Young Rappers Old People Should Know — Kendrick Lamar
As a person in my early 40s who was a huge hip-hop fan in his 20s, I’m super confident in the future of rap. However, I have family, friends and acquaintances who disagree. Many of those people are younger than me. Often, I’m left wondering, what are you listening to? There’s tons of great underground and mainstream hip-hop and rap. This series is meant to encourage you guys to listen to rappers in their teens, 20’s and 30s. I may recommend albums that are not the artists’ “best” album, but rather, the best entry point to check them out if your listening palette has a bit of salt and pepper in it (you got some grey hairs).
The first artist in my list is Kendrick Lamar
Who is Kendrick Lamar? A Grammy award winning rapper based in LA.
Why Kendrick Lamar? There’s no way to start a list like this without mentioning Kendrick. We could argue whether he is the top rapper in the world. Drake, and J. Cole come to mind. You could argue a strong case for a number of mumble rappers. However, for people who stopped listening to rap in the early 2000’s or 90’s Lamar is the mainstream rapper who most closely follows the ethos of 90s rap. Kendrick has the ability to be innovative, lyrical, and relevant to the streets at the same time. That’s what old heads want in their rap. If we can’t understand what you’re saying, we’re going to be miserable. If you got nothing original to say, who cares how hood you are? You have to be all three.
What should old heads start with? Most critics have mAAd City as his best album, but that’s not where an old head should start. To appreciate Kendrick Lamar’s discography, I recommend starting with To Pimp a Butterfly. The heavy influence of jazz, and the 2Pac references that permeate the album make it the perfect album for an old head to start with. Afterwards, listen to the album/EP Untitled Unmastered that followed To Pimp a Butterfly before listening to Section.80 and then Good kid mAAd City. By the time you’ve heard those 4 albums, you should be hooked and listening to DAMN shouldn’t need a recommendation.
