good kids, m.A.A.d. cities: Jesus-K.Dot, Jerusalem-Compton

Daniel Ledford

Yale Divinity SchoolReligion 545

Prof. Michal Beth DinklerDecember 4, 2014

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Introduction

The setting of a narrative gives the reader the pertinent details

to identify the story, plot, and characters of the narrative and to

interpret their meaning. While some scholars claim that setting is not

as important to the narrative as the plot or the characters, a look at

the Lukan Passion Narrative in relation to Kendrick Lamar’s good kid,

m.A.A.d. city (2012; Top Dawg Entertainment, Aftermath Entertainment,

Interscope Records) can illumine the importance of the setting in

narrative. One could argue that such a juxtaposition is sacrilegious

or unimportant1, yet for the field of literary theory, narrative

criticism, biblical studies, and cultural studies, this paper is an

attempt to further define the importance of the narrative and

narrative elements in the New Testament. Specifically, the setting as

an element of the narrative (plot, story) is found to play a major

1 See Richard Shusterman, “Challenging Conventions in the Fine Art of Rap,” inThat’s the Joint! The Hip-Hop Studies Reader, eds. Murray Forman and Mark Anthony Neal, 459-479 (New York: Routledge, 2004), for the argument that rap goes against the indictments of popular art in postmodernity, as a complex, historical, philosophical, and self-conscious art form, and Greg Dimitriadis, Performing Identity/Performing Culture: Hip Hop as Text, Pedagogy, and Lived Practice (New York: Peter Lang, 2009), 44, for the argument of rap as a “commodified art form--complete with narratives and three-part song structures.”

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role in the Lukan text, with the narrative of Kendrick Lamar acting as

our 20th century “cognitive map”2 to look at the effects of narrative

setting in an ancient (literary) text. Through a narrative analysis of

the settings of the ‘expanded’ Lukan Passion Narrative (Luke 19:28-48;

22-24) and Kendrick Lamar’s good kid, m.A.A.d. city (12 tracks; 68 min., 23

sec.), this paper will show that the settings of these ‘texts’ are one

of the most important features of the narrative, framing the plot and

characterizing the protagonist who reacts to the settings of the

‘hostile3 city’ (Jerusalem and Compton), only to be ontologically

changed and no longer threatened by the hostility of the city, but

serving as a model for the future characters of the ‘hostile city’

(disciples to current Israel-Palestine relations and YG to future

youth of Compton). In framing the Lukan Passion Narrative within the

contemporary setting of hip-hop, the ‘hostile city’ as archetype in

narrative settings is constructed.

Theory

2 “...20th century ‘cognitive maps,’ by which we select, sort, and comprehend the material we read in the New Testament.” David Rhoads, “Social Criticism: Crossing Boundaries,” in Mark & Method: New Approaches in Biblical Studies, eds. Janice Capel Anderson and Stephen D. Moore, 135-170 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 135-136. 3 “opposed in feeling, action, or character; antagonistic,” (as different from“of, pertaining to, or characteristic of an enemy”). hostile. Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hostile (accessed: December 03, 2014).

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In literary studies, setting has numerous definitions and

appraisals. Probably the most referenced work in narratology (and

specifically here, literary setting), is Seymour Chatman’s Story and

Discourse (1978).4 Chatman includes a small section on setting in his

chapter on characters and narrative-space, known as “existents.” For

Chatman, “Characters exist and move in a space which exists abstractly

at the deep narrative level, that is, prior to any kind of

materialization...The setting ‘sets the character off’ in the usual

figurative sense of the expression; it is the place and collection of

objects ‘against which’ his actions and passions appropriately

emerge.”5 Chatman’s attitude towards setting is complex. At first, he

seems to argue that setting is secondary in importance to characters;

yet, he goes on to claim that the “principal function of setting is to

contribute to the mood of the narrative.” Furthermore, he claims that

setting-elements have a greater function than as just ‘things’ in the

story, and the reader can begin to associate certain feelings with

certain objects (props) or settings.6 Although Chatman denotes the

importance of setting (enough so that he includes it as a section in

his book), and discusses the five types of settings set forth by 4 Seymour Chatman, Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1978). This is not an outrageous claim, according toGoogle, whose statistics state that this work by Chatman has been cited by 3,963 other works.5 Ibid., 138-139.6 Ibid., 141-142.

