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Kendrick Lamar · S1 E1
June 17, 1987
Born Kendrick Lamar Duckworth on Rosecrans Avenue, in a city that shaped gangsta rap
Compton, June 17, 1987. In a hospital off Rosecrans Avenue, a baby named after a Temptations singer takes his first breath in the most dangerous city in America.
Kendrick Lamar, ELEMENT. Directed by Jonas Lindstroem and the little homies, the video places Kendrick in stark Compton landscapes: parking lots, front porches, street corners. Every frame is a portrait of the city that raised him.
Rosecrans Avenue
Kenny Duckworth and Paula Oliver grew up on Chicago's South Side, surrounded by the same street violence that would later fuel their son's music. In 1984, they packed everything into a car and drove to Compton, chasing something calmer. What they found was a Section 8 apartment on Rosecrans Avenue, wedged between Bloods and Crips territory.
“It was outside my apartment unit. A guy was out there serving his narcotics and somebody rolled up with a shotgun and blew his chest out. Admittedly, it done something to me right then and there. It let me know that this is not only something that I'm looking at, but it's something that maybe I have to get used to.”
— Kendrick Lamar
Rosecrans Avenue, Compton
The block where Kendrick Lamar grew up. Section 8 housing between gang lines, a few miles from where N.W.A. recorded Straight Outta Compton.
ELEMENT., Kendrick Lamar (2017)
Built on a murky, bass-heavy loop, ELEMENT. is Kendrick at his most territorial. The hook strips away everything except survival and authenticity. Listen for the way the beat never resolves, it just keeps circling, like driving the same blocks over and over. The video borrows its visual language from the photography of Gordon Parks, placing Compton's everyday life in the frame of fine art.
TAP TO REVEAL: Why is he called Kendrick?
What street in Compton did Kendrick Lamar grow up on?
The Art of Peer Pressure, Kendrick Lamar
From good kid, m.A.A.d city (2012). Kendrick narrates a night riding through the same Compton blocks where he was born, pulled between loyalty to his crew and the voice in his head telling him to leave. The whispery, confessional delivery over Pharrell's hypnotic production makes it feel like a secret you weren't supposed to hear.
Compton made the headlines, but the real story starts 2,000 miles east. Next: Kenny and Paula's South Side, the gang ties they couldn't leave at the state line, and a household where love and violence shared the same roof.
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