Kendrick Lamar

After several mixtapes, Los Angeles' rapper Kendrick Lamar (aka Kendrick Duckworth) debuted with the humbly produced album Section.80 (2011) that relied too much on his unusual delivery and preachy lyrics. The highlight was perhaps the gloomy, atmospheric A.D.H.D.

The over-hyped Good Kid M.A.A.d. City (2012), despite a cast of producer that included Terrace Martin, Tyler "T-Minus" Williams, Dr Dre, Pharrell Williams (of the Neptunes), Justin "Just Blaze" Smith (inventor of the "chipmunk soul" sampling style), was still a poor effort in musical terms, therefore relying mostly on an autobiographical storytelling that was certainly more literate than the average. Hence the generic soulful spleen of Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe and Swimming Pools, the self-celebratory The Art of Peer Pressure, and the twelve-minute documentary Sing About Me I'm Dying of Thirst. Sensual and playful songs such as Poetic Justice and Backseat Freestyle transcend the concept and aim for more relaxed entertainment, but only the vocal magic of Money Trees achieves a superior balance of the two modes.

The word "hype" wasn't enough to describe the media assault on the sprawling 80-minute To Pimp a Butterfly (2015), another meticulously crafted album that employed legions of writers, producers and musicians (including jazz pianist Robert Glasper and jazz saxophonist Kamasi Washington). Six people wrote Wesley's Theory, including George Clinton, and four produced it, including Flying Lotus. Nine people are credited as writers for the funk-fest King Kunta, making it de facto a collage. The producers threw in more live instruments, resulting in a sound that is more revivalist than innovative, but also a sound that helps the general theatrical atmosphere. For better and for worse, The Blacker the Berry is the epitome of this emphatically pointless but fashionable avant-jazz-rap music. I begins as an olf-fashioned synth-pop hit of the 1980s before it begins to sound like a James Brown parody (with the lyrics "the number one rapper in the world" and "i love myself") accented by a jovial piano figure. The best psychodrama is possibly one of the simplest songs, the melodic funk-soul These Walls, and the best political sermon the equally straightforward funk ditty Hood Politics. But the music is secondary to the histrionics and it doesn't matter that the catchy and danceable Alright stands in opposition of the industrial beat that derails Momma, a fact that could account for at least eclecticism. This is a superficial and, ultimately, middle-of-the-road album from an artist who lacks the visceral energy of Public Enemy and Tackhead while also lacking the poetic depth of Kanye West and the musical genius of El-P. He tries to be all of them at once, but maybe he would be most credible if he were just himself: a brilliant script-writer of fictionalized real-life stories: the Christian parable How Much a Dollar Cost presents God disguised as a homeless man, and Mortal Man interviews the ghost of dead rapper 2Pac.

Untitled Unmastered (2016) contains demos and leftovers from the sessions of To Pimp a Butterfly.

Abandoning the funk-jazz pretensions, Lamar backpedaled to straightforward radio-friendly pop on Damn (2017), his third number-one album on the Billboard charts. Love and Loyalty (with Rihanna) are embarrassing sensual supermarket muzak. The sleepy, choral Fear (produced by Alchemist) and the robotic, lightweight Element barely rise the temperature above rigor mortis. On the other hand, the apocalyptic, rapid-fire first half of XXX (ostensibly a collaboration with U2), the hard-hitting, slightly neurotic single Humble and the frantic dissonant second half of DNA (industrial rap?) display a bit of real pathos. As usual, the lyrics are disposable throughout, with possibly the exception of Duckworth.

Lamar also "curated" the soundtrack for Ryan Coogler's film "Black Panther" (2018), later released as Black Panther The Album Music From And Inspired By (2018), that includes All the Stars, King's Dead and Pray For Me.

In 2018 he became the first rapper to win the Pulitzer Prize for music.

The 73-minute double-disc album Mr Morale & the Big Steppers (2022) is a psychological concept of sorts. While much of it is taken up by elegant but sterile sonic architectures, such as Count Me Out (with a children's choir) and Savior (with a soul choir and clockwork syncopation), there are moments of true genius, especially the cabaret-tish United in Grief (the album's highlight). The anti-ballad Auntie Diaries is original in the way the voice kills the emotional power of the lyrics, and Crown displays a zombie-like recitation over a simber autumnal piano motif. Notable is also the seven-minute kammerspiel Mother I Sober, with a chorus of voices that includes a mournful female litany and a rousing rap. In fact, Lamar was a better theatrical performer than a musician, a sensitive and emotional voice in the chaotic comedy and drama of his times.

Lamar directed several "diss" tracks against rival Drake during a highly publicized and pretty boring feud: Like That, which was a collaboration with Future and Metro Boomin, Euphoria, produced by Ronald "Cardo" LaTour and others, 6:16 in LA, produced by Mark "Sounwave" Spears and Jack Antonoff, Meet the Grahams, produced by Alchemist, and Not Like Us, produced by Dijon "Mustard" McFarlane.

Squabble Up and Not Like Us were the hits from GNX (2024).