Songfacts®:

• Kendrick Lamar, as we all know now, is from the Compton area of Los Angeles. He first gained major attention after the release of his 2010 mixtape O(verly) D(edicated), and it was one of the cuts from the set, "Ignorance Is Bliss," that perked up the ears of Compton native Dr. Dre. Lamar worked on Dre's Detox album, and the legendary hip-hop producer returned the favor by joining Lamar on "The Recipe," a song about what makes Los Angeles so special: women, weed and weather.
  
  The song was premiered on the LA radio station Power 106 on April 2, 2012, giving many in the area their first listen to Lamar. It was released as part of a joint venture between three labels: Top Dawg Entertainment , Interscope, and Dre's Aftermath.
• West Coast producer Scoop Deville provides the beat, building the song around an eerie vocal from Long Island dream pop group Twin Sister's 2011 track, "Meet the Frownies." "We just went into the studio and added our elements to it. I mixed it up. Kendrick wrote the words. It came together and we fell in love with it," Dre told Power 106's Big Boy before he played the record for the first time.
• The summery song sees Lamar and Dre pay homage to the City of Angels as well as giving their recipe for the finer things in life. Kendrick and Dre explained to Power 106's Big Boy the meaning behind the tune. "'The Recipe,' it's one of those things that everyone in the world can relate to," said Lamar.
  
  "The original title was 'Women, Weed and Weather.' That's what represents LA," added Dre.
  
  "That's the three things you need in life; that's the recipe you need in life," concluded Lamar.
• So can Kendrick create his own food from recipes? Not really. The rapper admitted to The Boombox that his cooking prowess goes no further than making "some cereal and a cup of noodles," or a sandwich.
• Lamar filmed the video at a mansion in the Los Angeles area in May 2012. He explained to MTV News his vision behind the clip. "I felt like there hasn't been that 'California Love'-type feel since the '90s, and I really wanted to display that and represent where I'm from," he said. "So I had a whole bunch of beautiful women, good weather - it was like 85 degrees and breezy - and we had [ScHoolboy] Q up in there stealing some of Snoop's weed, him and Ab-Soul, and we had fun."
• Lamar told The Boombox that he had an equal say in the direction of the video. "Dre respects my opinion a lot," he said. "He asks me my ideas. I threw some in the air; he threw some back. It's really just a mutual thing. It wasn't so hard to come up with a crazy dope video for a title and visuals of what we talking about. So it was pretty head-to-head as far as the idea of what we wanted to do."
• "The Recipe" was Kendrick Lamar's first single on a major label. There's a bit of a disconnect in the "weed" lyrics because he doesn't partake; notice that in his solo verses he doesn't mention smoking. Lamar isn't a big drinker either, which eliminates a lot of subject matter often found in hip-hop, but he stays focused by staying sober.
  
  In his second single, "Swimming Pools (Drank)," Kendrick takes a look at his sobriety.