Maps of Music

good kid, m.A.A.d city (2012)

Where the lyrics of good kid, m.A.A.d city take you, and where it was really made.

The album title's acronym has two meanings, and one of them, 'My Angel's on Angel Dust', refers to a drug mistake Lamar made himself.

Key places

PatchWerk Recording Studios, Atlanta (2012)

Recording site PatchWerk Recording Studios — One of the album's recording session locations, listed in the album's recording section. The point marks the studio's building. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Encore Studios, Burbank (2012)

Recording site Encore Recording Studios — One of the album's recording session locations, listed in the album's recording section. The point marks the studio's building. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

TDE Red Room, Carson (2012)

Recording site Top Dawg Studios — One of the album's recording session locations, listed in the album's recording section. The point is placed at the city center of Carson. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

At My Mama's Studio, Los Angeles (2012)

Recording site Motown Recording Studios — One of the album's recording session locations, listed in the album's recording section. The point is placed at the city center of Los Angeles. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Good Kid, M.A.A.D City: second studio album by Kendrick Lamar
• Released 22 October 2012 by Interscope Records, Top Dawg Entertainment and Dr. Dre's Aftermath Entertainment
• Guest appearances: Drake, Dr. Dre, Jay Rock, Anna Wise, MC Eiht
• Lamar's first major label album
• Concept album: coming-of-age story set in Compton
• Cover billed as a short film by Kendrick Lamar

Background

• Follows the independently released debut Section.80 (2011)
• Lamar signed with Interscope and Aftermath the following year
• He chose producers he had already worked with, mainly from Top Dawg's in-house team Digi+Phonics, rather than high-profile names
• Lamar said the album returns to his Compton roots and would not sound like Section.80
• The story draws on his adolescence amid drug-infested streets and gang life in Compton

Recording

• Recorded mostly at several studios in California, with one session at PatchWerk in Atlanta
• Producers include Dr. Dre, Just Blaze, Pharrell Williams, Hit-Boy, Scoop DeVille, Jack Splash and T-Minus
• First song Lamar recorded for the album was Compton, featuring Dr. Dre
• Compton is the twelfth track and the closing track of the standard edition
• A planned Lady Gaga collaboration was dropped due to timing issues and creative differences

Cover

• Shows child Lamar, two of his uncles and his grandfather
• The adults' eyes are censored, possibly for privacy reasons
• Lamar did not censor his own eyes because the story is told through his eyes

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Formation

• Kendrick Lamar Duckworth, born June 17, 1987, in Compton, California.
• Began releasing music as K.Dot in high school; signed with Top Dawg Entertainment in 2005 and co-founded Black Hippy.
• Debut album Section.80 (2011) led to a joint contract with Aftermath Entertainment and Interscope Records.

Career

• Good Kid, M.A.A.D City (2012), To Pimp a Butterfly (2015), and Damn (2017) were ranked among Rolling Stone's greatest albums.
• Damn won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Music, the first award of this kind for a non-classical or non-jazz work.
• Curated the Black Panther soundtrack (2018); "All the Stars" earned an Academy Award nomination.
• Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers (2022) and GNX (2024) each debuted atop the US Billboard 200.
• Holds six US Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles, including "Humble", "Not Like Us", and "Luther".
• Headlined the Super Bowl LIX halftime show in 2025, the most-watched Super Bowl performance of all time.
• The Grand National Tour with SZA became the highest-grossing co-headlining tour of all time.
• Holds 27 Grammy Awards, the most won by a rapper.
• Co-founded the creative company PGLang with Dave Free in 2020.

Reception

At release

• Metacritic: average score 91 from 36 reviews, indicating universal acclaim
• AnyDecentMusic?: 8.6 out of 10 based on critical consensus
• Rolling Stone's Jody Rosen: said the album warrants a place in the lineage of 1970s blaxploitation soundtracks and 1990s gangsta rap blaxploitation revivals
• Chicago Tribune's Greg Kot: praised Lamar for giving gangsta tropes a twist, and for a record full of comedy and complexity
• Pitchfork's Jayson Greene: wrote that the album ties straightforward rap thrills to weighty material and narrative
• PopMatters' David Amidon: found the album both accessible and substantial, appealing to underground and mainstream listeners
• XXL's Jaeki Cho: called it one of the most cohesive bodies of work in recent rap memory
• AllMusic's David Jeffries: described it as some kind of elevated gangsta rap
• NME's Hazel Sheffield: felt it might lack the raw appeal of Section.80
• The Guardian's Alex Macpherson: found the depiction of downtrodden women unnecessarily prurient and unconvincing
• MSN Music's Robert Christgau: said its commitment to drama has musical drawbacks, but the beats establish a continuity that suits the rhymes

Reappraisal

• Rolling Stone: ranked 115th on its 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list in 2020 and 2023
• Rolling Stone: ranked first on its 50 Greatest Concept Albums of All Time list in 2022
• Paste: ranked 72nd on its 300 Greatest Albums of All Time list in 2024
• Apple Music: ranked seventh on its 100 Best Albums list in 2024
• Rolling Stone: ranked sixth on its Best Albums of the 21st Century So Far list in 2025
• Pitchfork: ranked second on its 100 Best Albums of the Decade So Far list in August 2014
• Billboard: ranked fifth on its 20 Best Albums of the 2010s (so far) list in January 2015

Records

• Billboard 200 debut at number two, selling 242,000 copies in the first week
• First-week sales were the highest for a male artist's hip-hop album in 2012
• UK Albums Chart at number 16, Lamar's first UK chart entry; UK R&B Albums Chart at number two
• Second week sales of 63,000 in the US; total of 481,000 by 25 November 2012
• Total of 1,720,000 copies sold by April 2018
• Certified triple platinum by the RIAA in June, for three million units combined
• Spent 520 weeks on the Billboard 200 by 29 October 2022, the first hip-hop studio album to do so
• Nominated at the 2014 Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year
• Won Album of the Year at the 2013 BET Hip Hop Awards

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• Lady Gaga was set to appear on the album, but the collaboration was dropped due to timing issues and creative differences
• The song was later retitled Bitch, Don't Kill My Vibe, and Gaga's version with her chorus and a verse was released on 8 November
• The M.A.A.D acronym has two meanings: My Angry Adolescence Divided and My Angel's on Angel Dust
• Lamar said he was unfazed by Shyne's criticism and later referenced Shyne on The Jig Is Up
• In 2014, Georgia Regents University professor Adam Diehl taught the album in a freshman composition class
• The song Now or Never was chosen by LeBron James for the NBA 2K14 soundtrack

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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