linebacker. Starting OLB K.J. Wright is 23; Thomas is 23; Sherman is 24; Chancellor is 24; Browner is 28, but in only his second year in the league after a stint in the CFL. QB Russell Wilson is 23. Marshawn Lynch leads the league in yards after contact. It’s a youth movement…something great is in the works.

Shannon Sharpe once said,”Ray Lewis is the type of guy, if he were in a fight with a bear I wouldn’t help him, I’d pour honey on him because he likes to fight. That’s the type of guy Ray Lewis is.” Ray Lewis and Ed Reed applied the mischievous traditions they learned as Miami Hurricanes to the Baltimore Ravens, making it the most fearsome defense in the NFL for over a decade. They are animals, with no regard for human life. The Ravens D has been the Muhammad Ali of the league. But now Lewis is out for the year. The Seahawks D feels like the new Ravens. Fearless. Dickish. Brotherhood.

At the very least, they are giving the city of Seattle a sports team with a real edge, which was last seen in the Gary Payton/Shawn Kemp era in the mid-90s (Payton is still an active trash-talker on Twitter). The Mariners can’t score for shit, nor will they ever in the cavernous Safeco Field. The Sonics are gone. The Sounders are good, but the MLS is lame. It’s fun to rally around athletes who want nothing in life more than to win. If they talk excessive shit as a symptom, and if they can back up that sass, it’s even more fun. After the Tom Brady incident, Richard Sherman said, “People, they don’t look at the film. They don’t analyze anything. That’s why these analysts and commentators need to shut their mouth.”  Amazing. I’d like to thank Sherman, the Legion of Boom, and the 2012 Seattle Seahawks for restoring my faith in humanity.