The world was suddenly his oyster, and a deal with Interscope and Dre’s own Aftermath Entertainment followed in March 2012.
An album so acclaimed that it saw no lesser artists than Snoop Dogg, Dre and The Game crown Kendrick the “New King Of the West Coast” live on stage in Los Angeles. With the head of steam bought on by the success of “Overly Dedicated”, Kendrick released his debut album “Section.80” the following year. Dre that took notice of him thanks to the track “Ignorance is Bliss”, and it has lead to a series of collaborations that continue to this day. However, it wasn’t until 2010, the release of his fourth mixtape “Overly Dedicated”, and the retirement of his stage name that the wider world started taking notice of him. A couple of other mixtapes followed, along with the formation of Black Hippy, a collective featuring him and fellow West Coast upstarts Jay Rock, Ab-Soul and Schoolboy Q. Dre filming the video for “California Love” as being one of the formative experiences of his life.īy the age of 16, Kendrick had adopted the moniker of K-Dot and released his first mixtape, which was enough to get him a record deal with Top Dawg Entertainment, a respected indie label and training ground for major labels.
Kendrick still credits watching his idols Tupac Shakur and Dr. At first stories, then poems, and then inspired by his love of hip-hop, lyrics. However, all of it inspired the young Kendrick, who was a straight A student who loved writing. Unfortunately, Compton wasn’t much better and Kendrick grew up around some legitimately dangerous stuff. Hell, he’s struggled as much as anyone born and raised in Compton, California did, but it can’t have helped that his parents moved there from Chicago because his father was directly associated with the notorious Gangster Disciples gang. Not Kendrick, however, he did it the old fashioned way, and every piece of attention he’s gotten has been through astonishing music fans with his skill on the mic.This is not to say that it all happened for Kendrick overnight though, Kendrick struggled as much as anyone in hip-hop did. Quite a few of them have been able to piggy-back off some controversy or another and score a hit with a meaningless, sell-out piece of daytime radio fodder.
Very few hip-hop artists have caused such a stir for all the right reasons in such comparatively little time. If you’re a hip-hop fan, you already know this man.
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