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. 11.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. The Diamonds Executive Platinum Box ships Dec. The Diamonds Executive Platinum Box comes with the Unapologetic disc, a handwritten personal note from the star, a custom-made white-and-silver View-Master with a "vintage reel of never-before-released 3-D images" of her style evolution, a T-shirt, a two-gigabyte flash drive with Rihanna's photo on it, seven art-print lithographs, seven laptop stickers, a poster, a 40-page book of notes and lyrics, a 20-minute DVD, and a special-edition vinyl record featuring remixes of the hit "Diamonds. 16), she's announced a deluxe version of the disc that will set stans back $250. Meanwhile, Brandy's Two Eleven remained in the top ten.Īs Rihanna preps to release Unapologetic (Nov. To show appeciation for his fan's support, he released a new song, produced by J. Kendrick excitedly tweeted the news saying, The projected sales make Kendrick's debut the fastest selling rap album of the year (in its first week). Kendrick Lamar's debut album, good kid, m.A.A.d city, lands in the #2 spot on Billboard's Top 200 this week, selling an estimated 242,122 in its first week. Rapper Kendrick Lamar celebrated the #2 debut of his album, good kid, m.A.A.d city by releasing a new track called “The Jig Is Up (Dump’n).” Listen to it inside and find out how much a deluxe copy of Rihanna's Unapologetic will cost.