"Duckworth" (stylized as "DUCKWORTH.") is a song by American rapper Kendrick Lamar, taken from his fourth studio album DAMN., released on April 14, 2017. The fourteenth and final track on the album (first on the Collector's Edition of DAMN.),[2] the lyrics were written by Lamar while the music was written by record producer Patrick Douthit, known professionally as 9th Wonder, with additional production by Bēkon.
The song's title is Lamar's actual surname, Lamar being his middle name.[3][4][5] The song tells the true story[5] of Lamar's father meeting Anthony "Top Dawg" Tiffith, working at a Kentucky Fried Chicken in a rough area, years prior to Lamar getting signed to his record label. Anthony was renowned for robbing chicken shops, similar to the one Lamar's father had been working at, so Duckworth decided to give Anthony 2 extra biscuits every time he came in. This caused Anthony to like Duckworth and leave him alive when he robbed the shop. If it weren't for this decision, Kendrick would never have met Anthony and gotten signed to his label, and therefore his music career may have never taken off.[6]
Lyrics
The song uses storytelling to tell the connection of Lamar with his father, Kenny "Ducky" Duckworth, and his Top Dawg label-boss, Anthony "Top Dawg" Tiffith.[4] Specifically, the song tells the story about Top Dawg's previous encounters with Ducky, many years prior to Top Dawg signing Lamar to his label.[7][4]
More specifically, it tells the story of how Top Dawg and Ducky were gangbangers. When he was younger, Top Dawg frequented the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant at which Ducky worked; this is the same location that had been robbed a few years prior, and a customer was shot. Ducky was aware of this and Top Dawg's intentions, deciding that he should get on Top Dawg's good side. He does this by giving him free chicken and extra biscuits every time he pulled into the drive-thru. This act of good will was so successful that Top Dawg decided not to hold up the restaurant after all. The song ends with Lamar stating that if it weren't for these events and circumstances, he would have died in a gunfight without the positive influence of his father, and Top Dawg would be serving life in prison for the murder instead of founding his record label.
The song, like "Fear",[8] another track from Damn, incorporates "backwards vocals", also known as backmasking.[9] Fans and critics noticed this as an inspiration taken from filmmaker David Lynch's work, most notably from the TV series Twin Peaks (1990–1991), and also as Lamar previously filmed the short-film God Is Gangsta from his album To Pimp a Butterfly (2015), in the Paris club "Le Silencio", which was designed by Lynch, Raphael Navot, architectural agency Enia and light designer Thierry Dreyfus.[10]
Critical reception
Teddy Craven of The Daily Campus described "Duckworth" as Damn's "strongest song" and "ends the album with a fantastic philosophical mic-drop."[11] Craven compared the track to "Sing About Me, I'm Dying of Thirst" from Lamar's second studio album Good Kid, M.A.A.D City, a song that also tells personal stories about the unexpected consequences of Lamar's music.[11] Writing for Pitchfork, Matthew Trammel described the song as "a precious origin story, the stuff of rock docs and hood DVDs, and it’s delivered with such precision, vivid detail, and masterful pacing that it can’t possibly be true. But it’s a tale too strange to be fiction, and too powerful not to believe in—just like its author."[12]
^"ČNS IFPI" (in Slovak). Hitparáda – Singles Digital Top 100 Oficiálna. IFPI Czech Republic. Note: Select 16. týden 2017 in the date selector. Retrieved April 25, 2017.