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Robert Liddell, Chatman’s analysis is most convincing when he claims

that characters serve a different role than setting-elements, thus

perhaps making them more important too.7 Chatman claims that characters

are “difficult to presuppose,” meaning that characters are

intentionally included in the narrative scene, whether “announced or

strongly implied”; however, the setting has to be ‘authenticated’ by

the reader/hearer through a ‘filling in’ of the necessary setting-

elements.8

Mark Allan Powell and James Resseguie utilize Chatman’s theory of

setting to analyze setting in the New Testament. Powell defines

setting as follows: “Settings represent that aspect of the narrative

that provides context for the actions of the characters.”9 Resseguie

defines setting as “the background against which the narrative actions

takes place.”10 In both of these definitions, and going back to

Chatman’s definition of setting, context is the primary qualifier for

the function of setting in a literary work. Yet, as addressed above,

7 Ibid., 143. Liddell’s five setting types as described by Chatman: utilitarian (low keyed, minimally necessary for action, untouched by emotion), symbolic (tight relation with action), irrelevant (unimportant and unnoticed by characters), inner landscapes (reminiscent), kaleidoscopic (shift from real and fantasy, outer world, inner imaginative world). Robert Liddell, A Treatise on the Novel (London: J. Cape, 1947).8 Chatman, Story and Discourse, 141.9 Mark Allan Powell, What is Narrative Criticism? (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990), 69.10 James Resseguie, Narrative Criticism of the New Testament: An Introduction (Grand Rapids:Baker Academic, 2005), 87, from William Harmon and C. Hugh Holman, A Handbook to Literature, 8th ed. (Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 1999), 147.

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Chatman’s hierarchy of setting within primary literary elements is not

reproduced by Powell and Resseguie. Powell claims, “Chatman says the

demarcation between settings and characters (‘existents’) is not

simple but a continuum.”11 Powell argues that Chatman misses that,

unlike characters, settings do not espouse a particular point of view,

yet, “settings may be characterized as possessing certain descriptive

qualities.”12 Settings can become character-like and can be ascribed

traits; then, settings can espouse a point of view as ‘truer’

characters, rather than just “walk-ons” (or character-like setting-

elements such as crowds) as Chatman argues.13 Powell sums this up

convincingly:

They [settings] too are not limited to the functional role they serve in the story but have the capacity to transcend that role. Some settings become so clearly entrenched in themind of the reader that they, like memorable characters, take on a life of their own. The reader can easily imagine events not reported in the narrative occurring within these settings.14

Resseguie gives setting a prominent role in the narrative as

well:

Although not all settings are pregnant with meaning, seldom do they merely fill in the background detail. Setting may develop a character’s mental, emotional, or spiritual landscape; it may be symbolic of choices to be made; it

11 Powell, What is Narrative Criticism?, 69.12 Ibid.13 Ibid., 170. Chatman, Story and Discourse, 139.14 Powell, What is Narrative Critcism, 69-70.

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provides structure to the story and may develop the central conflict in a narrative.15

Furthermore, Resseguie claims that “a close reading of setting adds to

the interpretation of characterization, plot, theme, and point of

view.”16 This is the viewpoint espoused by the analysis in this paper;

yet, here, setting is given a primary role in narrative as both a

framework and as causative to the plot, theme, and characterization of

Jesus-Christ and K.Dot-Kendrick Lamar. The setting of these two

narratives (Lukan Passion and good kid, m.A.A.d. city), as an archetypal

‘hostile city,’ embraces the character-like role that Powell presents,

impacting the protagonist and transcending the text.

These are the theoretical definitions and parameters of narrative

setting, but what types of settings exist? Powell discusses three

types of settings: spatial, temporal, and social. Powell draws on the

importance of Mieke Bal’s theory of ‘inside and outside’ spatial

settings.17 These are both a dichotomy and a paradox. Inside settings

can connote ‘protection or security,’ but they can also suggest

‘confinement.’ Outside settings can connote ‘danger’ or ‘freedom.’18

More importantly, we can think of inside-outside in terms of urban-

15 Resseguie, Narrative Criticism of the New Testament, 88.16 Ibid., 94.17 See Mieke Bal, Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative, trans. Christine vanBoheemen (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988), 44.18 Powell, What is Narrative Criticism?, 70-71. Resseguie, Narrative Criticism of the New Testament, 100-101.

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suburban-rural in the Lukan Passion Narrative and good kid, m.A.A.d. city.

