Few issues are undebatable in terms of discussing hip-hop, however one of many style’s absolute certainties is that Kendrick Lamar is likely one of the biggest rappers working at this time. This still-young millennium has featured loads of rappers who couldn’t fairly meet the business and significant hype. However like a teenage LeBron James, Kendrick Lamar is likely one of the first MCs of his age cohort who truly exceeded the expectations that had been constructing since his breakthrough, 2010’s Overly Devoted. His main label debut good kid, m.A.A.d city is thought-about a traditional, and his a number of RIAA plaques, Grammy wins, prime slots on album of the yr lists, and Pulitzer Prize since then reveal that he’s but to fall off.
Kendrick Lamar is maybe most vital as a result of he’s one of many few rappers who’s constantly proven that business success and conventional lyrical capacity don’t need to be mutually unique. The most important instance of that capacity is his most up-to-date album DAMN, which mixed stadium-filling mainstream ambition with intense introspection and a few evergreen catchphrases (“What occurs on Earth stays on Earth!” is tattoo-able). Lamar’s present mainstream dominance has been constructed upon over a decade of laborious work: He’s been releasing mixtapes since he was 16 years previous, years earlier than he grew to become the potential top-five-dead-or-alive he’s at this time.
Hip-hop heads are persevering with to stay up for how he’ll prime DAMN, the primary hip-hop album ever to earn a Pulitzer Prize. However regardless that he’s given a lot of himself within the sales space, there are nonetheless some details about him that will shock even essentially the most astute follower. Listed here are 22 stuff you did not learn about Kendrick Lamar, together with what he considers to be his worst music and that point he was signed to Def Jam.
