Kendrick Lamar and J Cole are two of the best hip hop artist of our generation. Although the two make music about similar subjects they are completely different at the same time.
Kendrick Lamar Duckworth was born June 17, in Compton, California. Before he was born his parents moved there to escape the gang culture in Chicago. In his early days he enjoyed writing stories and poems. In Compton he was exposed to a lot of gang activity in the area even though it didn’t really effect him. In his teenage years he attended Compton High school where he was a Straight A student.
At the age of 16 Kendrick Lamar came out with his first office mixtape entitled Hub City Threat: Minor of the Year(2003) under the name K-dot. This mixtape allowed him to
…show more content…
It was on this album that he started to talk more about social problems and the things that are happening in America.
On June 25, 2013 Born Sinner was released. The album ranked second on the Billboard chart only coming after Kayne West's album Yeezus. The three singles he put out for this album were She Knows, Forbidden Fruit and She Knows. On December 9,2014 J Cole released his third album 2014 Forest Hill Drive. This is his most best album to date having gone double platinum. It was so good that he decided to make a live version of this album in2016. He was nominated for a Grammy for the 2014 Forest hill Drive album as well.
These two artist have many things in common such both of them being nominated for a Grammy and being XXL freshman participants. They both have three studio albums as well. There share some of the same influences as well such as Andre 3000, 2pac, and Nas. The two also make music about the same thing. They rap about things going on in the community and social problems. They have both had number one songs and albums on the billboard top 100. They where also good students in high school. The two are also good friends who love to collaborate with each
Dwayne Michael Carter Jr., better known as Lil Wayne is an American hip hop artist from New Orleans, Louisiana.He was born on September 27, 1982. At the age of 9, Lil Wayne joined the Cash Money Records. Lil Wayne has been creating music since he was 8 years old. He also grew up in one of the poorest neighborhoods in New Orleans, Hollygrove.
Additionally, critics took note of Lamar's verse on the song "Control," by rapper Big Sean. Even though the track was written by another artist, Lamar's verse drew attention because of his challenge to several other popular names in the hip-hop world, including Drake, J. Cole and Big Sean himself. One interesting fact about Kendrick is he became an American rapper and songwriter. The good thing is that Kendrick faced the violence like a real mature kid. Not like those kinds of those kids who are under pressure quickly. So that’s mostly about Kendrick Lamar’s
But before that, he was in news too as he was the first rapper to win an amateur night at Harlem's Apollo Theater. Then he started releasing mixtapes. Some of the famous mixtapes which released in that time are ‘Lace Up’, ‘100 Words and Running’, and ‘Rage Pack’. He met with Sean Combs in 2011 and that changed his life.
Lamar 's family was directly touched by the violence of the streets, yet he stayed thoughtful soft-spoken, and a great observer, even as a child. He adopted the stage name K-Dot and began performing his lyrics as a rapper. In 2003, at the age of 16, he released a mix tape called “Youngest Head Nigga in Charge”, which got a lot of interest in his native Southern
Think of a poet. Who came to mind? Was it Shakespeare, Langston Hughes, Ralph Waldo Emerson? What about Eminem or Jay-Z? They are both poets too, but in a different way. They go by the title “rapper”, basically a synonym for poet, and Hip-Hop is their form of poetry is. Kevin Coval amusingly says that rap “dusted poetry off, took it out the closet, put Js on its feet, and told it to speak to the people, all the people,” and that hip-hop saved poetry from becoming “classical music,” meaning that rap prevented poetry from becoming an old, out-dated art form and renovated it for the next generation (20). Coval’s book, The BreakBeat Poets, says the creation of hip-hop music was by “latchkey kids in the crack era, left to their own devices to experiment wildly and make language and art new and meaningful,” and goes on to say its purpose is to, “move the crowd, relate to the crowd, and save the crowd,” and Kendrick Lamar does these things perfectly (18). Through the use of clever wordplay and rhyming skills mixed with great story telling, Kendrick is bringing rap music back to its “roots” while introducing a “style” of his own, which is why one can argue that Kendrick Lamar is the “savior” of the rap game and its listeners.
Jay Z, Tupac, Kendrick lamar. All these people have the same thing in common. They call grew up in a ghetto. Jay Z donates to charity, Tupac was a shakespeare nut, and kendrick lamar donated almost $50,000 to his school he went to. Not for the publicity, he didn't want anyone to know about it. Where you're from doesn't define who you are.