Inherent in this tripartite spatial theory is also the boundaries

between them. The boundaries can be fluid or rigid, and they can

denote an opposition or paradox. Again, setting is not given its due

here. Bal’s spatial theory for setting goes on to explain how the

description of a locale is an end in itself because it only describes

necessary details for the plot and lacks ‘sensory data.’ Additionally,

according to Powell, Gospel settings are limited to utilitarian and

dramatic effect, where a paucity of detail heightens our attention to

the inclusion of detail, or when it is utilized in the text.19

Powell defines temporal settings as chronological and

typological. Chronological temporality includes ‘locative,’ a

particular point in time when action takes place, and ‘durative,’

which denotes an interval of time. Typological temporality is a ‘kind

of time’ within which an action transpires (night-day).20 Powell also

includes Paul Ricoeur’s theory of mortal time and monumental time,

which will be helpful here as a model for our eventual distinction

between setting-elements and archetypal setting (‘hostile city’).

Mortal time is the time of the characters in the action of the story

while monumental time is the broad sense of time that transcends

19 Powell, What is Narrative Criticism?, 70-72.20 Ibid., 72-73.

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history and is not measured by the characters.21 This bipartite

distinction of narrative time can be applied to narrative setting. As

with mortal time, setting-elements can be seen as dealing with the

‘ground floor’ of the story. It frames the characters, provides spaces

and places for them, and exhibits actions. Similar to monumental time,

archetypal setting (or ‘setting’ as a general reference to the grander

setting of the narrative, both within and without the text) is not

distinct from setting-elements because it does not interact with the

characters of the story, but because it acts as a character itself and

transcends the history and temporality of the narrative. It becomes

narrative itself, like monumental time.

The archetypal setting, here the ‘hostile city,’ acts as a

narrative identity itself (with character-like qualities that are

‘inter-subjective or distributed’ out of the text like knowledge from

one’s brain and become the ‘stuff of culture’ at the macro level)22,

transcendent to the metaphysical realm of literary and other types,

such as the transcendence of the Bildungsroman in and out of genre

archetype. The archetypal city setting for biblical studies has often

21 Ibid., 73-74. Resseguie, Narrative Criticism of the New Testament, 108-110.22 Mark Freeman, “From substance to story: Narrative, identity, and the reconstruction of the self,” in Narrative and Identity: Studies in Autobiography, Self, and Culture, eds. Jens Brockmeier and Donal Carbaugh, 283-298 (Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2001), 290; Dimitriadis, Performing Identity/Performing Culture, 124.

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been Babylon23, as a symbol of immorality, impiety, and ignorance; but,

in the New Testament, Jerusalem is almost theoretically juxtaposed to

Babylon, given a greater significance through the passion of Christ as

a ‘hostile city,’ while the idea of a New Jerusalem emerges as a post-

apocalyptic celestial city. This idea of archetypal ‘hostile city’

will be discussed further below through analysis of the primary texts.

The third and final type of setting that Powell presents is the

social setting. The social setting portrays the social circumstances:

political institutions, class structures, economic systems, social

customs, and general cultural context assumed to be operative in the

work.24 While Powell’s analysis of these three major categories of

setting is enlightening, we should keep an open mind about how we

define the parameters of setting, as we have already begun to do with

the theory of archetypal setting. Resseguie can help us think in terms

of an all-inclusive continuum of setting categories and types, for he

includes the following settings: geographical, topographical,

religious, architectural, social, cultural, political, temporal,

spatial, Chatman’s “walk-ons” (minor characters), and props.25

Lastly, before doing a critical reading of the two texts, we

should define some aspects of this study and demarcate our parameters.

23 Graham Ward, Cities of God (New York: Routledge, 2000), 33.24 Powell, What is Narrative Criticism?, 74.25 Resseguie, Narrative Criticism of the New Testament, 93-94.

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First, we should define how we are approaching setting in these two

texts. Chatman implies that character identity is important, that

named characters are important and impressionable to the reader (as

opposed to “walk-ons” who are a but “parts of the dismal setting”).26

For our analysis of narrative setting, we can take a similar approach.

Jerusalem and Compton are both named spaces and are thus very

important to the narrative, and are the nominal identifiers for the

archetypal ‘hostile city.’ Moreover, we can also understand the term

city to act as a stand in for the formal city name, having the same

impact on the narrative setting as the formal name of the cities

themselves (this does not mean that when the formal city names are

used that this is not a heightened awareness of setting in the

narrative). For both the Lukan and K.Dot narratives, the ‘city’ refers

to the hostile environment in which their plots are enacted, their

stories are told and unfold, and where they are persecuted and

subjected to hostility.

