Kendrick Lamar's critically acclaimed sophomore album good kid, m.A.A.d city took his rap career to soaring new heights, and in a personal essay for XXL's Winter 2014 issue, the Compton rapper explains just how much change he's experienced over the past two years.

In the first-person piece K.Dot covers everything from being a role model -- chatting with fans who've thanked him for saving their lives -- to dealing with paranoia, and noticing how his close friends and family members have started to treat him differently.

Here are a few of the highlights:

Fans often tell him that his music saved them from suicide.

"'i' comes from going overseas, going to New York, being in L.A. and hearing kids saying, “Kendrick, I was gonna kill myself last week. Section.80, good kid, m.A.A.d city saved my life.” Or “I was gonna kill myself tonight until I came to your show.”

I believe that they are telling the truth. At first I wasn’t so sure, maybe it was just they were excited to meet me. But then they showed me their wrists and had all these different scars from when they tried to take their lives but failed. Or I look into their eyes and their pupils are dilated and they on all these types of meds and drugs. That’s when I learned that while I’m making music for myself, drawing from my own experiences and conflictions and battles within myself, this teenager listens to every word I say."

He hates the term "famous."

"I think one of my biggest assets is not knowing how famous I am. Or even excluding the word, I hate the word 'famous.' I’m aware of it. I know people treat me different because of it. And the more I am aware of that and play into it, the more I become detached from the real world. So it’s really about balance. The more somebody opens the door for me and I walk through without acknowledging that they opened the door for me, the more I become separate from others. I had a talk with Lauryn Hill and she said, “Try to completely throw away your ego.” How many times can you throw away an ego, you know? It’s tough."

He uses photos to remind himself of where he started.

"I like to look at old pictures and think of things from back in the day that kind of draws me back to where I came from. I think a lot of times when artists are in so much of the now, they only think of what’s ahead of them, which is cool. But I look at pictures of the small little apartment that I come from in Compton and things like that. And it always trips me out when I get too far out there where I’m missing phone calls or not responding to text messages on time or my peoples is hitting me, my moms is and I can’t get back to her."

His mom has to hide her van from GKMC's album cover.

"It’s definitely a gift and a curse when you make music as personal as I make it," "because it’s not just me you’re focusing on now when I’m out in public, but also on individual characters that I’m talking about in my music." That includes his mother: "It’s more than running from somebody snapping a picture of my mom’s van that was on my album cover, that she actually still has. I’d never think that would happen, but it’s happened plenty of times to where she has to hide the van now. She can’t drive that thing no more. And she’s old school, she wanna drive it."

Pharrell told him to never doubt himself.

"I was nervous because I didn’t think the people would understand [good kid, m.A.A.d city]. And I get a call from Pharrell. He said he had a copy of the album and it’s amazing. And I was like, that call was right on time because that was when I was feeling super insecure about it. Pharrell said, “Never feel that way again. When that little negative man come behind your head, always follow your first heart, and that was your first heart, to put the album out like this.” This is his words verbatim, he said, “Watch what’s gonna happen.”

He doesn't preview music for anyone while he's recording -- but he had to make an exception for Andre 3000.

"I think the first time I played “Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe” for Andre 3000 was before it came out. I never share my album while I’m creating. I think that the situation with Andre was one of those things where he was in the studio with Dre and Dre was like, “Play some stuff .” I can’t say no to Dr. Dre. But me creating music, I never really play music for anybody, even people inside the camp because it can almost sway your creative process 100 percent."

He thought he had that Best Rap Album grammy.

"I thought I was going to win Best Rap Album at the Grammys. I put a lot of work in on my album and the biggest thing for me is knowing that it was basically an underground album. It didn’t have big No. 1 records on it and there wasn’t really any commercial hits. It was great songs and I think the message behind it reached as many listeners and believers as a super mainstream album. So for me, when you’re saying, “rap,” that would be my definition of something that deserved an accolade. Yep."

He's noticed how close friends and family treat him differently.

"Things change for you with success when you get money. I noticed when people started treating me a little bit different, the people that I cared about the most, my close friends and family. The artist don’t necessarily change, it’s usually the people around them. Their expectations of you can sometimes be out of control. You can do one thing that can trigger something mentally in them that makes them think that you don’t care about them or you don’t fuck with them no more when that’s not the case. You’re just more focused on what you have to do because it’s bigger."

He experiences intense paranoia.

"Artists just get paranoid in any situation and circumstance. I’m always paranoid. I’m already a person who thinks a lot; sometimes I may overthink things or think too much. So when you’re put into a space where you feel like you can’t necessarily trust your close ones, that can do some whole other crazy thing to you psychologically. Seriously. All you got is you and God at the end of the day."