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Kendrick Lamar · S1 E3
The Tupac Moment
Age eight. His dad lifts him on his shoulders to watch Pac and Dre film 'California Love'
Compton, 1995. Kenny Duckworth lifts his eight-year-old son onto his shoulders so the kid can see over the crowd. Tupac and Dr. Dre are right there, filming the biggest music video of the decade.
2Pac ft. Dr. Dre, California Love. This is the video young Kendrick Lamar watched being filmed from his father's shoulders in Compton. The moment that planted the idea that a kid from his block could become something enormous.
“I saw Tupac. I was on my daddy's shoulders. I seen him right there, in the flesh. At that point it went from "maybe I can do this" to "I have to do this." Seeing somebody from your neighborhood on that level changes everything inside you.”
— Kendrick Lamar, interview with Big Boy, Real 92.3, 2017
California Love, 2Pac ft. Dr. Dre (1995)
Dr. Dre built the beat around Roger Troutman's talk box, that rubbery, alien-sounding vocal effect that made the song instantly recognizable from any passing car. The production cost over a million dollars, the Mad Max desert visuals were the most ambitious hip-hop had ever attempted, and the song debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100.
Gods on the Block
In 1995, Tupac and Dre are the two most powerful figures in West Coast hip-hop, and they are standing on a Compton street in broad daylight. Dre changed the sound of rap with N.W.A. and The Chronic. Tupac is the poet-revolutionary turned superstar, close enough for an eight-year-old to see the details of his face.
TAP TO REVEAL: How much time did Tupac have left when Kendrick saw him?
What signature production technique gave "California Love" its hook sound?
Poetic Justice ft. Drake, Kendrick Lamar
From good kid, m.A.A.d city (2012). Named after the 1993 Tupac film, this track is Kendrick's most direct musical nod to Pac's romantic side. Over a Janet Jackson sample, Kendrick channels the same vulnerability Tupac showed in movies like Poetic Justice and Juice.
The spark is lit, but the world around Kendrick is getting darker. Crack is hollowing out his neighborhood, and an entire generation is growing up in the crossfire. Next: Section 80 babies, and the war zone that raised a poet.
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