Kendrick Lamar Research Paper

Kendrick Lamar’s beginnings in his troubled youth in Compton, full of gang violence and poverty, would eventually lead to his monumental success as a hip-hop recording artist, and voice of a generation. These series of obstacles and trials within Kendrick Lamar Duckworth’s life have crafted him into who he is as a music icon and a human being. From witnessing a murder at the young age of 5, to winning five Grammys in a single night, Kendrick’s life journey has progressed steadily into unforeseen success. However, all journeys, full of obstacles and failures, begin somehow. Kendrick’s begins in the concrete jungle of Compton, California, littered with intense gang activity, police brutality, and injustice, all aspects swirling into the byproduct
Kendrick Lamar re-counts his joyful memories of his childhood, including riding bikes and neighborhood antics with friends; however, one of Kendrick’s most pivotal memories early in his life was that at the age of four (Rolling Stone). Kendrick Lamar experienced the first day of the South Central riots on April 29th, 1992, where he witnessed robbery and complete mayhem in L.A., along with his first true sense of his environment and social issues. Forward on from this experience Kendrick learned of his situation from the Section 8 to the Housing Authority (Rolling Stone). Surviving on food stamps and welfare Kendrick grew up fast learning the aspects of the street and his possible predestined future of prison or even death. From peer pressure, racism, and several bad interactions with the police, Kendrick Lamar’s view and outlook of his life and friend’s lives seemed bleak and dismal for he may never reach his full success and potential as a person stuck in his environment. However Kendrick found his escape and outlet, in that of rap music and hip-hop something that would propel him to overcome his obstacles of his rough street