oracle of our time: Kendrick Lamar

Kung-Fu kitty. K dot. Kendrick has traversed an enormous amount of creative territory in his seven years as a lynch-pin California rapper. With each studio album, his lyrical abilities seem to grow. His tendency toward story-weaving remains. And yet his life in the past seven years has changed drastically, these changes evident in his subject material.

Which begs the question: where does Kendrick's relentless creativity come from? And how do the circumstances of his life influence his creative output?

Kendrick first emerged into the music scene in 2010 with his debut album Overly Dedicated. However, his more noteworthy creative splash came in 2012 when he released the insightful, delicately woven story-telling album, Good Kid, M.A.A.D city. In this album, Kendrick expressively recounts his intense teenage years in Compton, California. Discussing everything from peer-pressure to young lust, Kendrick aptly and evokatively depicts his gang-affiliated upbringing.

Since the release of good kid, M.A.A.D. city, Lamar has released three massively praised studio albums, To Pimp a Butterfly, in 2014, Untitled Unmastered in the same year and most recently, DAMN last year.

These albums continue Lamar's trend of telling complex and pointedly personal stories, however the albums do so in different ways. Untitled Unmastered widens its gaze to encompass a larger segment of the population. To Pimp a Butterfly explores blackness more generally than the strictly personal account of good kid M.A.A.D city, with it's notable political anthem track "The Blacker the Berry"  demanding focus on the historical and contemporary situation of black people in the United States. More fiercely political than its predecessor, Lamar uses this album to voice his dissatisfaction with treatment of people of color in the U.S.

Unique from his first three albums, Kendrick's latest studio album DAMN. explores Lamar's more recent reality: that of fame. His lyrics are distanced from the rough, masculine, gang-infused life in Compton. Of course Kendrick still references his roots, for sure.

Introverted by my thoughts
Children listen, it gets deep
See once upon a time inside the Nickerson Garden projects
The object was to process and digest poverty's dialect

In the world of DAMN. Lamar no longer needs to increase his alcohol consumption to impress his peers. He has no doubt shown himself to be worthy of respect. and he now reflects on childhood trauma from the beacon of fame.

Reviewing his major music releases, its clear that Kendrick has always been interested in weaving complex stories for his listeners. DAMN. listened to from beginning to end tells a different story if its order is reversed, suggesting a duality to his recent experience of fame. Good kid,  M.A.A.D. city flows cohesively from beginning to end. We can infer that Kendrick, surrounded by fame-thirsty members of the rap community, invests much of his energy in creating honest and politically charged narratives to "cut through" bullshit.

Kendrick has collaborated with big-names from Dr. Dre, Tech n9ne, to Rihanna. His collaborations have afforded him some of his "clout" in the world of hip-hop and rap. But even more than that, his natural creativity and desire to intelligently and impactfully recount his story, which also speaks on behalf of countless other children growing up in low-income urban areas around the country, remains with him even in the face of wealth and fame. With all his distance from his original inspiration, it will be interesting to see if and how Kendrick's output changes in the coming years.