The Butterfly Effect

story like this doesn’t just apply to Kendrick; it addresses the plight of many young black men who’ve seen their uncles, brothers, and fathers ushered to prison so much that the path seems glamorous. Jail is far from utopia, and some of these men have spent so much of their adult lives in custody that a culture behind bars is all they know. Kendrick tapped into the isolation that his family and friends felt in jail, when all they had were the memories of freedom, a pen, and just a few sheets of paper to write their loved ones back home. With Section.80, you can feel Kendrick become more serious, more reflective, somewhat more isolated. Though the album was tailored specifically to Compton, Kendrick kept the stories open-ended, so those close to his age group in Philadelphia, Houston, New Orleans, and elsewhere could relate to the narrative. This is where he started to move to the forefront of TDE and become its star player, and where his buzz grew so palpable that he could no longer be denied by the public. In fact, 2011 was a big year for Kendrick: that February, he was named to XXL’s eleven-member Freshman Class along with other soon-to-be-big rap stars: Meek Mill, Mac Miller, Big K.R.I.T., Lil B, and YG.

Then in August, a group of Cali rap icons gave Kendrick the biggest cosign of his career. During a show in his native L.A., they passed him the torch, dubbing him the King of West Coast Rap. It was an emotional moment for Kendrick, so much so that he cried onstage. The moment was greater than anything the rapper could’ve imagined, and more valuable than any accolades given to him by an outsider. “You great at what you do. You ain’t good at what you do, you great at what you do,” Snoop said to Kendrick. “You got the torch, you better run with that muthafucka. You better run with it, nigga, ’cause it’s yours.” Eight months later, it was announced that Kendrick was going on the road once again, this time with Drake as part of his four-month Club Paradise Tour. The intrigue surrounding Kendrick arose, and he became an enigmatic figure in the eyes of the media. They couldn’t quite figure him out or describe his music; it was equally fascinating and strange to the ear. Compton rappers weren’t supposed to rhyme over jazz breaks, but he did. They weren’t supposed to evoke the piss-in-the-hallway, roaches-in-the-cereal, rats-in-the-subway aesthetic of New York’s Wu-Tang Clan, but he did. They weren’t supposed to summon the warmth and gospel-infused essence of the Dungeon Family, but he did. That he could pull from these disparate aesthetics and remain overtly Compton was his greatest feat.

Pitchfork, the popular music site known for its tastemaking album reviews, gave Section.80 a positive score of 8 out of 10. In his assessment, critic Tom Breihan called Kendrick “a weird kid” and “an introverted loner type,” but noted that the album stood “as a powerful document of a… promising young guy figuring out his voice.” Over at XXL, critic Adam Fleischer trumpeted the rapper’s humility and artistic flair, highlighting the fact that he could examine money, history, and religion—all at the same time—with “passion, focus, and sincerity.” Still, Kendrick wasn’t buying into the media hype; everyday people were feeling it, and that meant more. “When I go out to do these shows, these kids actually believe in what I talk about because they understand the look it’s been getting from people I looked up to,” Kendrick once said. “I love the acknowledgment as far as the music and the stamps [of approval], but at the end of the day, those stamps gonna carry no weight unless I put the work ethic behind it.… I wanna make the best music in today’s world, period. Once I do that, I’ll feel like I’ve accomplished something.”

In a year of notable hip-hop releases from the likes of Jay-Z and Kanye (Watch the Throne), Drake (Take Care), and fellow upcoming rapper J. Cole (Cole World: The Sideline Story), Section.80 stood apart. If good kid, m.A.A.d city presented Kendrick as a fully formed human with very visible blemishes, Section.80 was paint strewn on the canvas—his visage and ideas still broadly taking shape. It was a masterpiece in its own way, the record on which he started to embrace his genius before he started taking himself so seriously. “We look at Section.80 and how different that was compared to everything in that time,” TDE engineer Derek Ali has said. “It just showed me—if you just be yourself and stay true and loyal to yourself, then there’s nothing you can’t do, and there’s nowhere you can’t go.”

4

A Star Is Born

By early 2012, Kendrick was a budding star rubbing elbows with the hottest rappers in the industry. In mid-February, he and another promising lyricist, Harlem’s A$AP Rocky, hit the road with Drake as part of his Club Paradise Tour. Kendrick got the opportunity after he spoke with Drake in person following his first show ever in Toronto. “He called me up and we had a few drinks and he always said he was appreciative of my music,” Kendrick reportedly said. “I’ve always been a fan of his music. We just been chopping it up since.” Drake handpicked Kendrick to open for him on the road: “There’s a lot of artists out there who could have been out there on tour with him, for him to sit there and respect my music. We have the same mutual respect.” This was before the 2013 “Control” verse, and years before they greeted each other with passive-aggressive tension, begrudging smiles, and forced pleasantries backstage.

Across thirty-eight dates and in cities like Austin, Oklahoma City, San Diego, and London, Kendrick performed to bigger crowds in bigger arenas, this time as a solo act and not as someone else’s hype man. He was taking Section.80 to fans who somewhat knew his work, but because