City (2012), aimed at protecting Lamar from the surface allure and subterranean horror of the street. Their efforts, which frame the profound coming-of-age and conversion narrative masterpiece good kid, M.A.A.D. Like many overburdened, but loving parents, Lamar’s mother and father tried mightily to help their son navigate this world of pervasive danger and limited opportunity. When the dust settled, roughly 1,350 of those arrested were released without charges, and crime continued largely unabated as the city’s racial distrust and militaristic police culture grew further entrenched. In the initial weekend of sweeps, over one thousand officers concentrated in South Central Los Angeles arrested more than 1,400 people.
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Given enormous latitude to suppress gang violence, the Los Angeles Police Department implemented “Operation Hammer,” a series of massive, counterinsurgency style “show-of-force” police raids that same year. Indeed, the California state legislature officially declared “a state of crisis which has been caused by violent street gangs whose members threaten, terrorize, and commit a multitude of crimes against the peaceful citizens of their neighborhoods.” In response, the legislature passed the Street Terrorism Enforcement (“STEP”) Act of 1988, making it a crime to “actively participate” in a street gang, and added severe penalties for “gang-related” crimes. The way people respond to homicide deaths of loved ones - it's the worst pain that I've seen a human being experience that isn't physical.” It's going to feel like something's been taken from you arbitrarily by another human being. It's always going to feel colossally wrong. As Los Angeles Times homicide reporter Jill Leovy, who has written movingly of the homicide epidemic in Southside Los Angeles, reminds us, the trauma of this carnage reverberates through entire communities: “There's no way to fit it in any kind of understanding of the natural order of things. By 1991, Compton had a per capita murder rate more than three times that of the city of Los Angeles proper. That year, 1987, Los Angeles County tallied 1,398 murders, with violence most heavily concentrated within poor African American neighborhoods and towns. Lamar was born Kendrick Lamar Ducksworth, just a few months before the release of Straight Outta Compton would transform the city into a globally recognized symbol of America’s urban crisis. “I heard the barbershops be in great debates all the time/Bout who’s the best MC? Kendrick, Jigga and Nas/Eminem, Andre 3000, the rest of ya’ll/New niggas just new niggas, don’t get involved” – Kendrick Lamar, “Control” Dre’s The Chronic (1992), The Notorious B.I.G.’s Ready to Die (1994), Jay-Z’s The Blueprint (2001), or, today, Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly (2015). Nas’ 1994 debut album, Illmatic, is perhaps the category’s reigning exemplar, but one could just as easily make the case for Dr. On occasion, however, the genuine article does emerge. The label is a daunting standard, and thus we should not be surprised that in hip-hop, it is rarely ventured. The juxtaposition is jarring its two terms sit uncomfortably next to one another, upending the normal relations of time, art, and judgment. In such a world, exaggeration and hyperbole seep so readily into our language of criticism, that we forget just how unsettled such a pronouncement should make us. One can imagine it weaving its way through the anonymous byways of social media in a scramble for distinction among a vast sea of potential tastemakers. That paradoxical, tangled appellation is perhaps the signal excess of an overheated culture of instant commentary. “To Pimp a Butterfly, another classic CD/Ghetto lullaby for every one-day emcee” – Kendrick Lamar, “Alright (Video Version)” Liner Notes: Kendrick Lamar, To Pimp a Butterfly (2015)
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