In the concept album, good kid m.A.A.d city, Kendrick Lamar creates an autobiographical narrative that describes the societal pressures of growing up as a black teenager in Compton, and how his self-awareness and musical passion allowed him to escape from the city’s cycle of violence. Through the album’s storyline Kendrick makes the case that, despite coming from a hedonistic, gang infested city, he is able to transform into a puritan. Kendrick narrates this story through several different perspectives, including actual people from his life as well as his own psyche. Kendrick Lamar mainly invokes the persona of K.Dot, who is based on Kendrick’s actual seventeen year old self. This story begins from the first person perspective of naive K.Dot, who is characterized by a raspy, inflicted voice. The lyrics of this character show the ignorance and lack of direction in his life, as well his self-doubts and impressionability. It is eventually revealed that K.Dot has a passion for music. While K.Dot is a good kid at heart who is not gang affiliated, his innocence is tainted by the desires of the Compton lifestyle. After a violent encounter, a transformation begins to occurs from within K.Dot. He realizes that the negative influences of gang culture have corrupted him,
Tupac Shakur was born on June 16th, 1971, with the name Lesane Crooks. His name was switched to Tupac Amaru II almost a year later. He was born in New York and lived primarily in Harlem till he was 13. In 1984 he moved to Baltimore where he lived for four years until he moved to Oakland. When he was younger he struggled in life because his family was poor and had to move. Mostly Everyone in Tupac’s life was part of the Black Panther
In my opinion, Kendrick Lamar, an award-winning rapper and songwriter, has one of the best abilities to describe his distressed and abused lifestyle in Compton, California. He is not your original cliché artist who does not speak about anything meaningful. Kendrick, also known as K. Dot, is one of the most well known and most respected rappers in this era. Not only does he speak about his gloomy past, but he also speaks about his fortunate future. His ability to give detailed representations of his struggles and his story telling allows me to, metaphorically, enter the mind of Kendrick Lamar.
Davis is a platinum selling rapper he began writing his remarkable music. His music altered the course of hip hop. Every success was followed by a setback. Incarceration, violence, rap beefs, and drug addiction all took place in Gucci’s life. But Gucci Mane has learned from his mistakes and is changing for his future. Throughout his life, he loved to rap with his friends and cousins but never actually tried to career in music since he was into all the bad stuff in Atlanta. One day, he decided to go check out the rap “game.” He feel in love with rap and made many mixtapes. Many people began to recognize him and started to listen to his music. His friends would help him out by selling drugs and giving the customers a free CD. Some of the Atlantic people would not want the CD but eventually ended up hearing it. Gucci has been nominated in the BET awards 3 times. In 2017, he collaborated with Fifth Harmony and won a VMA award for best pop video for the song “Down.” Gucci Mane has also collaborated with many other artists such as Migos. Migos is a trio; Quavo, Offset, and Takeoff. Gucci met them long before they were really famous. He really liked their vocals so Gucci invited them into his squad “The Brick Squad.” Gucci Mane had 11 albums and many mixtapes. His recent album came out on October 2017 “Mr. Davis.” Since then, Gucci has been a successful
Kendrick Lamar grew up in the city of Compton. Lamar’s father was a member of a gang in Chicago before they moved to Compton. His mother’s brothers had ties to the notorious gang the Compton Crips. When Lamar was eight
When thinking of the Hip-Hop industry, one of the first names that comes to mind is Tupac Shakur. Shakur was born in the Bronx on June 16, 1971. He was reared by his mother Afeni Shakur who was an active member of the Black Panthers. Tupac's family later relocated to Oakland, California, where he spent much of his time on the street. As a kid, he was always getting himself into trouble, and he was very lonely. He started writing songs to keep himself out of trouble. An article from VIBE magazine "Troubled Times for Tupac Shakur" quotes Tupac. "'I was lonely, I didn't have no big brothers, no big cousins until later. I could remember writing songs.... I remember writing poetry.' " 1 Tupac was talented in the areas of
That's when Tupac began to hang out with the wrong crowd. When he turned 15, he fell into rap, and started writing lyrics, forming his New York background for all it was worth. He called himself Mc New York and made people believe he was a tough guy. By the time Tupac was 20 he had been arrested eight times, and served eight months in prison, after being convicted of sexual abuse.
Instead, he attempts to connect to the events going on and the emotions that the unspoken youth deal with it Chicago. On song such as the intoxication of the album, “The Neighborhood,” Common exemplifies this by describing how many of the current situations goes all the way back to his childhood when drugs were easily tangible. Going deeper into the soundtracks, on his speaker knocking track, “Kingdom,” he captures the point of view of the youth by saying, “Dead presidents, we want the same face/And to think, me and the president, we from the same place,” meaning the kids in Chicago hustle via drug dealing just to get currency of presidents that were from their state, Illinois. As a lyricist, Common has always performed his best on tracks when he has a specific topic to write about, whether it was the concept of metaphorically rapping about Hip Hop being someone he fell out of love with like his single, “I Used to Love H.E.R.”or life in his neighborhood from youth like in his song, "The Corner." With such a deep and touching topic that acquired his best effort yet, vocalizing deep lyrics like, “Listening to this preacher as he tryin’ to reach us/I’ma need to go back, I gots to get
Musical themes are extremely different between the two genres. Hip Hop is a lot harder and can have much darker and serious undertones. Social matters are common topics for rappers, they use their fame and music as platforms to address unjust actions in our society. Especially black social issues since the genre is dominated by black men. For example, in Kendrick Lamar’s album “To Pimp a Butterfly” he addresses racism that people still see on a daily basis. He also brings up the rampant rise of materialism in society and how its changing the people for the worst. There another facet of Hip Hop that is the exact opposite of what Kendrick Lamar is doing, many artists are just in the game for the wealth and luxury it brings. Many of the artists glamorize drug use, promiscuity and gang life. Pop is much different, the music generally much livelier and is crafted for the purpose of dancing and having a good time. It also tends to be much more radio friendly giving it a much broader audience. Pop artists also have the ability to use their platforms to speak up for issues they believe in, but it doesn’t always work in their favor. In 2003 the Dixie Chicks had spoken about their opposition to the war in Iraq and lost a huge part of their audience almost overnight. In