Get the latest gossip
The 16 Best Kendrick Lamar Songs of All Time
As Kendrick Lamar gets ready to headline the Super Bowl, revisit his best songs, from huge hits to intricate verses.
There are no bells and whistles to distract from this ode to Compton, just the knocking clang of metal and well-earned demands for respect, a celebration of what he’s accomplished with the prescient caveat that he’ll never take his eye off the ball: “My mind is livin’ on cloud nine and this nine is never on vacation,” he raps. Over a woozy beat courtesy of DJ Dahi and Hit-Boy, Lamar delivers a call-and-response flow that evokes the nostalgia infused throughout “Good Kid, M.A.A.D City.” Obsessed with both music and tragedy, he drops references to Usher and E-40 as casually as the violence he sees outside. In the first verse, his character is at the end of his rope (“Once upon a time I used to go to church and talk to God / Now I’m thinkin’ to myself, hollow tips is all I got”) and commits a shocking act of violence, nested inside a jazzy chorus from Anna Wise and a creeping Thundercat bassline.
Or read this on Variety