Second, we should think about the setting of these two

narratives, or stories, within the frame of how narrative works and

functions. Gérard Genette delineates ‘narrative’ into order, duration,

frequency, mood, and voice.27 Order and duration are important to

26 Chatman, Story and Discourse, 139.27 Gérard Genette, Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method, trans. Jane E Lewin (Ithaca:Cornell University Press, 1980 [French, 1972]), 34.

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remember when analyzing setting because the narrative structure of the

text can be followed most accurately through the setting, i. e. the

urban contexts of Jerusalem and Compton. Additionally, the frequency

with which the setting is determined insists that the narrative

transcends the urban fabric (archetypal ‘hostile city’), yet is

mediated and grounded by specific public/private spaces (setting-

elements), such as an inner courtyard, temple, Golgotha, Mount of

Olives, amongst large crowds, Church’s Chicken, Rosecrans Avenue,

Lueders Park, etc. With these things in mind, let us move into the

texts themselves, beginning with the ‘expanded’ Lukan Passion

Narrative.

Jerusalem - Luke 19:28-24:53

In the following critical analysis of the settings (geo-

topographical, temporal, social, cultural, etc.) of the ‘expanded’

Lukan Passion Narrative28, specific instances of setting and setting-

elements in these chapters and verses will show that Jerusalem and its

identification as the ‘city’ create the archetype of ‘hostile city’ in

the Lukan text.

28 Perhaps more appropriately called the Jerusalem narrative here. The PassionNarrative proper begins at Luke 22:39 and ends at 23:56, yet here I have included the larger Jerusalem narrative to show the ‘setting up’ of the Jerusalem/city setting when the narrative begins and the future of the ‘hostile city’ post-resurrection in Luke 24.

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Beginning with the triumphal entry into Jerusalem in Luke 19:28,

Jerusalem as ‘city’ is defined. Geographically, Jerusalem is

juxtaposed with its surrounding towns (Bethphage and Bethany), the

Mount of Olives, and a village. As Jesus and his entourage near the

city, Jesus sees the city, ‘wept over it,’ and gives the prophecy of

the destruction of Jerusalem in Luke 19:41-44. Jesus does a very

interesting thing, verbally, in this passage; he refers to Jerusalem

in the second person singular, ‘you.’ Not only does he refer to

Jerusalem in this manner, but he also uses a form of ‘you’ fifteen

different times in these three verses. Jesus personifies the city of

Jerusalem himself! He characterizes Jerusalem, the city, as a

collective unit: its people, its things, its spaces, its cultures, its

histories. The rhetoric of Jesus in this passage gives the reader an

early cue that Jerusalem is qualitatively different from the other

settings of this gospel.

Shortly after Jesus enters Jerusalem, he goes to the temple,

cleanses it, and teaches there daily. In v. 47, the reader is

presented with another type of setting, “The chief priests, the

scribes, and the leaders of the people kept looking for a way to kill

him [Jesus]...” This hostile social setting grounds the hostility

within Jerusalem immediately in the narrative. The hostile social

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setting will develop further in the narrative into a hostile religious

and cultural/political setting as well.

The first reference to Jerusalem as a continuous (thus, future)

setting of hostility occurs in Luke 21:12-19. In these verses, Jesus

tells the disciples that when he is gone they will be ‘arrested and

persecuted,’ ‘handed over to synagogues and prisons,’ ‘and brought

before kings and governors.’ This is a foreshadowing of Jesus’ arrest,

trial, and persecution in the next chapter of the narrative, which

occurs in the same Jerusalem that the disciples will remain after

Jesus’ ascension (24:49, 52-53). This idea of a continuous ‘hostile

city’ will be evaluated later.

Jesus makes a second prophecy about the destruction of Jerusalem

in Luke 21:20-24. But, in this second prophecy, Jesus does not

characterize the city of Jerusalem; instead, he uses the concept of

setting dichotomy and boundary to further signify Jerusalem as a

‘hostile city,’ and as an ‘other’ space. In v. 21, Jesus says “those

inside the city must leave it, and those out in the country must not

enter it.” Here, Jesus creates the city-country dichotomy and utilizes

the actions of leaving and entering to denote the boundary between

them.

After several occurrences of social contempt or hostility towards

Jesus by the religious leaders in the city in Luke 20-22, the Passion

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Narrative proper begins with Jesus going to Gethsemane in Luke 22:39.

