Subscribe
HipHopWired Featured Video
CLOSE

For the second installment of their new print edition, Hypetrak pitted the best of the current generation in Kendrick Lamar with the best of all the others in Quincy Jones for a legendary sitdown.

Naturally, the scribe behind To Pimp a Butterfly knows the 27-time Grammy winner for his contributions for Michael Jackson’s Thriller and Jones, now 82, isn’t too shabby about staying up on the happenings of today’s culture, either.

Here’s an excerpt from their sitdown:

Like the young warrior, Kendrick has set about on his own expedition this summer, performing To Pimp a Butterfly around the world; an album that received critical acclaim for its radically introspective lyrics, and a fusion of hip-hop, jazz, and blues that Quincy pioneered during the early ‘90s with albums Back on the Block and Q’s Jook Joint. However, just as TPAB’s outro “Mortal Man” asserts, this has been more than a promotional tour to turn his gold record into platinum. Compton’s native son is leading an “army” into a battle for justice and equality. His lyrics have become a voice for black America’s youth, as the thin veil of privilege, wealth and politics can no longer conceal their daily persecution from the previously ignorant.

After providing a brief but vivid account of his arduous childhood, the 82-year-old musician-turned-multimillionaire entrepreneur moves to the edge of his chair to add, “The hood is the same everywhere in the world.” As his words linger, leaving Kendrick anticipating his next piece of advice, you can hear a hint of fatigue echoing from Quincy’s voice, and rightfully so. Although the decades of social activism, from working with Martin Luther King, Jr. to Nelson Mandela, may have had its toll on Jones and his well-known joyous spirit, it’s likely more indicative of the uphill battle that constantly awaits his people.

Listing the places he’s been, the languages he’s learned, and the cultures he’s studied, Quincy urges his musical offspring to do the same and experience it for himself. “It’s so educational – the food, the music, the language.”

Similar to Lamar, a young Jones also went on an international tour amid a very racially charged time in America. In 1952, shortly after playing at Seattle clubs with close friend Ray Charles and then dropping out of what is now the esteemed Berklee College of Music in Boston, a 19-year-old Quincy was hired to play trumpet for jazz vibraphonist Lionel Hampton on a European tour.

Get the full story and issue of HYPETRAK Magazine: Volume 2 at HBX today.

Photo: Yuri Hasegawa