Furthermore, scrawled under the battered Chrysler are the words “a short film by Kendrick Lamar,” adding to the hauntological vibrations. Type “Good Kid M.A.A.D City House” into Google Earth and you’ll find the rapper’s childhood home in Compton, and pictures of fans assembled outside like they’re at Graceland. Intriguingly, while this photo offers less in the way of visual portents, the house itself has become a shrine to fans.

Lamar’s mother’s van, parked on the street in front of their family home, appears on the cover, shot through a fisheye lens. Kendrick Lamar, good kid, m.A.A.d cityĮxhibit two, mounted on the cover for the deluxe version of good kid, m.A.A.d city, is not as easy to read. “That photo says so much about my life and about how I was raised in Compton and the things I’ve seen,” said Lamar. Potential downfalls are hiding in plain sight in a picture as symbolically rich as Holbein’s The Ambassadors. On closer inspection, the photograph is communicating dangers via signifiers, such as a bottle of alcohol sitting on the table-something he’ll addressed on ‘Swimming Pools (Drank)” meanwhile, the uncle whose lap young Kendrick is sitting on is throwing a surreptitious gang sign with his left hand. A few years after this photo was taken, Kendrick, aged just five, would witness a teenage drug dealer gunned down before his eyes, and the year before, he’d seen mass rioting in the streets following the infamous attack on Rodney King by LAPD officers. In an interesting visual twist, the eyes of these other figures are blacked out with identity-obscuring oblongs, while the toddler-who you’d expect to be the protected party here-stares into the lens. Moore’s excellent new biography The Butterfly Effect: How Kendrick Lamar Ignited The Soul Of Black America, that is indeed Lamar in diminutive form, with two teenage uncles and his grandfather sitting to his left. Kendrick Lamar, good kid, m.A.A.d cityĮxhibit one, for the initial 12-track release, is a picture we’re to assume is of the baby Kendrick surrounded by three older figures who may be relatives. While personal to the artist, these pictures from the early ’90s have a familiarity to the beholder too, even if they’re not our own memories. It’s a cinematic roman-à-clef that comes at you out of sequence-memory isn’t linear, after all-and the two photographs chosen for two editions of the album conjure up different but connected memories from the immediate past: one is a family scene from a kitchen, and the other, a van sitting in the driveway of Lamar’s old house. The cover art meanwhile provides two stories, perhaps offering us a glimpse into an alternative future. Kendrick Lamar’s major label debut tells the story of a kid growing up in Compton, Los Angeles, circumnavigating the pitfalls of gang life, whether by accident or design. In 2012, good kid, m.A.A.d city brought hip hop’s finest new storyteller to the attention of the masses.

Good kid maad city deluxe poster