<strong>Kendrick Lamar </strong> <strong>Good Kid, M.A.A.D City</strong> <strong>(Interscope)</strong> •••• Kendrick Lamar's first major-label release is subtitled as a "short film" on the cover, and you really can't fault him for making such a grandiose statement; <em>Good Kid, M.A.A.D City</em> is a record that you could easily imagine being turned into a script and transferred onto celluloid. Every song on the album is a continuation of the previous, each one bleeding into the other seamlessly and painting an autobiographical narrative of Lamar's youth. We grow up with Lamar as he sonically recounts his first experiences with girls (<em>Sherane</em>), troublesome high jinks with his friends (<em>The Art of Peer Pressure</em>), his adolescent dreams of living lavish (<em>Money Trees</em>) and the harsh realities of growing up in Compton (<em>M.A.A.D City</em>). The album features notable guest features from Drake, Jay Rock and fellow Compton native Dr Dre, as well as production credits from Pharrell Williams and Just Blaze. With his latest release, Kendrick Lamar presents us with a verbose kaleidoscope of poetic wordplay that has all the makings of a classic. Follow <strong>Arts & Life on Twitter</strong> to keep up with all the latest news and events