The secret recipe to rappers from Compton, according to Kendrick Lamar
Compton has produced so many legendary rappers through the years, with Kendrick Lamar, over the last decade and a half, picking up the mantle from the likes of Dr Dre and NWA, DJ Quik, and The Game.
But what is it about Compton that makes it so adept at producing rap greats? Kendrick, for his part, has given that question some thought, reflecting on it during a 2017 conversation with Vice. He was keen to shine a light on his home, while pushing back against outsiders’ negative generalisations about the place.
While he scorned those who “just want to glorify the negativity of it,” he insisted that a lot of people in Compton “got good hearts. They’re just in an environment where it’s hostile.”
Noting how it was “a trip” to think of those Compton residents who aspire to be artists but who “aren’t even out yet,” Kendrick marvelled at the idea of these as-yet unknown figures “just bubbling and doing they own thing,” waiting to be discovered. But as for why so many of them are in Compton, he has a theory.
It’s about “the struggle,” as he put it. Compton is a tough place to be, as so much of the music made by its rappers so viscerally depicts. It has historically been one of the most dangerous places in the US, with an unusually high murder rate.
The broad consensus seems to be that Compton is safer today than it was during the depths of its most extreme periods of gang violence, but that is far from saying it is without its contemporary problems. Kendrick Lamar, certainly, has always known a city with issues.
That’s part of what he thinks makes the city’s rap culture so strong. People are responding to their surroundings and the challenges they bring, pouring it into their music.
Kendrick noted that where a person is from is really important to their art. Even when a place has its problems, it’s about learning “how to flip it and turn it to something positive.” A life of poverty and crime is not to be romanticised on its own terms, but, if it can inspire art, then it can become something good.
“I think it’s that,” Kendrick said of Compton’s rap culture’s unique character. All the things that Compton rappers have seen and done is expressed in their music, turning their struggles into something positive.