How Kendrick Lamar Became The Greatest Rapper Alive

if I'm challenging myself in the studio I want to challenge you as well Kendrick laamar is better at rapping than anyone you know is at anything and what's even more impressive than his tremendous achievements and goat status is that for the last 10 years he's been my favorite artist his albums are the number one reason why I started to actually appreciate listening to albums start to finish like I would a movie and what's equally as fascinating as each of his albums is the constant growth he's made as an artist and in order to analyze his artistic growth I'd like to draw a comparison to a world you might not have expected I I grow I'm like a chameleon just bringing a pure form of artistry to the to the music game one of my past obsessions was learning how to solve a Rubik's Cube and then learning to speed solve it yes there's a pretty great Community online that shares information about how to get better at this which makes it very easy to get into and something that's always stuck with me from this hyperfixation was when one of the greatest speed cubers of all time Felix Zex posted a video talking about his thoughts on Improvement which was based on a video by another speed cuber named Noah cubes and together they talk about this concept of climbing the mountain this basically breaks The Art of Getting good down into two separate kinds of progress you move up when you learn new things that increase your capabilities you move forward when you practice those things which increases your skill so for example you might spend a few weeks learning how to solve the cube in the first place and that enables you to start practicing solves which is you attempting to get faster times then you would learn the next thing and practice that until you've mastered it and so on this distinction is critical because you can't climb the mountain by just solving the cube over and over you have to learn faster methods and then practice those until you've got them down and of course you also can't climb the mountain by only learning new methods you have to practice them until you've got it down as well as you can it's the equivalent of a chef learning new recipes and then practicing making those recipes over and over to perfect it so this is a useful way of understanding Improvement which brings us back to Kendrick Lamar in studying Kendrick's approach to music it's clear that he believes challenging himself is essential to growth it's really about me challenging myself I think my excitement in doing music is me feeling like uh I'm never stagnant which is why this is the perfect framework to understand his artistic Evolution you may like some of his earlier albums more than his later ones which is fair they're all fantastic but you cannot deny that he's continued to learn and execute new things with each and every project it's pretty well documented that Kendrick makes much more music than he ends up releasing how many unreleased songs do you have in your head or that we haven't heard yet thousands I lost hard drives damn really are we talking just a huge amount of music that we've never heard heard before the process to get to where you need to get to oh yeah cuz you know my my process after premeditating I throw all the pain on the wall I can and I pull from it it's like this image of a plate juggler with all the broken plates just behind him hidden from the crowd I believe this is Kendrick's approach to Artistic growth challenging himself to learn new things he hasn't done before and then practicing the hell out of it by making songs until arriving at the ones that are most resonant and impactful and with that let let's begin taking a look at Kendrick's Journey climbing the mountain Kendrick started at level one like the rest of us he started writing at 13 when he was inspired by two major figures what was the moment where you actually started rapping what's crazy my auntie used to play around and just be having us freestyle we didn't know what we was doing like 9 years old the first person seen a rap that's my life had Chang but I got serious with it when I was like 13 yep I was inspired by DMX first album thank God for the album my idiz is dark and is hot that's the started crazy ride he would spend years mastering the fundamentals of his craft rhyme schemes flows clever word play all of which would come in the form of mixtapes under the name k do his idols and inspiration gave him plenty to study and learn from increasing his capabilities I want to sit down and I want to perfect my craft I really went after studying all the greats Bigg e Tupac Jay-Z Nas and building connections with fellow black hippie members Jrock Absol and school boy Q as well as tde's Top Dog and punch would all support him in his years of practice I've been with Top Dog entertainment since I was 16 and um they basically developed me to where I'm at today you know me locked me in the booth and make me steud my craft not that I want to do it but they just gave me the extra push you know and we could break this down into a ton of tiny stair steps but for simplicity's sake we're going to combine his early career into one big step of mastering the fundamentals having nailed down the Basics it was time for Kendrick to challenge himself to increase his capability again the challenge at this point in his career would be to make his first concept album I just basically want to focus it around my generation that's the hint I can give for the concept each of the songs would be powerful as Standalone tracks but together they would unite to form a cohesive narrative whole that's greater than the sum of its parts and that