Without wishing to gush, Lamar is so good at what he does that anything in this Top 10 could reasonably be at No 1. Empathic rather than preachy, the verse where he recounts a conversation with a girl who has taken too much of everything is brilliantly, richly painted, with the spongy-sounding beat – a sample of Odd Future offshoot The Jet Age of Tomorrow – the perfect complement. ADHD (2011)Ī relation of Swimming Pools (Drank), this time homing in on drugs. The chorus sounds like a nihilistic party anthem – “why you babysitting only two or three shots?” – his urgent rap involves peer pressure, puking and getting beaten up, a cameo from his conscience and an examination of the roots of alcoholism. Swimming Pools (Drank) (2012)Ī perfect example of Lamar’s ability to turn a hackneyed style on its head. It is a complex, insightful and utterly gripping story, revolving around “one decision that changed both of their lives”. Lamar in storytelling mode, albeit a story based on real events: his father’s 80s encounter with Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith, then a gangster, but ultimately the boss of Lamar’s record label. Call me out on your track if you disagree, he suggests, but be warned: I will destroy you lyrically and, worse, “make it look sexy”. Hence Element, a post-fame restatement of the claims made on Rigamortis. It is obligatory for rappers to announce that they are the best, but the difference with Lamar is that he does it in a way that suggests he might well have a point. “Lift up your head and keep moving.” Lamar at the Grammys in 2018. “What you gonna do?” he asks after detailing a litany of life’s horrors.

i (2014)Īpparently Lamar’s favourite track from To Pimp a Butterfly, on which he gradually pulls himself out of depression into a state close to euphoria, buoyed up by a backing based on the Isley Brothers’ reliably joy-bringing That Lady. Rapping in a double-time flow over a twitchy, sped-up jazz sample, he offers a stream of boasts about his ability that are so relentless and inventive, even Nas – one of the artists over whom Rigamortis appears to claim Lamar’s supremacy – called him “the future”. Rigamortis (2011)įrom Lamar’s debut album, a swaggering early example of his skills. The directness of the latter’s verse is a perfect complement to the unpick-this density of Lamar’s lyrics. Cartoon and Cereal (2013)ĭropped from Good Kid, MAAD City and subsequently released as a single, the dark, Wu-Tang-goes-trap beat of Cartoon and Cereal improbably paired Lamar with the Rick-Ross-affiliated, swastika-tattooed rapper Gunplay. He apparently told the producer, Mike Will Made It, to make the backing sound “like chaos” he responded with a patchwork of electronic noise and samples from Fox News – and of Rick James demanding drugs. DNA (2017)ĭNA is Lamar in virtuosic form: a firework display of his technical ability as a rapper, shifting restlessly between viewpoints as he examines black identity. Lamar has had a fractious relationship with Drake over the years – there are umpteen articles online picking apart their apparent lyrical references to each other – but all was harmonious on the standout collaboration from the LP Good Kid, MAAD City, replete with its fantastic Janet-Jackson-sampling beat. It starts out like the standard bling-dripping, screw-you rapper’s victory lap, but suddenly flips into a troubled disquisition on materialism as a form of control.

A crash course in To Pimp a Butterfly’s expansive sound – Thundercat’s bass ricochets around, George Clinton is on hand to bolster the P-funk-like chorus – and its lyrical viewpoint.

Kendrick lamar best lyrical songs