It's strange to meet someone whom you've admired for a long time because of what their real life persona might do to the warm memory you've constructed in your head. All you can hope is that they're not totally unfriendly—that you can flash a smile or speak a sentence that isn't received with the utmost disdain.But it's one thing to meet your idol—it's another thing to work with him, fulfilling a dream you might've had since before puberty. Kendrick Lamar, a child of Compton whose uncles and cousins listened to Dr. Dre when N.W.A. was a fresh commodity, found himself in the studio with Dre before last year's Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City took the world by storm. "Dre introduces himself—Dr. Dre, I know you, Dr. Dre," he says with a laugh. "Press play, and 'Compton' came on. I remember that shit sounded so loud. Like, to this day, there hasn't been one studio session that could match Dr. Dre's studio session."The song, which traces Kendrick's love for his city as he trades verses with Dre—a rare appearance from the Doctor in these pre-Detox times—was easily formulated. "The hook was already there, so I just needed to come up with some more raps. That song's about my city," Kendrick says, which is enough. "I knew I could draw from all types of emotions in that studio sessions." It's even easier for someone like Kendrick, as versatile an MC as we've heard in years. "I consider my voice an instrument. There's different tones in it and different melodies. An artist is someone who can actually structure things and have a mental note on what type of colors he's drawing from a song while writing it—o paint that picture like I want to. "While working with Dre meant enough to Kendrick, it meant just as much to those around him. "My pops is really proud of Compton because he comes from that same era of gangsta rap," he says. "It just trips him out to know there's somebody that my uncles and older cousins were listening to, and 20 years later, I'm in the studio with him." A perfect collaboration with the perfect background—a child couldn't have dreamed of anything better.