The final song on Kendrick Lamar’s new album, DAMN, has listeners talking more than any other track. On “Duckworth,” which is the rapper’s real last name, Kendrick shows off his incredible story-telling skills through hip-hop music, letting fans in on the connection between his father, known as Ducky, and his label boss, Anthony ‘Top Dawg’ Tiffith.
The story starts out with Top Dawg’s upbringing, which was clearly very difficult. “Hard times, momma on crack/A four-year-old telling his nanny he needed her/His family history pimpin’ and bangin’,” Lamar raps. He then delves into Top Dawg’s teenage years and early 20s, during which he had a major run-in with policemen and lost his cousin to a shooting: “Had a couple shooters, caught a murder case/Fingerprints on the gun, they assumin’, but witnesses couldn’t prove it/That was back when they turned his back and they killed his cousin/He beat the case and went back to hustlin’.”
Kendrick Lamar — PICS
After years of trouble, Top Dawg met a “light-skinned n***a that talked a lot,” who was working the window at KFC. The man, it turned out, was Kendrick’s father, Ducky. Ducky wanted to get on Top Dawg’s good side, because he knew this man had once robbed the store and shot a customer. “Anthony liked him and then let him slide/They didn’t kill him, in fact it look like they’re the last to survive,” Kendrick sings, adding that the decision “changed both of they lives.”
Why? Because after the men became friends, Top Dawg went onto sign Kendrick, and the rest, of course, is history. As the 29-year-old himself explains in the final lines: “Whoever thought the greatest rapper would be from coincidence/Because if Anthony killed Ducky/Top Dawg could be servin’ life/While I grew up without a father and die in a gunfight.” Incredible.
“Duckworth is such a crazy story and plot twist,” one fan commented. “Crazy way to end the album. Another added, “That Duckworth track is deep stuff…Kung fu kenny done did it again.” Listen to the song above!
HollywoodLifers, what do you think of Kendrick’s song, “Duckworth”?