2015Released
3:54

Did You Know?

Interesting facts and trivia about King Kunta. By Songfacts®.

Produced by Mark "Sounwave" Spears ("Bitch, Don't Kill My Vibe"), this politically charged funk track finds Lamar rapping about the Kunta Kinte character from the famed Roots mini-series: Now I run the game got the whole world talkin', King Kunta Everybody wanna cut the legs off him The African Kunta Kinte was brought as a slave from Gambia to Virginia in 1767. The story of Kinte, whose right foot was cut off because of his attempts to escape his plantation. is the basis of Alex Haley's novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family, which was made into a popular TV mini-series in 1977. "It's just him expressing how he's feeling at the moment," Sounwave told Rolling Stone of Lamar. "And right now, he's mad."

The song was first mentioned back in October 2014 when former Entourage music supervisor Scott Vener revealed in a series of tweets that he heard some of Lamar's new material when he was visiting Pharrell Williams in the studio. Lamar happened to be there as well and he previewed some of his upcoming record to the pair. Vener said this track took him, "all the way back to '90s hip-hop and back and gave me a tour of the cultural fabric of L.A. like never before." Vener also commented that Williams praised the track by calling it, "so unapologetically black and AMAZING."

Shot in Lamar's hometown of Compton, California and helmed by Director X (Kanye West, Drake, Nicki Minaj), the music video finds K-Dot taking us on a journey throughout city's underbelly. We see the MC rapping from the roof of the Compton Swap Meet, a store he says he visited frequently while growing up in the area. Those shots purposely connect with 2Pac's "California Love" video, whose opening scene at the Compton Swap Meet was witnessed by a young Kendrick. (He was in the crowd watching his idol shoot the clip). "I just went back to that same Compton Swap Meet, jumped on the roof of the Compton Swap Meet and shot 'King Kunta' there," Lamar told MTV News. "And all them kids was out looking and a good friend of mine said, 'You was one of them kids looking at 'Pac when he was up here doing that; now they're looking at you.'"

Song Analysis

Key, BPM (tempo) and time signature of King Kunta.
F♯Key
MinorMode
4/4Time Signature
107BPM

Album

The album King Kunta is released on.

Released By

The record label that has released King Kunta.
Universal Music Group
© 2015 Aftermath/Interscope (Top Dawg Entertainment)
℗ 2015 Aftermath/Interscope (Top Dawg Entertainment)

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