He'd rather be with his girl, but not tonight, they're on a "mission for bad bitches and trouble", because of them. Pass the Hennessey. He's usually drug free, but not tonight, a blunt in his mouth as they ride along the streets brimming with tension, because of them. He's never been the violent type, he's the peacemaker usually, but not tonight, because of them. The ones whose respect you crave are those who you won't know in five years, but at this moment they're the only ones who matter. They shape his decisions now, not his mother. He'll see Sherane, that crazy-ass girl his mom disapproves of. Why? Because he's 17 and got "nothing but pussy" on his mind. Who wouldn't make the same choice? He'll go out with his boys, bored, acting tough and almost waiting for trouble to find them, and if not, they'll go looking for it themselves. He'll drink, even though he fears it will burn him out, but tonight he'll do it because of them. Make the right decisions, Kendrick.īut what's a kid to do? All your life up to this point you've been pulling away from that control, crossing the line she lays down to prove to yourself and to others that you're your own man. At 17 that line is all but washed away. The mother is just a nagging voice in the distance, it's not her you're trying to impress anymore after all.
So what's a Mom to do? For Kendrick's mom she calls and leaves voicemails, reminding him of his responsibilities, ones he's failing to live up to, but the calls, if they're heard, will hopefully keep him tethered to the ground, looking back and slowing him down. They're his conscious and they're all his mother has. The voicemails are the skits, a longheld device in hip-hop that serve to break up the album, but here they do the opposite, not offering a lighthearted respite from the hardcore tracks, but rather they stitch the album together with constant reminders that this is no mere entertaining recounting of a carefree night on the town, but that it is in fact reality. The songs are the body and blood of the record, the breaks are its soul. Every night, more decisions. Most won't be life or death, but any one of them could be. But which ones? Which nights? It's always the ones you don't see coming. The fear is in her voice, still stern with parental authority, yet that authority holds no sway any longer. It's mixed with pleading, annoyance and concern, for she knows that her boy Kendrick, for better or worse, is on his own from now on and the decisions that will determine his fate are his and his alone to make. Who to see - Sherane, the mature beyond her years seductress he met over summer vacation with a stripper's figure that's every bit as willing. Where to go – out with the homies. What to do - sex with his girl, drink, smoke weed, gang bangin, home invasion?.
Kendrick's mom knows this fact, just as your mom does. They were that age once themselves and know all too well its dangers. Every decision is now a major life-altering one and is firmly in the hands of someone not yet mature enough to handle it, yet too mature to be told what to do anymore. It doesn't matter if you grew up on Rosecrans in Compton, California, streets echoing with gunblasts and plagued with gangs and crime and drugs and pressures that no teenager should have to deal with at that stage in life, or if you grew up on some shady cul de sac in a neighborhood where the only sudden sounds are of the automatic sprinklers turning on at daybreak to water the vast exapanses of green lawns and flower beds, the feeling of being 17 is exactly the same. For good kids in mad cities, or bad kids in good cities or anywhere in between. You're 17. It's summer.
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