Kendrick Lamar‘s ‘To Pimp a Butterfly’ recently surpassed sales of 750,000 units in the United States alone much to the delight of his swelling fan base and the critics who praised its bold and unashamedly hard hitting material.
What inspired its sound?
Lamar’s traumatic childhood which he discussed only during an interview set to shock those who know very little about his life before his rise to fame.
Read below…
Via ‘NPR’.
On witnessing his first murder:
It was outside my apartment unit.A guy was out there serving his narcotics and somebody rolled up with a shotgun and blew his chest out. Admittedly, it did something to me right then and there. It let me know that this is not only something that I’m looking at, but it’s something that maybe I have to get used to — you dig what I’m saying?
On losing his best friend Chad Keaton to gun violence:
He was like my little brother, we grew up in the same community. I was actually best friends with his older brother, who is incarcerated right now. And him just always telling me to make sure that Chad is on the right path. And, you know, he was on the right path. But, you know, things happen where sometimes the good are in the wrong places, and that’s exactly what happened. He got shot.
I can’t disregard the emotion of me relapsing and feeling the same anger that I felt when I was 16, 17 — when I wanted the next family to hurt, because you made my family hurt.Those emotions were still running in me, thinking about him being slain like that. Whether I’m a rap star or not, if I still feel like that, then I’m part of the problem rather than the solution.
The rapper had this to say when quizzed on his rival’s Drake’s feud with the rapper Meek Mill.
Nah, I didn’t pay attention to it. That’s they thing they got going on over there.