In v. 43-44, Jesus’ character receives courage and strength from an

angel and sweats profusely. This characterization of Jesus is

important because it shows that the hostile settings of the city of

Jerusalem are having a visible effect (to the reader only) on Jesus’

character. At Jesus’s arrest, he shows an attitude of anti-hostility

in Luke 22:49-51 when he heals the injured servant’s ear. This action

of anti-hostility to the group of people arresting him, who are a part

of the hostile social setting of Jerusalem, promotes the

characterization of Jesus as the antagonist of the ‘hostile city.’

In the scenes of Jesus’ captivity and trials, we can utilize

Bal’s paradox of inside-outside space. In Luke 22:57-68, Jesus is in

an inside, or private, space of the Sanhedrin and Jewish guards. This

inside space acts as a hostile spatial setting because it is a space

filled with a hostile social setting. The characters present in this

spatial setting directly define the essence of the spatial setting

through their hostile social/religious/political natures. Similarly,

the outside setting of “walk-ons,” or the crowd, in Luke 23:13-26,

when Jesus is before Pilate, is a hostile setting, spatially,

socially, culturally, politically, and religiously. Within this

hostile setting is a subtle and nuanced hostility between Rome and

Judea, as Luke includes Herod in the trials of Jesus. This geo-

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political move by the author further denotes the hostility of

Jerusalem within itself and in a larger context of the Roman Empire.

This is expanded upon later in Luke 23:38, because the Lukan author

includes three different languages on the sign above Jesus’ head on

the cross. The inclusion, only in Luke, of Aramaic, Greek, and Latin

is representative of the cultural hostility that has occurred, is

occurring, and will occur in the city of Jerusalem.

Jesus makes one last prophetic claim about the continued

hostility within Jerusalem on the way to Golgotha. In Luke 23:27-31,

women cry for Jesus, but he tells them not to cry for him (not to cry

for the hostility he has been subjected to!), but for the future

inhabitants of Jerusalem and for their subjection to hostility.

Until this point in the narrative, the character of Jesus has

been subject to hostility through the settings of Jerusalem; socially

through persecution from the religious leaders, politically through

Pilate and Herod (the Jewish and Roman juridical settings), and

spatially through the landscapes of Jerusalem and the places of the

passion narrative. In other words, the protagonist of the narrative,

Jesus, has experienced the narrative in the ‘hostile city.’ The city

of Jerusalem is the ‘hostile city’ and Jesus’ state of being before

his death exposed him to this hostility. But, after his resurrection,

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Jesus’ character is ontologically changed; a character who is no

longer subject to the hostility of the ‘hostile city.’

This occurs in Luke 24:5, when the women approach Jesus’ tomb,

but do not find his body. The angels say to them, “Why do you look for

the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.” These words

signal the reader to the ontological change of the character of Jesus.

He died, was resurrected, and is no longer under the hostility of the

social structures of Jerusalem. His ‘enemies’ can longer influence his

fate as a character. This literary device of the change in character

and resulting change in setting for the character is not apparent

without a strict reading of the text, specifically analyzing the

setting of the narrative. However, what is problematic for the

narrative setting after the resurrection of Jesus is the setting of

the final verses of Luke. After the resurrection, Jesus appears

outside of Jerusalem, first in Emmaus and then in Bethany for his

ascension (Luke 24:13-35, 50-52). This can be interpreted as Jesus’

character not allowing himself to be involved with a confrontation

with his former hostile social setting. He is now clearly divine after

being resurrected and perhaps does not want to interact with his

former ‘hostile city’ until his prophecy of the apocalyptic

destruction of Jerusalem.

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Yet, what is clear in the final verses of the Gospel of Luke is

that Jerusalem will not stop being a ‘hostile city.’ In Luke 24:47, Jesus

claims that the disciples will proclaim the good news, “beginning in

Jerusalem,” and in v. 48 he commands them to “stay here in the city.”

Jesus places the disciples in the ‘hostile city’ of Jerusalem. From

the previous sayings of Jesus, describing the eventual persecution of

the disciples inside and outside of Jerusalem, the reader is aware

that the disciples are now the primary subjects to the ‘hostile city’

of Jerusalem.

And, finally, Luke ends with 24:52-53, where the disciples return

to Jerusalem and are “continually in the temple.” Therefore, the

setting of the Jerusalem narrative ends in the same place that the

narrative began, in the temple in Jerusalem; yet, the protagonist has

changed, and the one(s) who are now the subjects of the ‘hostile city’

are the disciples of Jesus. This is continued in the Acts of the

Apostles as a part of the greater Lukan narrative, specifically the

persecution by and of Paul.

