켄드릭 라마 GQ Australia 인터뷰

기사를 보다가 좋은 내용들이 많아서 공유합니다. 

능력이 안돼서 번역은 못했습니다...

https://www.gq.com.au/entertainment/celebrity/kendrick-lamar-on-what-drives-him-and-the-album-that-changed-his-life/image-gallery/9810b64db84c1782fb617b1c6544c34b?pos=2

기사 전문은 위 링크에서 보실 수 있고 아래는 인상적인 부분들을 몇 개 추린 것입니다.

L은 기자, K는 켄드릭입니다. 

L: How do you balance your enormous success and celebrity with your extreme work ethic?

K: You can get put in an environment that can bring down your integrity and your fight, What gives me an advantage in my upbringing is the duality of seeing one of the most beautiful moments of me being six years old, to the most tragic moment of being 13 or 14, and make that connection so the person [listening] can really see the conflict. It was a mindfuck, for sure. I would wake up one morning, and it would be cartoons and cereal and walking back from school. And at 4PM, we’d be having a house party ’til 11PM… and people [were] shooting each other outside the door. That was my lifestyle. And it’s not only mine; it’s so many other individuals’. And I wanted to tell that story.

(about the violence he sings and raps about in good kid, m.A.A.d city)

K: That was our world. I remember when good kid came out, the people I grew up with couldn’t understand how we made that translate through music. They literally cried tears of joy when they listened to it – because these are people who have been shunned out of society. But I know the kinds of hearts they have; they’re great individuals. And for me to tell my story, which is their story as well, they feel that someone has compassion for us, someone does see us further than just killers or drug dealers. We were just kids.

L: Through your music you’ve taken on the role of spokesman for a neighbourhood that goes way beyond Compton. Why you?

K: I put that responsibility on myself. I knew from the jump that I thought a little bit different, people respected me, and if I let myself down, I’d be letting my guys down. Fast-forward to 2018, I’m in a position where these guys have 10, 15, 20 years in prison, but I can go in there – and I do – and tell them that when they get out, you have a job. And my word stands.

L: During a solo set at the Hangout Festival in Alabama this past May, you brought a white female fan onstage to sing ‘m.A.A.d city’ with you. As she didn’t move the mic away from her mouth when it gets to the parts with the n-word, you stopped the show and called her on it.

K: Let me put it to you in its simplest form. I’ve been on this earth for 30 years, and there’s been so many things a Caucasian person said I couldn’t do. Get good credit. Buy a house in an urban city. So many things – ‘you can’t do that’ – whether it’s from afar or close up. So if I say this is my word, let me have this one word, please let me have that word.

L: How do you write?

K: ‘Execution’ is my favourite word. I spend 80 per cent of my time thinking about how I’m going to execute, and that might be a whole year of constantly jotting down ideas, figuring out how I’m going to convey these words to a person to connect to it. What is this word that means this, how did it get here and why did it go there and how can I bring it back there? Then, the lyrics are easy.

My other favourite word is ‘discipline’. Discipline gives me all my unvarnished strength and makes me curious about how disciplined I can be.

L: One of your lyrics is about how to be rich and black in America and not “act a fool”

K: We’ve got to get to the root of never having these things. I look back to when I was 16 years old and thought, What would I do with a million dollars? I’m gonna buy this, I’m gonna buy that… Then I thought that me doing that is actually hurting people I’m responsible for. I’m the first in my family to have this kind of success, so I took it upon myself to wisely navigate this success, because I wanted them to be successful, too.

(about the Pulitzer Prize)

K: It was one of those things I heard about in school, but I never thought I’d be a part of it. [When I heard I got it], I thought, to be recognised in an academic world... whoa, this thing really can take me above and beyond. It’s one of those things that should have happened with hip-hop a long time ago. It took a long time for people to embrace us – people outside of our community, our culture – to see this not just as vocal lyrics, but to see that this is really pain, this is really hurt, this is really true stories of our lives on wax.

And now, for it to get the recognition that it deserves as a true art form, that’s not only great for myself, but it makes me feel good about hip-hop in general. Writers like Tupac, Jay-Z, Rakim, Eminem, Q-Tip, Big Daddy Kane, Snoop… It lets me know that people are actually listening further than I expected. When I looked up at that man on the podium today, I just had countless pictures in my mind of my mother putting me in suits to go to school. Suit and tie, from the dollar store, from thrift shops, when I was a kid.

L: How do you feel about Kanye West’s statements about Trump and about slavery?

K: He has his own perspective, and he’s on this whole agree to disagree thing, and I would have this conversation with him personally if I want to.

L: Since you say you were confident as a kid and now, why were there all those self-doubts you’ve written about that came in between?

K: I never thought about it like that, That’s a question I’m going to ask myself tonight. Maybe it’s that fear... a lot of artists have a fear of success, they can’t handle it; some people need drugs to escape. For me, I need the microphone – that’s how I release it. And just figuring out a new life. Maybe thinking that I’m doing something wrong, or that I’m a little bit different or gifted. It’s the same thing as not wanting to accept compliments. Just wanting to work harder.

(다시 만들어 본 윙크 움짤)