expound
I never understood the whole backwards listening concept
I think its quite simple. The following is my interpretation.
The album begins with “Is it wickedness? Is it weakness? YOU decide. Are we gonna live or die?”
If you listen to the album front to back its a parable about street life and how Kendrick was able to come back from a near death experience and through trial and tribulations become a better person the narrative ends with God and then Duckworth Kendrick tells the story about how his father’s and Top’s relationship allowed for Kendrick to survive and go on the journey.
If you listen from back to front the album becomes a cautionary tale of a man whose environment and the subsequent trauma he experienced swallowed whole his soul, culminating in him being murdered. When songs like Element, YAH, and DNA bookend the album it tells a story of a man whose full of himself, willing to indulge in violence, boasting, and reckless debauchery. The last words of DNA are literally “Sex, Money, Murder is OUR DNA!”