would be section 80 the concept tying all these tracks together is the series of campfire scenes interspersed between the songs this is your generation who's willing to explain this story which helped contextualize the songs that tell the stories of people born in the 80s living in Section 8 housing hence the name section 80ies because ADHD he was clearly a talented rapper at the time and I don't if Statics up but this project would hint to the talents that he had for overall creative Direction too making this project would earn Kendrick the respect of West Coast Legend Snoop Dogg good at what you do you great at what you do say this and I'mma mean this you got the torch [ __ ] you better run with that and run with it he did I need to separate myself to stand out I need a better way to take your fans now you can just hear in his voice this guy who's fought his whole life for this moment now that he's finally got some wind in his sales there's no way he's going to miss his shot I need to you [ __ ] de be damn Cho jam now it was time for Kendrick to put his whole foot on the gas good kid Mad City would raise the bar by being an even more personal and more polished concept album about his upbringing in Compton California this is bigger than music for me you know I mean I haven't seen the city I don't had uncle's pass and cousins pass in the city you I mean growing up in Compton it's real I would like to say the one word to describe it is um it's real unpredictable period you know cuz you never know what type of Mischief you going to get yourself into you know you might be going to the LI store and then that's your life right there so you got to really watch your ways and watch your steps and how to move and watch the people you hang around this album is the first one that comes to mind when we're talking about albums that play like movies and that's entirely what he was going for he had been living with this idea for a long time and wisely waited until his skills were up to the task before going for it good kid M my first first book yeah I had that picture for so long uh knowing that it'll be my album cover I came up with the idea mity lot of irony in that picture baby BT next to 40 next to some uh hum that's in the gang culture you know it just really just it said everything about my music aside from making what feels like an even more cinematic immersive and complete concept album tied together with a series of skits that set up the following tracks K get in the car [ __ ] get your freestyles [Music] ready don't even trip just lay back and drink that he also definitely got better at writing hit singles too and you need those to reach larger audiences and attract people to listen to the album in the first place swimming pools was a fantastically designed song from this perspective it is such a struggle for artists of all kinds to make art that's deep and personal to them while also reaching large audiences cuz you want to make what you want but you do be having to make money though and sometimes it can feel like an impossible Balancing Act between success and substance Kendrick gives us a master class on how to do both with swimming [Music] pools this was the first Kendrick song Me and many people my age ever heard because it was popular it was played on the radio it was played in parties it became a party song and a drinking song and it is a great drinking song when you only pay attention to the hook [Music] even though this song is really about Kendrick's upbringing and watching everyone around him struggle with substance abuse you could fully enjoy this song while you abuse substances but don't whip out the lyrics unless you're ready to face your demons EXC so this album showed both artistic and Commercial growth for Kendrick many say it's a masterpiece that raised the bar for the new era of hip hop artists and while we're talking about raising the bar what is competition I'm trying to raise the bar High who trying to jump and get it after dropping good kid Mad City Kendrick dropped the infamous control verse h i mean big sea dropped the song control but this song that Kendrick was just a feature on would be reclaimed as his own as more people give a [ __ ] about just his verse than the rest of the whole song feeling confident in his position after earning the respect of his idols and wholeheartedly seizing the moment with good kid Mad City Kendrick felt like it was time to establish himself by bringing the competition to his competition IU Kendrick reinvigorated the competitive Spirit of the lyrical sport by calling out the whole game on a verse having a certain mentality of coming in a league where you're literally head hunting everyone right because it's your time to establish yourself and say know I belong here right and so this as a result Everybody Must Go yeah right yeah he can relate to that but it was actually a sign of respect if your name was listed meaning that you're a worthy participant in this competition you know the the control thing man like first thing he says to me is like yo thank you so much for just you know for understanding and not taking the verse the wrong way I like that and I was like oh I was like Kendrick you don't know I'm Different bro I was like I'm Different like I you know I understand like I listen to rap right understand it's the sport of hip-hop it it it's the sport it's the sport of hip-hop and I and I looked at it like man you know he he's um he shouted out his peers and keep it hip hop cuz that's what he did he kept it all hip hop he didn't go punal he attacked his friends and told them this is friendly competition and he named him and he told him I'm on y'all and that's