The first time Kendrick Lamar met Dr. Dre, the young rapper was starstruck. Growing up in Compton, Lamar revered the local legend. And when he was in his early 20s, a buzzing new rapper getting national attention, Kendrick Lamar found himself working with one of the greatest minds in hip-hop.
“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,” Lamar said of the first time he spoke with Dre. “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’.”
"Compton" marked the perfect connection of two hip-hop legends, with Lamar and Dre joining forces on an ode to their own town—a defining place in rap culture.
As an ode to their place in the larger hip-hop pantheon, DJ Critical Hype has put together a mash up mixtape with Lamar's isolated vocals over Dr. Dre beats. It's a mixtape that captures the sound and culture of the city—the one that shaped two of the greatest minds in hip-hop.
Matt Miller is a Brooklyn-based culture/lifestyle writer and music critic whose work has appeared in Esquire, Forbes, The Denver Post, and documentaries.
