Ultimately, South Africa played a significant role in Kendrick’s career, and in many ways, the time he spent there helped redirect the course of mainstream black music. If he hadn’t taken that trip, or opened his eyes to the country’s grand splendor, there’d be no To Pimp a Butterfly. Free and avant-garde jazz might still struggle to attract bigger groups of fans, and sonically challenging art might still be relegated to smaller venues. South Africa set the stage for Kendrick’s greater act. It also allowed him to return to where it all started, this time with a clear head and a full heart.
2
“California Love”
Before Kendrick Lamar was a world-renowned rapper, he was an introverted kid trying to navigate Los Angeles. Ask around and you’ll get the same story: the Kendrick we see today is the same mild-mannered child from 1990s Compton who, as a preteen, pedaled his bicycle through the neighborhood, ate Now and Later candy, and played basketball and tackle football with his friends. Kendrick was quick on the court, with nice dribbling skills and a reliable jump shot (though in later songs, he’d admit that it wasn’t quite good enough to take him to the NBA). He had dreams of going pro, much like other young black boys in economically challenged communities. In a place like Compton, with its prevalent gang culture, there’s a myth that black and Latino children are destined only for the streets, or that they can make it out only by creating music or playing sports at a high level. Some join gangs or sell drugs, but to spotlight that narrative alone is to ignore the support system in towns like this—the mothers, fathers, activists, and local leaders who project positive images to which the youth can aspire.
Compton wasn’t always Compton: Before World War II, the city was majority white, with racist policies that prohibited black families from moving there. In 1948, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned those laws, and by the early 1950s, black families started buying houses, much to the dismay of the whites already living in the suburban enclave. White people fled the city, fearing that their property values would plummet due to integration. The black population in Compton rose to 40 percent by 1960; a decade later, the neighborhood was 65 percent black. Crime began to rise due to growing unemployment, and in 1971, a gang called the Crips formed. The crew was founded by high school students Raymond Washington and Stanley “Tookie” Williams after they decided to unite their respective gangs to battle South L.A. gangs that were bothering them. The Crips soon became the biggest street gang in the city. In 1972, the Bloods were formed by Sylvester Scott and Vincent Owens along Piru Street in Compton, and were quickly established as a rival gang to the Crips. Members of other local crews had been assaulted by the Crips and were eager to join the ranks of the Bloods for revenge. By the early 1970s, middle- and upper-class black families started moving to nearby towns like Carson, Inglewood, and Windsor Hills. As a result, Compton became the epicenter for violent crime and gang activity in Southern California.
Alonzo Williams, a DJ and nightclub owner who created the World Class Wreckin’ Cru (of which Dr. Dre was a member before he became a face of gangsta rap), remembers a different time in Compton. He grew up in the town and used to walk through what are now considered dangerous parts without any issues at all. This was in the 1970s, before crack cocaine hit the streets, back when gangs existed but to interact with them wasn’t so dire. You could live near them, not be gang affiliated, and still feel safe. “Compton was like any other city, man. It was cool,” Williams remembers. “We always had gangbangers, you went to the dances and they’d be there, but you’d walk right past them. Most of the guys you’d play baseball with or you went to school with, and there was a code of the streets that the gangbangers wouldn’t mess with the civilians. Gangbangers only fought with the gangbangers. They weren’t the ones looking to start no shit, but you don’t fuck with them.”
Crack cocaine changed everything. Gang activity grew out of control, and money was the new motivator. Williams also saw the dynamic shift in his nightclub. In 1979, when he opened the famed Eve’s After Dark banquet hall, a small number of his patrons were gang affiliated; by 1990, when crack was in full swing, much of his crowd was gang affiliated. “I had to change my personal attitude and dress code; everybody wanted to be a thug, everybody wanted to sell dope,” Williams says. “Everybody wanted to be hard. As soon as somebody
