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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.
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.
“My pops had seen them and came back to the house and got me. My father went to the house to get me and put me on his shoulders to watch them shoot.”
— Kendrick Lamar
TAP TO REVEAL: How much time did Tupac have left when Kendrick saw him?
What signature production technique gave "California Love" its hook sound?
gloria, Kendrick Lamar & SZA (2024)
From GNX (2024). The closing track of Kendrick's most recent album, thirty years after the eight-year-old on his father's shoulders watched Tupac film a music video. SZA's vocals float over a warm, celebratory beat. This is what dreams sound like when they come true.
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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