Not to be ‘that’ person, but I have adored Kendrick Lamar since day dot of K-dot. From feverishly looking for new mixtapes, to searching the web for features he’d been on. I also became totally hooked on Schoolboy Q, Jay Rock and Ab-Soul as his compatriots in Black Hippy.
Now, the fact that I’ve been riding this train since the start means that this list is going to be highly personal in terms of which I think his best work is, and which I think is least best (there is no worst, only shades of best-ness). So, here is my personal list of Kendrick Lamar’s work, from best to worst, but it’s all love- when your back catalogue is as tight as Lamar’s, there’s no definitive ranking.
1. Good Kid, M.A.A.D City (2012)
This record, Lamar’s major-label debut after a series of fire mixtape releases, is a mind-boggling, breathtaking tour de force (see, I told you this was gonna be a personalised list).
Let’s start by talking about how this, a debut album from a new (to most of the world) rapper is a concept album, called a short film by Lamar himself, illustrated by family album photos, actually functions as an autobiographical bildungsroman.
Using a nonlinear narrative thread, it tells the story of a day in the life of teenage Kendrick Lamar whilst functioning as a touchpoint that works for a range of audiences as well as a multimedia window into a life that is, for me at least, at once comforting and familiar as well as alien. References to Usher and Ciara anchor it in my own adolescent nostalgia, which is then totally exploded by stories of neighbourhood shootings and gang violence. The record, which was completely wrung out by Interscope, is the album of a million remixes, is multilayered, it’s a meaningful and deep as you want it to be, and every time you listen, if you are looking for something new, you’ll find it.
2. Section .80. (2011)
Section .80 spawns many of the intellectual ideas that Good Kid then polishes and serves up to a mainstream crowd. I could talk here about a sonic and lyrical journey which is evident through the preceding mixtapes and which come to a head with GKMC but actually, what I find really fascinating about this record is the fact that it functions as a historical artifact for a time period, and a social group, who are overlooked and underrepresented.
Calling the record ‘Section .80’ is already signalling to the observant listener that this is going to narrate a segment of social history: namely impoverished black families in America in the 80s: disenfranchised by Ronald Regan era politics (not to mention generations of institutionalised racism which forced the black community into situational social stagnation) and damaged by the crack epidemic (which was forced into black neighbourhoods deliberately by the administration. On this record Lamar narrates and critiques the life that his generation has been forced into. As for the music, the track list is feature heavy, which is no bad thing, and the songs are patchy in that they span a spectrum from excellent to good. But Lamar always was more than his music and this record shows the studio genesis of that.
3. To Pimp A Butterfly (2015)
(Joint second, really.) This record is, I think, the one that most people would have in the number one spot of their listing. And for very good reason: it is a masterpiece. If it’s not already glaringly obvious that this ranking is completely uncritical and entirely personal then let this be the moment that it all becomes clear.
To Pimp A Butterfly is so remarkable, it has spawned a million think pieces, it has inspired college courses, it is a once in a generation seminal moment. And this isn’t even the record that won him the Pulitzer. If GKMC is an intimate deep dive into an autobiographical narrative, then To Pimp A Butterfly is the collective version, an address to a nation (and to the world, naturally) about Blackness, Black history, Black potential. The record merges hip hop, funk, jazz, and soul to create a piece of work that defies genre.
4. DAMN (2018)
This is the record that won Kendrick Lamar the Pulitzer Prize and effectively legitimized him as more than ‘just a rapper’ for those outside of the genre. It’s crazy that a Pulitzer makes something seem more worthy of respect and attention, but apparently it does. It’s crazy, also, that this is the work that generated that recognition. Considering the records that came before, DAMN, for me at least, isn’t as nuanced or as creative, but as has become clear, I am hugely biased anyway, so what do I know.
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Despite this, DAMN is a remarkable piece that tries to straddle the classic Kendrick examination of his childhood, alongside the sample heavy popular single fodder and the artistic conceptual work. The result is patchy: moments of sublime greatness and moments of just plain excellence. As I say, it’s still a brilliant album, it just doesn’t hit the same notes as GKMC or TPAB.
Honourable mentions:
Untitled, Unmastered (2016)
This was released a year after TPAB and features the tracks that didn’t make it onto the record. Either they didn’t quite fit or they weren’t good enough, but this record would be a huge achievement for most people, it’s just that compared to other achievements of Lamar’s, it pales in comparison. Perhaps it’s wrong to compare it to the record that came before it, but it’s almost impossible not to: knowing that TPAB was the perfect version, this is the b-side.
Overly Dedicated (2010)
This is a mixtape, not an album, but really important listening in terms of developing an understanding and appreciation for Lamar’s genesis.
The Black Panther Soundtrack (2018)
The Black Panther soundtrack is just the best movie soundtrack of 2018 hands down, if not the decade, to be honest.
