Wiki
-
Length
4:08
As a closing track for the album, Kendrick teams up with the executive producer and West coast legend Dr. Dre.
Other than “Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe”, this is the only track from present-day Kendrick’s perspective. In an interview with Google Play, Kendrick spoke on the song:
"I wrote the lyrics the day I met Dre. I easily got inspired, I just started writing. And that was actually the first studio session I had with Dre. That’s the last song on the album for a specific reason. That’s the first song I did with Dre, that was the start of my new life."
The song acts as an epilogue to the story, in which Kendrick is looking retrospectively upon the events of the narrative/his own life experiences and conveying how he’s turned himself away from a potential life of crime, alcoholism, violence etc. instead becoming someone he’s more proud of and someone who can try to tell the younger generations living in similar situations that they can turn their lives around too. The album then comes full circle by including the lines that precede the albums first track.
Lamar told Complex in October 2012:
"One of the reasons why it’s the perfect song is that the history behind that song is incredible. It was the first song I ever recorded with Dre. It was the first time meeting him and actually walking in the studio, that was the beat that was playing. He was testing me out, to see if I could—that’s really me rapping, better than here. That was the first song. It was a great experience. I’ll never forget that exact moment."
Producer and co-writer Just Blaze added:
"We always knew that the record was gonna be about Compton. Even before we made the decision to definitely make it a Dre and Kendrick record. Originally that was for Detox. We were trying to figure out who we were gonna put on it and there were a couple of revisions."
According to Songfacts, Kendrick told BBC radio:
"It came to a point where I had to really snap out of fan mode and become a professional because after we were introduced, he said he liked my music and I said that I’m a fan of his work,“ he recalled. "Then he said, ‘Okay, now write to this, write a full song to this’. Right after I said ‘Man, Dr. Dre, you’re the greatest’ and he was like, ‘Yeah man, you’re good too, you could be something… alright now write to this beat’. And that beat ended up being the first song I did with him and ended up on my album called "Compton"."
Track descriptions on Last.fm are editable by everyone. Feel free to contribute!
All user-contributed text on this page is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply.
