Rapper Kendrick Lamar Has Been Awarded The Key Of Compton By Mayor Aja Brown

 

Rapper Kendrick Lamar Has Been Awarded
The Key Of Compton By Mayor Aja Brown 

BHR Hollywood Reports......Kendrick Lamar, the reflective rapper who is nominated for a near record haul of Grammys, enjoyed a hero’s welcome Saturday as he returned to his hometown of Compton.

The notoriously rough city in Los Angeles County, which gave birth to gangsta rap pioneers N.W.A. in the 1980s, presented Lamar a symbolic key to the city, as students from local schools put on choreographed dances to his songs.

On Saturday, the 28-year-old star received another honor as Compton Mayor Aja Brown presented Lamar with the key to the city where he was born and raised.

Kendrick Lamar 

"He has a consciousness, and he realizes music is not just for entertainment but it's for messaging," Brown said.

Lamar still spends much of his time in Compton, contributing to schools and programs to help the community.

"It's the biggest thing. It's really not about how famous I get, it's really about me utilizing my platform and giving it back to these kids because that's what I wanted as a kid," Lamar said. "Everything that I do is a reflection of how I felt when I was younger."

Kendrick Lamar And Mayor Aja Brown 

Lamar said he never dreamed of winning a Grammy as a kid, but he was always passionate about music.

He wants kids in his community to understand they can come out of any environment and achieve success.

"Continue to practice the dream, whatever the dream is...," he said. "My message to them is that it don't stop here."

“You have not only pursued your dream, but you have taken on the responsibility that comes with leading people to their own destiny,” he said.

Satra Zurita, president of the school board, predicted that Alright will live on for decades as a great

Kendrick Lamar 

protest song, in a league with Billie Holiday’s Strange Fruit and Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On.

Lamar came “just when rap started to begin to sound like a bunch of repetitive cliches, and sometimes like a bunch of mumbo-jumbo, that even I, who was born in the rap capital of the world, cannot understand,” she said.

Lamar “single-handedly restored the art of storytelling and social consciousness in the genre of rap, this generation’s music,” she said.

If the praise was not enough, Mayor Aja Brown assured Lamar that the key to the city was bigger than the one just received by chart-topping rapper Drake from his hometown of Toronto.

Despite leading in Grammy nominations, Lamar faces tough competition in key categories from artists including pop superstar Taylor Swift.