Kendrick Lamar's highly praised good kid, m.A.A.d city has now been out for a lengthy enough amount of time that people have been able to critique, review, and analyze the LP. Even so, the average listener is bound to miss some things, and misconstrue others. In a new Q&A with GQ, Kendrick explains what things may have been misconstrued on the album, and talks on the various stories told throughout GKMC.
Check out excerpts from his Q&A below. Head over to GQ for the full interview.
GQ: Were those real scenarios?
Kendrick Lamar: All of those were real scenarios. The fact that I took my mother's car, that was real life. Being in a situation where you're young and a teenager and you don't really have respect for authority... You respect them as your mother and father, but sometimes when they lay some rules down, you break them. And that was one of those situations. Taking that car got me in a whole lot of different situations as a teen, that I tell in the stories. That's what that concept really represents: abusing the authority of losing his Domino's, losing his jewelry, anything else that he possessed that I felt like taking at the time.
GQ: People love the album and a lot has been written about it. Has anyone misconstrued parts of it?
Kendrick Lamar: A few people think that these stories are just different events throughout my whole life. That story is just one day, one full day. Some things that always happened throughout the days and throughout the weeks, but that was just one particular day that really turned my whole life around and I understood what I should be doing is something positive, which is music right now. They don't know me yet. They might think they know me, but they don't.
GQ: I assume she ('Sherane') knows that you're doing, ya know, OK. Does that drive you any?
Kendrick Lamar: They watch the smallest things, from the YouTube video with 500 hits to the number-one single and gold album. The worst part of success is, to me, adapting to it. It's scary. Andre 3000 said, "I hated all the attention, so I ran from it." I think about that. The last six months, I've been going crazy, thinking, "Is it supposed to be like this?" Because when the cameras are on and the people are watching, that can make a person want to shut down from everything and everybody.
