With Spotify Wrapped having just recently been released, the result for my top artist was, by a landslide, Kendrick Lamar. This really made me think why I listened to him so much, as well as, “Why is Kendrick Lamar Duckworth—yes Duckworth—not only the greatest rapper, but the greatest artist of our generation?” While I will be examining this in my reviews of his albums, I highly recommend you also listen to them yourself.

Early Projects (2010 and 2011)

With Lamar’s recent popularity in trending songs, many people just see him as the “Mustard” or the “Not Like Us” guy and therefore constantly downplay his greatness. He is so much more than that. His first two albums, “Overly Dedicated” and “Section.80”, are solid albums, but they aren’t as lyrically deep as his later albums.

“good kid, m.A.A.d city” (2012)

His third album is different. Not only is it the one to bring him to the mainstream, but is arguably still his best album, 2012’s “good kid, m.A.A.d city” (GKMC) it tells the story of how one night can turn into a disaster, but it also highlights the struggles of growing up in Compton. The album’s track list is not the actual order of events (there are a few exceptions) and you have to use lyrics and skits in the songs to find out the real order.

The album consists of songs like “Money Trees”, referring to his dreams of wealth, but also the dangers of making quick money in Compton. Then there’s “Backseat Freestyle”, an energetic song where the title explains everything. There are also two title tracks: “Good Kid”, which is Lamar reflecting on his life, and “m.A.A.d city”, which is portrayed as Lamar also reflecting on everything but also while on drugs with lyrics hinting at it.

On top of those, there are so many more great songs, but the one that beats them all is “Sing About Me, I’m Dying Of Thirst,” a song that’s split into two parts. The whole first part is moody with the words “promise that you will, sing about me” being repeated constantly. Then after a skit there’s the second half which includes Kendrick talking about his own struggles living in the streets and the “thirst” representing something spiritual. The song wraps up with an old woman saying a prayer to Kendrick and his group of friends, with them following along. There’s a great video by the YouTuber “Chelito” which explains the whole album while also being animated.

In 2015, fans were wondering when he would drop again. Two months before the album, he released the single “I” which was a tease for the album. Then on March 15, he released not only his best album but a top 10 best album ever.

“To Pimp A Butterfly” (2015)

“To Pimp A Butterfly” (TPAB) is an album unlike everything else. The title is a nod to Harper Lee’s “To Kill A Mockingbird” with the title being a metaphor to actual pimping and how it abuses beautiful things like a butterfly. The album is a jazz, rap, funk and soul project with complex lyrics and social commentary about racism, self-hatred, institutionalization and the struggles of being African American in the US.

The phrase “40 acres and a mule” is repeated in many songs, which is what people promised the enslaved population after they were set free due to the 13th amendment. In addition, there’s a recurring character named “Lucy”, who is supposed to represent the devil or “Lucifer.” Songs like “Wesley’s Theory” (my most listened to song this year), which combines great flows from Lamar with soul/hip-hop production with a huge allusion to actor Wesley Snipes in the title, which brings up how Snipes was arrested for tax evasion. Overall there is a lot of talk about how black men are set up for financial failure by systematic forces.

Then there are songs like “King Kunta” which is a reference to Alex Haley’s book “Roots.” And “Alright” which is an anthem for hope and resilience. Then there’s “u”, which is a heavy song about Kendrick’s self-hatred, depression, and suicidal thoughts. Finally, there is “The Blacker The Berry”, an aggressive song that explores black identity, self-hatred, racism and hypocrisy. The song even references the death of teenager Trayvon Martin. The cherry on top is that the songs build up with skits at the end, to a poem Lamar wrote to Tupac Shakur. As someone who is 25% black and spent most of my childhood with the black side of my family. I constantly struggled with my own racial identity. This album helped me more than I could ever express and I think (with a little bias) that it’s the greatest album of all time.

“untitled unmastered” (2016)

He then released “untitled unmastered” (UU) on March 4, 2016, a unique eight song album that Lamar said was made of unfinished demos.

“DAMN” (2017)

After the masterpiece TPAB, and the uniqueness of UU, Lamar dropped his sixth studio album “DAMN.” on April 14, 2017.  It is a story of good vs evil in himself, with hits like ”DNA.”, “HUMBLE.” and “PRIDE.”.

On top of that, if you listen to the album from start to finish, you get to witness him change from a bad man to a good man with the final song “DUCKWORTH.” telling the story of how one event changed his whole life. A guy by the name of Ducky was working at a KFC when this gang member named Anthony showed up. Ducky gave him an extra biscuit and Anthony let him live.

If you go from “DUCKWORTH.” To “BLOOD.”, it’s actually about a good man becoming evil. This album won Lamar a Pulitzer Prize. He is the first and only rapper to ever win it. Personally I think he could’ve had three of them, because GKMC and TPAB are actually better than DAMN. In my opinion.

“The Black Panther Album” (2018)

After “DAMN.” Lamar, with the help of TDE, made the soundtrack to Marvel’s “Black Panther” movie with songs like “All The Stars,” “King’s Dead” and “Pray For Me” being the standouts of it.

“Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers” (2022)

For four years he didn’t drop a single album until May of 2022 when “Mr Morale & The Big Steppers” was released. This is an album where Lamar let everything out and reflected on his life. It’s  a very therapeutic album. Some of my personal favorite songs are “Count Me Out,”  a song about self acceptance, redemption and overcoming things like guilt and ego and “Die Hard” which is him opening up about his vulnerabilities and struggle for true connection with his wife, Whitney.

Then there’s “Auntie Diaries” and “Mother I Sober”: the former being him dealing with the change of someone in his family transitioning genders and all the drama that comes with it. The latter is a heart wrenching song which the title is about slavery, and the lyrics are about hard subjects like generational trauma, sexual abuse, infidelity and breaking the cycle of pain. In the end, his wife tells him that he “broke a generational curse.” Finally there is “The Heart Part 5” and “Mirror.” The former is a commentary on Black identity, trauma, and culture which, like the whole of TPAB, also helped me with figuring out my own identity.

This album isn’t for everyone with how open Kendrick was and all the stuff he let out, but personally. I think that this album is fantastic and it helped me deal with things like heartbreak.

The Drake Beef (2024)

Before I get to the last album, I have to mention his beef with Drake. The three main songs he released from it: “Euphoria”, “Meet The Grahams” and “Not Like Us” are all good songs. “Euphoria” was the first song and he warned Drake not to push the beef further. “Meet The Grahams” was like the final blow with its dark instrumental, and how it’s set up as letters to members of Drake’s family. And “Not Like Us” was like a victory dance after “Meet The Grahams” and became his biggest hit, uniting the whole of LA, and winning multiple awards

“GNX” (2024)

His final album, “GNX” released on Nov. 22, 2024. It is an album that pays homage to the west coast, with Lamar putting underground artists from LA in the spotlight.

“Heart pt.6” the title is like that and not like “The Heart Part 5” or any other song in the series because Drake already used that title during the beef with his song trying to disprove Kendrick’s claims.

The song itself pays homage to his friends ScHoolboy Q, Jay Rock, Ab-Soul, and Dave Free who are like brothers to him. He also mentions how his old group, “Black Hippy”, failed because of him. Overall I would say GNX is his worst project since UU but it’s still an 8/10 album.

Features

His feature record is just as impressive. Some of his best features are Lil Wayne’s “Mona Lisa”, Kanye West’s “No More Parties In LA,” ScHoolboy Q’s “Collard Greens”, Travis Scott’s “goosebumps”, Baby Keem’s “Family Ties” and Metro Boomin and Future’s “Like That”, which started the Drake beef in the first place.