Kendrick Lamar Talks Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown In New XXL Magazine Issue

Starting off the year, Kendrick Lamar was already one of the leading voices in hip-hop and the culture. Dubbed a “writer a war” by XXL Magazine back in January, this Compton kingpin shocked the world with one of the clearest, most concise and exemplary pieces of art in a long time — To Pimp a Butterfly.

The album has accompanied another tragic year where black lives did not matter to politicians and police. Throughout that madness of brutality and brouhaha, Kendrick’s magnum opus has become a rallying cry for those within the #BlackLivesMatter movement (“Alright”) and an example at the creative force people of color emit to cut through the bullshit of inequality.

As the year comes to a close and music pundits anticipating hearing Kendrick Lamar’s name during February’s Grammys (of which TDE’s franchise player is nominated 11 times) — XXL Magazine closes out 2015 with another op-ed for the venerable hip-hop publication. In an astonishing reveal, Kendrick not only covers XXL‘s Winter 2015 issue, he also penned his own cover story, which finds King Kunta reacting to his wild-and-crazy three-and-a-half years.

“It’s funny because I ask other artists about their experience with success,” the XXL excerpt reads from K Dot. “I wanna know what happened to them. Did you feel how I feel? When did everything change for you? When did you start noticing the ways you were acting differently?” he posits. From the time good kid, m.A.A.d. city dropped until when “Blacker The Berry” did, audiences were becoming well acquainted with the musings of Kendrick Lamar.

Elsewhere in the self-penned piece, he examines the turning point in his life and career, how those changes affect his everyday life now and spoke on the social injustices that claimed the lives of Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland and other people of color. “The past few years or so has been very politically charged and controversial. All of it has really struck a nerve with me because when you experience things like that personally and you know the type of hardships and pain that it brings first-hand, it builds a certain rage in you,” he explains.

Kendrick details an example that many young black boys and girls know too often in varying degrees. For me, it was being held at gunpoint by numerous state troopers who thought I fit the profile of a black man who stole two cars. Finding out that we were being filmed on camera by a racist white man with a CB radio was an eye-opening experience that was just one of many that I would go on to witness. For Kendrick, the memory of seeing the police kicking in the door, being stomped out by them and handcuffed on his front yard is a painful memory that exemplifies that point of To Pimp a Butterfly and his XXL op-ed.

“It brings back some of the most painful memories and deepest thoughts of real life situations that I didn’t even want to address on good kid. Or wasn’t ready to. Rage is the perfect word for it,” he writes.

With Kendrick Lamar now two full-length projects in and a world-slash-industry that is hailing him as “The Chosen One,” Kendrick admits that he is still trying to figure out who he is. “I’m sitting there thinking, ‘These kids are really listening to me.’ But why am I the one to get this opportunity?” That journey is one worth paying attention to, as Kendrick continues to put answers to questions that we all want, his latest evolution is the culmination of love and energy well-received.

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