Kendrick Lamar features on his newest album, good kid, m.A.A.d city, a song entitled "Sing About Me, I'm Dying of Thirst." This 12:03 minute song adds to the albums theme of Kendrick rapping about his past experiences of living in Compton. The song is split up into two parts; Sing About Me and I'm Dying of Thirst. The three verses in the first part are all from different point of views. In the first verse he raps from the perspective of a friend of Kendrick's whose brother has just been killed with Kendrick by his side. Kendrick's friend seems to be talking to Kendrick on the phone and he tells him that he is happy for Kendrick for being able to rise from Compton, aka the m.A.A.d city, and not succumb to the gang violence and other bad influences the city has to offer. On the other hand, Kendrick's friend is a VICTIM of Compton (I capitalize victim because this message Kendrick is trying to get across is positive and not negative). The song reads "Everybody's a victim in my eyes/ When I ride, it's a murderous rhythm and outside became pitch black/ A demon glued to my back whispering, 'Get em'/ I got 'em, and I ain't give a fuck." Kendrick uses the imagery of a murderous rhythm and the blackness outside to show how Compton is a dark place to be raised and his friend is subconsciously being told by himself, "a demon glued to my back," to go out and seek revenge for his lost brother.
In the next verse, the point of view comes from a sister of a prostitute who Kendrick rapped about in his previous album, Section.80, in a song called "Keisha's Song (Her Pain)". Keisha's sister is yelling at Kendrick for featuring her sister's private life in his album which in turn has effected his and her life of being a prostitute as well. She goes on to acknowledge that it isn't her fault that she has taken this path in life by saying, "See, my hormones just run away and if i can get 'em back/ to where they used to be then I'll probably be in the denim/ Of a family gene that show women hot to be woman/ Or better yet, a leader, you need her to learn somethin'/ Then you probably need to beat her, that's how I was taught." The play on the word "gene" in reference to denim shows the importance of this line. She is saying that maybe if she grew up in a place where she was loved instead of a foster home she wouldn't be in the place she is now.
In the final verse, the audience finally gets Kendrick's point of view where he brings it all together. After asking himself if he is scared of dying he says "If it's today, i hope i hear a/ Cry out from heaven so loud it can water down a demon/ With the holy ghost 'til it drown in the blood of Jesus." He references a lot of biblical terms to show how when he dies he hope to make it to heaven even though he is surrounded by sin. Finally he gets to the "what" of his song, he ends up speaking to the earlier speakers in the song and tells them that he needed to sing about them because if he didn't then he would be "Cursing the life of twenty generations after her soul." Kendrick is sharing his experience with the world from these different points of view in order to show people "something that's realer than the TV screen" in order to save his hometown of Compton.
I thought this was a really cool post. I'd never heard this before, but it seems like a genius song. I like how he is able to reveal a lot about his background and how its affected him on a personal level.
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