If GKMC was a superhero movie, this is the part when the bad guy’s plan is set in motion and it looks like the world is about to end. This track also features one of the slickest set of bars on the record “hot-boxing like George Foreman, grilling the masses of the working world.” Combined with masterful storytelling, this is Kendrick flexing his lyrical muscle to tell a tale his listeners won’t soon forget. Kendrick sheds light on the fact that while gangsters are viewed as nothing but mindless criminals, they are not much different from the average teenager following the crowd. The aptly named “The Art of Peer Pressure” depicts a typical scene of Kendrick living his trouble-causing lifestyle in Compton.Īt heart, Kendrick is a caring, sober individual - unless he’s “with the homies.” Kendrick doesn’t have a mean heart and doesn’t like to drink, but here he is, gangbanging and robbing houses, narrowly avoiding a trip to the pen. Part of what makes GKMC such a tremendous body of work is that, while a detailed story of a young man from Compton, it carries themes that almost any adolescent can relate too. Laid over a synthetic trap-flavored instrumental, this track was the most commercially successful on the album, albeit ironically considering the song’s content. While he did compromise a bit with the trendy production, Kendrick brilliantly masked his deeper meaning behind a song that sounds like a club hit. Having grown up around continuous alcohol abuse - his album cover is a baby photo of himself beside a table of 40s - Kendrick finds himself once again at odds with peer pressure and what he knows deep down is the responsible decision. Instead, Kendrick slips in between levels of awareness, battling his conscience while he tries to navigate the untested waters of underage drinking. Taking a further step into the lyrics, this track is no glorification of a party lifestyle. On first listen, without any context as to the type of artist Kendrick is, it almost sounds as if he is holding a bottle of liquor to your mouth and telling you to drink up. Like so many other hit singles, “Swimming Pools (Drank)” is an anthem about drinking and partying.
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