what hip hop does that's what it's supposed to do this verse made such enormous waves that it even reached the most Niche and unex expected audiences I will never forget playing Starcraft 2 in 2013 when some random and general chat said an all caps Kendrick just called out the entire rap game so I mean it when I say everyone was talking about [Music] this it really is the balls on this guy to make such a claim to have the audacity if you're going to talk this big of a game you better be able to back it up if you're going to talk this big of a game your next album better be to pimpa Butterfly is widely recognized by modern music fans as one of the greatest albums of all time which is a real head scratcher because most artists may only reach the level Kendrick did with good kid Mad City Once how in the [ __ ] would he continue to raise the bar for himself yet again he would not be satisfied by making the same thing again his ambition and Artistic integrity would lead him to do the only thing he knows how to do challenge himself to me the challenge with this project would be going all the way in the artistic Direction Kendrick Lamar is a real [ __ ] artist yeah like true definition of the word to pimpa Butterfly was sonically way out of left field and Kendrick knew it before any record come out it got to go through me and they got to go through my team first and we all listening like what the [ __ ] is [Music] this like especially when you listen to it first all the way through it takes a few times to digest oh seriously this would be Kendrick making the poetic Masterpiece he's always wanted to make even if it wasn't radio friendly even if there were people who thought this ain't it at first it was completely unexpected nobody was expecting you to make that yeah definitely um and I knew I knew from the jump that there was going to be a challenge you know for for my listener's ear but if I'm challenging myself in the studio I want to challenge you as well to pimp a butterfly is an amazing encapsulation of the Whirlwind the music industry puts him through as he rises in stardom finding himself abusing his Newfound power feeling like he's abandoned those he left struggling back at home noticing the exploitative nature of the industry that praises the talents of the butterfly yet shuns the caterpillar it started out as he would sub out the more familiar hip-hop beats for a lot of live instrumentation combining his talent for flows with this would make Creations like for free which is a total mind [ __ ] [ __ ] your stion if we [ __ ] more abor more divor and this I have two this day never heard a single song Like You complicated this song feels like we're plummeting into the depths of Kendrick's Soul on the darkest way as he desperately struggles to cope with the relationships he's destroyed back at home by being absent when they needed him most feeling like he left them behind for his own success you ain't no friend a for or leave his best friend brother you promised you watch I think to make a song that's this heavy and being able to identify it with a single letter is kind of brilliant weak and the polar opposite to this track is [Music] I which is about self-love and it's very uplifting and every time I hear this line it makes me feel like I can pick myself up again this is an album I revisit basically every year and I get more out of it each time as I get a little older and wiser and if you were too repelled by how out there and artsy to pimp a butterfly is to enjoy it you were reminded that Kendrick is that guy when he and competitor conscious rapper Jay Cole would rap over each other's beats for Black Friday this was great for the fans but brutal for Cole it's not like he didn't give it his best it's still solid but Kendrick's just a whole different Beast and the beat that Cole let him have is one of his best beats ever this is when we knew for sure that Kendrick laar is the definition of going hard in the paint much like with the control verse Kendrick's part is definitively favored by fans on both YouTube and SoundCloud the only places you can listen to it the numbers don't lie and they spell disaster for you so Kendrick just made another Masterpiece of an album which begs the question how in the [ __ ] would he do it again the way I see it he went full-fledged artist mode onto pimpa butterfly taking the risk of sacrificing commercial viability and popularity in favor of what matters most to True fans of Music the Artistry feel and now the challenge would be to prove that he can not only do that but also go all the way in the other direction and make a hugely popular mainstream album without watering down his Artistry and he did it dam was huge many of its songs reached billions of streams and became by far his highest selling album 2 3 I am there's some really clever ways that he accomplished this too Take the Lead single on music video that came out before the album humble is to damn what swimming pools is to good kid Mad City but to an even greater extent like swimming pools it would be a more accessible replayable radio friendly song that would help attract new listeners to checking out the rest of the album but humble would go even more viral with a phenomenal music video directed by one of the goats Dave Meyers this video has become a classic moment in Kendrick's career as he reemerges in 2017 as Kung Fu Kenny k k resum for millennium I look at Kung Fu Kenny as a uh a master of the craft now now you have the ability to make songs and still have the the the you know the word Smith technique and intertwined and have a composed mentality on how to approach music now you're just not connecting with people in the