Kendrick Lamar Explains Cover Art For "good kid, m.A.A.d city"

Kendrick Lamar's cover art may have taken fans by surprise, but of course, there was meaning behind his choice. Read below to find out why he went with that art.

BYRose Lilah
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Kendrick Lamar revealed the cover art for his highly anticipated debut, good kid, m.A.A.d city recently. The creative cover art featuring a childhood photo of Kendrick Lamar, with the deluxe edition featuring an old van in a suburban neighborhood. 

In an interview with Fuse Kendrick explained why he chose to go with this for the art, as well as explaining where the inspiration for his album came from. 

He says of his Aftermath debut, "It's really just like a self-portrait. I feel like I needed to make this album to move on with my life. I had them old negative vibes and demons haunting me, and it's that real." Kendrick continued, "It had to come from somewhere, had to come from a place, it coulda been negative and it coulda been positive, but for the majority part of it, it was a negative place." He says recording the album helped him move on, "It was a venting process, to tell these stories I never told."

Kendrick explains the photo as follows, "Two [of the men] are my uncles, to the far right, it's my grandpa, and a baby bottle, next to a 40 oz, next to a gang sign, holdin' a kid," K.Dot says of his cover art. "If you look in the background, you see a picture on the wall, and the picture is me and my pops," Kendrick added. "And the eyes blacked out, that's for my own personal reasons, you'll probably hear about that on the album. That photo says so much about my life, and about how I was raised in Compton, and the things I've seen, just through them innocent eyes. You don't see nobody else's eyes, but you see my eyes are innocent, and tryna figure out what is goin' on."

Kendrick Lamar Explains Cover Art For "good kid, m.A.A.d city"

The LP is slated for release on October 22nd. Watch the interview with Fuse below.


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<b>Editor-in-Chief</b> <!--BR--> Rose Lilah updates HNHH daily, while also managing the other writers on-staff and all HNHH contributors. She oversees site content in general, whether that be video, editorial or music. Not so unlike Kanye, she just wants one thing out of life: dopeness. <strong>Favorite Hip Hop Artists:</strong> Atmosphere, Eminem, Sir Michael Rocks, Jay Z, The-Dream, Curren$y, Drake, Ab-Soul, Boldy James, Outkast, Kevin Gates