Backseat Freestyle

Album: Good Kid, M.A.A.D City (2012)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • Lamar lays boastful rhymes over Hit-Boy's menacing soundscape. "It's about me and my homeboys really getting in the backseat and starting our day," Lamar explained to Complex magazine. "Sometimes we'll rap, it takes away from everything else. That's one of the feelings that the record produces."
  • The song's black and white video was directed by Lamar with Dave Free and JeremeD. The clip is set in both Compton and Paris and introduces K-Dot's dad whom we see smoking some weed while getting on his son's case over his misplaced domino set. We also see his mom teasing her husband about his hat. The rear-shaking girl is meant to be Sherane, the young seductress whom Lamar raps about on "Sherane a.k.a Master Splinter's Daughter" and "Poetic Justice." She is played by a model who bears a strong resemblance to K-Dot's teenage crush.
  • Taylor Swift is a big fan of the song. During an interview with Rolling Stone, the country-pop princess said this is her "go-to" tune that she listens to when she wants to "immediately go from feeling victimized to feeling awesome."

    Swift added with a wide smile, "I know every word."
  • Hit-Boy was very impressed with Kendrick Lamar's rapping on this track. "I ain't pictured nobody snapping like this on that beat," he told a Rolling Stone podcast. "This dude is really who he thinks he is. He's on some next level."

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Paul Williams

Paul WilliamsSongwriter Interviews

He's a singer and an actor, but as a songwriter Paul helped make Kermit a cultured frog, turned a bank commercial into a huge hit and made love both "exciting and new" and "soft as an easy chair."

Jack Blades of Night Ranger and Damn Yankees

Jack Blades of Night Ranger and Damn YankeesSongwriter Interviews

Revisit the awesome glory of Night Ranger and Damn Yankees: cheesily-acted videos, catchy guitar licks, long hair, and lyrics that are just plain relatable.

Glen Ballard

Glen BallardSongwriter Interviews

Glen Ballard talks about co-writing and producing Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill album, and his work with Dave Matthews, Aerosmith and Annie Lennox.

Randy Newman

Randy NewmanSongwriting Legends

Newman makes it look easy these days, but in this 1974 interview, he reveals the paranoia and pressures that made him yearn for his old 9-5 job.

They Might Be Giants

They Might Be GiantsSongwriter Interviews

Who writes a song about a name they found in a phone book? That's just one of the everyday things these guys find to sing about. Anything in their field of vision or general scope of knowledge is fair game. If you cross paths with them, so are you.

Mike Rutherford (Genesis, Mike + The Mechanics)

Mike Rutherford (Genesis, Mike + The Mechanics)Songwriter Interviews

Mike Rutherford talks about the "Silent Running" storyline and "Land Of Confusion" in the age of Trump.