Compton - good kid, m.A.A.d. city

Kendrick Lamar’s first studio album on a major record label

presents a non-linear narrative of a single day in the streets of

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Compton, a city of South Central Los Angeles.29 Popular as a crime-

ridden urban environment, replete with gang violence, and as Kendrick

says, “bodies on top of bodies” (GKMC 8)30, Compton is the archetypal

‘hostile city’ of the 20th and 21st century. And, parallel with the

Jerusalem narrative of Luke, the Compton narrative of K.Dot/Kendrick

Lamar on GKMC features an ontological change of the main character,

the protagonist, K.Dot into Kendrick Lamar, toward the end of the

narrative. This similarity is crucial to understanding the importance

of the setting for the narrative of Luke and GKMC. It is my hope that

the following analysis of a contemporary rap album will help to

illumine the element of setting in narratology and the New Testament.

The opening of GKMC supplies the hearer with an immediate,

possibly hostile, social setting. The skit that opens the first track,

“Sherane, a.k.a. Master Splinter’s Daughter,” features salvation

rhetoric by several characters in which they ask for salvation from

God. This immediate introduction to the narrative could suggest that

29 For background and reception of good kid, m.A.A.d. city (2012), see these album reviews and lyric analyses: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/29/arts/music/kendrick-lamar-and-meek-mill-rappers-with-debut-albums.html?adxnnl=1&pagewanted=all&adxnnlx=1353690918-7E2jie3vlz5/l0x7XzzxfQ&_r=1&http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/good-kid-m-a-a-d-city-20121022http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/bright-lights-mad-city-kendrick-lamar-is-about-to-release-the-best-rap-album-of-the-year/http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/bright-lights-mad-city-kendrick-lamar-is-about-to-release-the-best-rap-album-of-the-year/http://wayback.archive.org/web/20121126060511/http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/posts/la-et-ms-kendrick-lamar-review-20121024,0,6292536.story30 GKMC=good kid, m.A.A.d. city and numbers refer to the track number.

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something has happened for these characters to seek salvation. This

same skit will return later in the narrative, with specific settings

and context with which to interpret its meaning. In the first verse of

“Sherane, a.k.a. Master Splinter’s Daughter, K.Dot recalls a

conversation he had with Sherane about their geographical setting,

thus giving this setting for the remainder of the narrative and for

the hearer. K. Dot asks Sherane where she lives, and she replies “down

the street from Dominguez High.” This is not a specific locale; yet,

K.Dot is persistent, asking Sherane, “Well is it Compton?” In the line

before he claims that he knows that this description is “borderline

Compton or Paramount.” The question, “Well is it Compton?,” sets up

the setting of Compton as ‘hostile city.’ The hearer is not aware of

why the city is hostile and what types of setting-elements Compton

will produce to make it a ‘hostile city,’ but the slight hesitation in

K.Dot’s speech signals the hearer to question why being in Compton is

so important to the narrative. Sherane’s response of “No” is not a

point of focus for K.Dot, who immediately begins his objectification

of Sherane’s sexuality; but, for the hearer, the negative response

from Sherane will linger in the hearer’s ear for a few tracks. Later

in the track the hearer learns that K.Dot wants to see Sherane after

the summer they met so he takes his mother’s van and rides down

Rosecrans Avenue in Compton, a formally named street that is a stand-

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in term for the city of Compton and K.Dot’s traversing of this

‘hostile city’ in the succeeding narrative.

The next two tracks are K.Dot’s idealization of life in Compton

as a member of the ‘hostile’ society. “Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe” is a

hesitant, but aggressively straightforward, track about success. This

track breaks narrative and has foreshadowing, saying that the eventual

Kendrick Lamar’s “city found me put me on stages.” This foreshadows

K.Dot’s metamorphosis into Kendrick Lamar, the successful rapper from

Compton. The third track, “Backseat Freestyle,” is a fully aggressive

track about success and the life that Compton’s youth hope to live. It

includes regular imagery of the Compton lifestyle: cars, pills, money,

power, sex, firearms, and success.