studio your homies you connecting with people around the world universally what's really interesting about humble though is that it reads like it was an exercise in minimalism like I'm genuinely curious if Kendrick challenged himself to minimize complexity and syllables because the song is written at a third grade reading level the Gunning fog index is a tool to measure readability and if you treat each line of this song as its own sentence then the song Clocks in at this level and it worked Kendrick made his most mainstream album on purpose him and his team wanted everyone to connect with it as many people as possible that's why it was going to be called what happens on Earth stays on Earth but they simplified it to damn and while this would become by far his highest selling album of all time it's still very artistically satisfying it's an abstract tragedy about being cursed or damned in one way or another wickedness or weakness it wickedness a weak listening to this album normally versus in reverse order is your decision to either live or die listening to this album in Reverse for the path of wickedness is very dark ending with this Furious pop off at the end of DNA that's triggered by Geraldo Rivera's incredibly ignorant and harmful comment on the news that damage to Young African-Americans than racism in recent years and then he dies in Blood and that guy is on the news misrepresenting his legacy damn and when the world needed him most he vanished we eagerly waited 5 years for his next album to come out and when that time came how in the [ __ ] would he raise the bar this time if you've proven you can go full artistic and still have Commercial Success if you've proven you can go full commercial success and still be artistically satisfying where do you go next Kendrick's whole discography so far has been largely one of tragedy the challenge with this next album would be breaking the cycle Breaking Free of the torture artist position and Breaking Free from the generational cycles of pain he was born into this is why Kung Fu Kenny would now reemerge as Mr morale the guy doing the hard thing but the right thing this album is Kendrick's journey through therapy starting out with surface level complaints of the world and slowly progressing deeper and deeper into his own issues that are rooted all the way back to Childhood this album is Kendrick making art for his own health and well-being now and the concept that ties this album together is much more subtle than the skits in section 80 in good kid Mad City or the poem in to pimp a butterfly there's just bits of conversation from Whitney someone who hardcore fans would know is Kendrick's high school sweetheart and mother of his kids she's urging him to tell us the truth and to go to therapy tell them tell them tell them tell them you're we also hear steps in the background near the end of a lot of tracks open to interpretation I like to think that he's taking big steps towards healing among other things at the end of we cry together a song about a couple arguing and then engaging in the toxic behavior of making up over sex instead of addressing their problems Whitney tells Kendrick stop tap dancing around the conversation he ultimately tells us the truth and mother I sober the guy that we've always known to not really have any addictions he never really has been a drinker or a smoker he reveals that all this time he has been hiding an addiction a sex addiction one that would lead him to infidelity with his partner Whitney and so really we owe this whole album to Whitney who even in her pain cared more for him to get help the miracle of this album is breaking the cycle of tragedy and choosing healing this is arguably the most important album in Kendrick's career because again finally it's moving in the direction of self-healing setting an example by taking a stand for mental health and if Kendrick chooses him I'm all here for that if this is the final message of his discography I think it's a perfect ending and I'm all in support of it because he's given us so much already but if he chooses violence and makes more music I'm here for that too so I was just making this video to appreciate Kendrick what we do on this channel is we appreciate art and like I said he's been my favorite artist for the last 10 years I didn't know that while I was making this he would diss Drake and jcole but as of me recording this all that's happened is Kendrick dropped a one minute verse uh jcole replied with a 4minute song and then apologized for it he took it back and Drake's dis has allegedly leaked and all I can say is as a fan of Kendrick he is artistically in a different League than these other two and if we do get a proper Dis Track from Kendrick it's going to be legendary it's been built up for so long on tracks like the Heart part 4 and element and Rich spirit and I'm here for it until then you can check out more great art over here and bonus content on the Rock patreon and if Kendrick ever makes another album you better believe he's going to challenge himself

Channel: lvl 1 rock

Views: 341,408

Keywords: Kendrick, kendrick lamar, section 80, good kid mad city, to pimp a butterfly, DAMN, Mr Morale & The Big Steppers, GOAT, greatest rapper alive, the heart part 5, j cole, drake, like that, control verse, black friday, kung fu kenny, mr morale, kendrick control verse, kendrick black friday, how kendrick lamar, why kendrick lamar, rap, drake diss, j cole diss, kendrick diss, like that reaction, humble, swimming pools, the heart part 3, the heart part 2, lyrics, lyricism, hip hop

Id: 2DWsbstH_g4

Length: 22min 58sec (1378 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 13 2024