But there he was anyway, dressed to the nines in a bespoke electric-blue tuxedo with his longtime girlfriend, Whitney Alford, at his side. Earlier that night, Kendrick had ignited the crowd with a brilliant performance of his track “m.A.A.d city,” with the high-profile rock group Imagine Dragons as the backing band. On a night of scintillating performances, Kendrick’s set was perhaps the strongest, foreshadowing what would become a regular run of iconic sets from the Compton rapper on the music industry’s grandest stage. In the crowd, Taylor Swift, the industry-minted country artist turned pop star with a penchant for lovelorn breakup songs, swayed joyously on camera. Minutes later, with the music in full swing, Queen Latifah, the Afrocentric rap pioneer turned star actress, gazed delightfully at the stage—her face teeming with pride, bewilderment, and pure excitement. This was arguably Kendrick’s crossover moment, the culmination of three years of steadily increased momentum.
Compton kids aren’t supposed to make it past the city limits—Willowbrook to the northwest or Paramount to the east. If you let the media tell it, those kids are not even supposed to make it out alive. Though the town wasn’t the epicenter of violent crime it had once been in the 1980s and ’90s, it was still fertile ground for gang activity, and by 2015, it would receive federal aid to help prevent gang violence and human trafficking while addressing the prevalence of narcotics and gun possession. Kendrick had Compton and a large swath of hip-hop culture on his side—the gangbangers, the college kids, and the aging B-boys. He was the perfect combination of old- and new-school rap who could spit incisive rhymes in underground ciphers and beside the biggest pop stars. “He’s the king,” says Otis “Madlib” Jackson Jr., an acclaimed hip-hop producer from Oxnard with a sizable cult following. “I knew he was the king when I first heard Section.80. He’s the new king of the West Coast. And he’s spiritual. That’s rare for West Coast artists.” In the modern era of glossy pop hybrids driven by multimillion-dollar budgets, he was a throwback to rap’s “golden era” of the early to mid-1990s, when the complexity of one’s lyrics was more important than the instrumentals underscoring them. Kendrick embodied that nostalgia, and for those who grew up listening to Dre, Cube, and Snoop, his music struck the right balance of past and present, navigating both worlds with incredible ease and fluidity. This wasn’t just rap; Kendrick spoke to black and brown people on the grind, those who fought to make a way for themselves and their families against overwhelming odds. He was the voice of his community, even if the audience was much smaller.
Still, it was somewhat surprising to hear other names deemed award winners throughout the evening. Jay-Z and Justin Timberlake? Sure. They were all bona fide stars in rap and pop music, both of whom had sold millions of records throughout the years. Rihanna? Absolutely. The pop star had a golden ear for catchy hooks and massive dance tracks that lingered inside your head.
Then there was Macklemore, a rapper from Seattle who was a relative newcomer to those beyond his hometown. The lyricist had been releasing music since 2000, and over the years, he’d proved his ability to spit rapid-fire verses that delved into his own struggles with drug addiction and depression. Self-released projects like Open Your Eyes (released under the name Professor Macklemore), The Language of My World, and The Unplanned Mixtape had found him wrestling with his own identity as a white man in a black genre. Then in 2012 and 2013, respectively, he and producer Ryan Lewis scored two chart-topping hits: “Thrift Shop,” which eschewed monetary excess for a life of limited spending, and “Can’t Hold Us,” a foot-stomping party anthem about persevering through overwhelming odds. “Thrift Shop” dispelled the notion of decadence; to Macklemore and Lewis, it was unnecessary to spend so much money on cars, clothes, and jewelry. While the message resonated during the economic downturn, it also seemed to mock the very genre from which Macklemore earned his living. Hip-hop was black music, and for Macklemore to release such a song felt like a slight to the art form and to the minorities for whom Kendrick Lamar spoke. Macklemore seemed to appropriate not just a genre but black culture itself, using its music to peddle safe messages to a mostly white audience.
Yet in 2005, the lyricist had released a song called “White Privilege,” in which he openly questioned his own existence in hip-hop. In a world that justly excoriated whites for not acknowledging black plight, one could respect Macklemore’s effort to hold himself accountable.
However, Kendrick represented more substantively those who’d been harassed by police or denied opportunities because of their hue. Hip-hop was a way to document the trauma of racism and celebrate the unparalleled fortitude of blackness. It allowed a group like N.W.A to denounce law enforcement, and for a man like the Notorious B.I.G. to walk us through the grittiest sections of 1990s Brooklyn without stepping foot on the C train. Through hip-hop, black people were able to synthesize hardship into radiant poetry, and for Kendrick, the culture allowed room to wrestle with the yin and yang of life as a young black man in modern America. In a country still largely uncomfortable with people of color, hip-hop was a community that needed