The fourth track is one of the most important of the entire

album. “The Art of Peer Pressure” is an early interpretation of

Compton as the ‘hostile city,’ and chronicles the narrative of a ‘good

kid,’ K.Dot, who is subjected to the hostile environs, or setting, of

Compton via peer pressure. The third line of the track claims that

this is a “story told by Kendrick Lamar on Rosecrans,” which places

the hearer in the midst of the city of Compton. The track is filled

with hostile images of Compton’s cityscape and social setting. The

social setting of the track is most important, with the common refrain

“but I’m with the homies,” as K.Dot claims that he never does these

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illicit things unless he is under pressure from his peers. The hostile

social setting is heightened by the line that states, “We seen three

niggas in colors we didn’t like…” This line begins the narrative of

gang violence and turf wars in the GKMC narrative. K.Dot’s friends are

trying to play into the ‘hostile city’ setting, claiming, “I’m tryna

be the nigga in the street,” while K.Dot is honest to the hearer that

this is not his desire.

Track five is another wishful narrative of success coming out of

Compton. The title of the track, “Money Trees,” explains the flow of

the lyrics. Line after line exclaims that this and this are the things

that make people happy but this and this are hindering K. Dot and

other Comptonites from achieving these goals. One line is repeated

over again, “Dreams of living life like rappers do,” and this is the

wish that these characters can transcend the boundaries of Compton and

become successful. Yet, the hearer is reminded of the real life story

of Compton as ‘hostile city’: “Back to reality we poor, ya bish /

Another casualty at war, ya bish.”

The sixth track, “Poetic Justice,” is a track about K.Dot’s inner

emotions and feelings about Sherane. It is a break in the action

narrative until the skit at the end of the song. This skit is

important for the remainder of the narrative of GKMC. In the skit,

K.Dot arrives at Sherane’s house, but he is met by “Two niggas, two

Ledford 23

black hoodies,” from the last line of the first track, “Sherane,

a.k.a. Master Splinter’s Daughter.” In the “Poetic Justice” skit,

K.Dot is interrogated by these two minor characters, who ask where he

is from, signaling to the reader that this is a question of ‘turf’ and

boundaries, which is very important in gang-related communities. The

skit ends with these two characters telling K.Dot to get out of his

mother’s van before they pull him out. This narrative picks up in a

later track.

The next two tracks are crucial to understanding the entire

narrative of GKMC, and these tracks combined give their name to the

title of the album. The seventh and eighth tracks, “good kid” and

“m.A.A.d. city,” represent the ‘hostile city’ of Compton and the

protagonist, K.Dot, who must undergo a change in order for his

character to no longer be subject to the hostility of Compton, like

Jesus post-resurrection in Jerusalem. For both of these characters,

their ontological changes make them sterile to hostility. They are not

subject to the ‘hostile city’ setting, although the future

protagonists and characters will be subject to this type of setting.

In “good kid,” K. Dot gives several verses of moving narrative,

concentrating on his unwillingness to conform to the racist police’s

idea of Compton youth. He explains how he was questioned by cops who

assumed he was in a gang because he was from Compton and utilized

Ledford 24

brutality because of their racist assumptions. K. Dot suffers these

trials but ultimately claims, “I don’t mind because one day you’ll

respect, the good kid, m.A.A.d. city.” “good kid” begins with a softer

rhythm and slower tempo to discuss the stereotypes of Compton youth;

but, “m.A.A.d. city” opens with the most powerful statement of the

entire album before a deep bass line and fast tempo rap begin to

describe the archetypal ‘hostile city,’ the ‘m.A.A.d. city’ of

Compton: “If Pirus and Crips all got along / They’d probably gun me

down by the end of this song / Seem like the whole city go against me / Every

time I’m in the street I hear / YAWK! YAWK! YAWK! YAWK!” This extreme

opening, an aural setting that mirrors the hostile setting of the

narrative, gives way to a slower, matter-of-fact tempo that tells the

reasons why Compton is hostile, historically, and how K.Dot feels

about it, claiming “Kendrick AKA Compton’s human sacrifice.”

Ironically, K.Dot will not be the human sacrifice that changes him

ontologically into a hostility-immune character of Compton.

The ninth track, “Swimming Pools (Drank),” tells of the use of

alcohol to quell troubles, and to echo a history of alcoholism in

K.Dot’s family. The skit at the end of this track is the most

important part of this late-mid section of the twelve track narrative.

