Kendrick was raised in a working-class environment, first in an apartment building along East Alondra Boulevard, then in a small blue house along West 137th Street with his mother, Paula Oliver, and his father, Kenny Duckworth. Kendrick’s parents had moved to Compton from Chicago’s South Side in 1984, three years before he was born. Kenny had lived in the notorious Robert Taylor Homes in Chicago and run with a street gang called the Gangster Disciples. Afraid that Kenny could end up dead or in prison, Paula put her foot down: He’d have to quit the crew or their relationship was over. “She said, ‘I can’t fuck with you if you ain’t trying to better yourself,’ ” Kendrick told Rolling Stone in 2015. “We can’t be in the streets forever.”
Kenny and Paula packed their bags and traveled to California with just $500. They were headed farther east, to San Bernardino, but settled in Compton after Kendrick’s aunt Tina put them in a hotel until they could make ends meet. To sustain themselves, Paula did hair and got a job at McDonald’s while Kenny worked at Kentucky Fried Chicken and hustled on the side. Times were tough, but they eventually saved enough money for a more stable lifestyle. Then Kendrick was born—on June 17, 1987. As a child, he was a thoughtful wanderer who quietly observed his surroundings. That’s not to say he wasn’t fully present, but he found inspiration in the nuance of everyday existence. Kendrick, by his own admission, would sit in the corner and carefully watch what happened, taking mental notes on the scenes that unfolded. Even from a young age, he had the makings of a great scribe, yet he wouldn’t pursue creative writing until he reached middle school. He was a perfectionist, and one can hear that approach in the poetry he wrote about his youth. Neighborhoods are described with pinpoint accuracy, down to the local landmarks and everyday voices that used to soundtrack his block. On good kid, m.A.A.d city, for instance, we hear actual characters from the community—the friends, the devoted church lady, even Kendrick’s parents—coming together to contextualize the rapper’s life story. On this work and others, he gives ample weight to the good and the bad in equal measure. By connecting lyrically with the Crips, Pirus, and everyday residents, Kendrick envisions a united Compton in which they all live harmoniously.
Kendrick was born just as gangsta rap began to gain traction with listeners beyond Southern California. The year he arrived, rapper Ice-T released a song called “6 in the Mornin’ ” that detailed the life span of a hustler selling crack cocaine. Through its vivid, lyrical imagery, the track opened a window into the perilous nature of life as a young black man in President Ronald Reagan’s America, where a so-called “War on Drugs” implicitly targeted and jailed inner-city minorities. Following Ice-T’s lead, in 1988, Compton quintet N.W.A (Niggaz Wit Attitudes) released its debut album, Straight Outta Compton, which cast a vicious light on civic despair and the police department’s rampant abuse of power. The pioneering L.A. group introduced a wave of rap that went deeper than the materialistic flash that emanated from New York at the time. Sure, the crew flaunted a little on Straight Outta Compton, but N.W.A wanted to address real issues in the harshest language possible. It was crude, raw, brutally honest, and shocking, but it also became a massive global phenomenon and set a benchmark for what gangsta rap would be compared with for years to come. “It’s the world before N.W.A, and it’s the world after N.W.A,” group member Ice Cube once told Kendrick in an interview for Billboard.
Artists like Ice-T and N.W.A documented the city in which Kendrick grew up, and the music would have a profound impact on him and L.A. as a whole. In 1995, at the age of eight, Kendrick went with his father to the Compton Swap Meet and saw rappers Tupac Shakur and Dr. Dre—the latter also a member of N.W.A—filming the video for “California Love,” the lead single from Tupac’s 1996 double album, All Eyez on Me. That was the first time Kendrick saw Dre in person and the last time he’d see Pac alive (he died in September 1996 of gunshot wounds after an altercation in Las Vegas, Nevada). Though Kendrick didn’t start writing rhymes straightaway, he didn’t forget the moment. Maybe it was the sense of community that swayed him: Tupac and Dre were superstars, yet there they were in a shiny black Bentley, offering a lasting experience to everyday people. It showed Kendrick that local love was stronger than global fame, and no matter how big he got, in whatever profession he chose, it didn’t mean anything if he couldn’t celebrate his victory at home.
Twenty years later, Kendrick walked in Pac’s and Dre’s footsteps, returning to the place where his interest in pursuing rap began. In the 2015 video for “King Kunta,” the third single from To Pimp a Butterfly, Kendrick danced on the roof of the swap meet as a throng of Compton residents bounced cheerfully underneath. It was a full circle moment for a young man who’d spent his life buying CDs, cassette tapes, and Nike sneakers there.
Kendrick was quite playful when he wanted
