Kendrick Lamar was born on June 17th, 1987. He is an American songwriter and rapper who grew up in Compton, California. He became who he is today by how he grew up.
Kendrick Lamar’s parents, Paula Oliver and Kenneth Duckworth, were both raised in Southside Chicago. Kenneth had an affiliation with “Gang Disciples” so that’s when the couple decided to move to Compton, California 3 years before Kendrick was born.
When Kendrick Lamar was about 5 years old he saw his first murder right outside of his apartment. When he reached the age of 8 he witnessed his second murder while walking home from school. Although Kendrick wasn’t in any gangs, he was close with some affiliates of gangs in his childhood. The crimes he witnessed when he was younger are now what he writes about in a lot of his songs and music.
In 7th grade when Kendrick was in English class he was introduced to poetry and when he was 16 he released his first mixtape under the name of K.Dot. A while after Kendrick signed a contract with Top Dawg Entertainment. Throughout the years he started to work with a couple more music artists under the name of Jay Rock and Ya Boy who were other West Coast rappers.
In 2009 he co-signed with Lil Wayne and a while later he decided to drop his stage name which was his first and middle name, Kendrick Lamar. Throughout these past 14 years or so Kendrick has released about 5 studio albums that go by the names of Section 80, Good Kid, M.A.A.D City, To Pimp A Butterfly, Damn, and Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers. Not only has he released those albums but he has also released one EP, 5 mixtapes, and 65 singles.
Kendrick has won many awards over the years. He has a total of 47 Grammy nominations and a total of 17 Grammy wins and plenty of other awards such as 37 BET Hip Hop Awards, 11 MTV Video Music Awards, and 1 Primetime Emmy Award, and has received plenty more of various awards throughout the time he has started releasing music.
In 2016 he also made an appearance on Beyonces new album, Lemonade. The song was called “Freedom” and it won Kendrick Lamar a Grammy for his participation in the album by Beyonce.
Another time in 2017 when Kendrick Lamar dropped his album, DAMN, the song “Humble” on this album got super popular and made him win Grammys for best rap album, best rap song, best rap performance, and music video all for the hit song “Humble.” Another song on that same Kendrick album also got a reward for best rap/sung performance. It went by the name of Loyalty which featured the other music artist Rihanna. DAMN became the first non-classical or jazz recording to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for music.