The skit picks up after the skit from “Poetic Justice,” where K.Dot is

confronted by the “two black hoodies” and told to get out of his

Ledford 25

mother’s van. This skit tells us that these two characters ‘stomped

out’ K.Dot over Sherane, meaning that because he was on their turf to

see Sherane they beat him up. To deal with this, K.Dot’s friends go to

Sherane’s place and find the guys that beat up K.Dot and shoot several

gunshots out of their car at them, while they fire back as well. The

hearer learns that Dave, one of K.Dot’s friends with them, has been

shot and killed because his brother (who has been a main voice of

K.Dot’s posse for the duration of the narrative) audibly bemoans his

brother’s death.

The tenth track, “Sing About Me, I’m Dying of Thirst” is a twelve

minute song in which several points of view are espoused by the

rapper, with the refrain repeating, “Promise that you will sing about

me.” This refrain allows the hearer to understand that these

characters are underprivileged, or marginal, characters in Compton and

believe that they have no way of getting out of this ‘hostile city.’

They plead with the rapper to tell their stories because they cannot.

At the end of this track, a powerful religious skit occurs. Dave’s

brother can be heard saying that he is tired of “this shit,” a plea

for the hostility in Compton to be over, or at least for it to no

longer affect these characters. These teenage boys in K.Dot’s posse

meet an older woman (voiced by the late Maya Angelou) who prays with

Ledford 26

them and assists them in receiving salvation from God. This is the

point of ontological change for K.Dot.

The eleventh track, “Real,” is about what is actually real, and

what it means to be a real person and to love yourself when you are

growing up in a troubled, hostile environment. Yet, the skit at the

end of the song is telling of why K.Dot goes through an ontological

change and becomes sterile to the hostility in Compton. The skit

features a phone message from K.Dot’s mother and father. His father

exclaims, “Real is responsibility, real is taking care of your

motherfucking family, real is god, nigga.” His father has been a

troublesome character from the beginning of the narrative, but in this

crucial time in the narrative when K.Dot’s future is at his toes, his

father gives sage advice. His mother’s message is even more powerful:

Oh, and Top Dawg called the house too. I guess they want youand Dave to come to the studio. But look, you take this music business serious, and put something me and your dad can step to. Shit, you know we from Chicago you know that’s what we do. If I don’t hear from you tomorrow...I hope you come back, and learn from your mistakes. Come back a man, tell your story to these black and brown kids in Compton. Let ‘em know you was just like them, but you still rose fromthat dark place of violence, becoming a positive person. Butwhen you do make it, give back, with your words of encouragement, and that’s the best way to give back. To your city… (GKMC 11).

In this speech the hearer learns that K.Dot is working on becoming a

rapper and that he has talent in his parents’ and his studio’s eyes.

Ledford 27

This is his ticket out of Compton. This is his ontological change that

makes his character no longer subject to the everyday hostility of the

city of Compton. He can tell his story and not be persecuted by the

hostile social setting that he grew up in.

The twelfth and final track, “Compton,” signals K.Dot’s

ontological change in character and why Compton is still a place that

the rapper and many others call home. The first lines claim, “Now

everybody serenade the new faith of Kendrick Lamar / This is king

Kendrick Lamar.” K.Dot has become Kendrick Lamar, the successful

rapper that ‘made it out of Compton,’ like many rappers before him

(like Dr. Dre who is featured on this track) and to come in the

future. On this track Kendrick and Dr. Dre explain why they still love

Compton as the city that ‘made’ them and formed them socially. Yet,

they broke the idea of Compton as only ‘hostile city’ to be able to

appreciate it as an urban landscape, their home: “In the city of

Compton / Ain’t no city quite like mine.”

Conclusion - The Hostile City

Through a close analysis of the Lukan Jerusalem Narrative and Kendrick

Lamar’s good kid, m.A.A.d. city, an archetypal setting, the ‘hostile city,’

has been created and critically applied. The ‘hostile city’ as an

archetypal setting, rather than a setting-element of the narrative,

Ledford 28

transcends the text, and allows for application to many textual

sources. This archetypal setting is common in rap/hip-hop culture, yet

Kendrick Lamar’s album adopts this archetype and performs a complex

narrative utilizing this literary element. Moreover, the ‘hostile

city’ has been shown to be inextricably connected to the

characterization of the protagonists in both the Lukan Jerusalem

Narrative and GKMC. Both Jesus and K.Dot undergo ontological

transformations to become the hostility-immune Christ and Kendrick

Lamar. Therefore, it has been shown that setting is a primary element

of the New Testament narrative, and one that continues to function

archetypally in contemporary hip-hop.

Ledford 29

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