Lamar isn't the messiah he's just a very good rapper, and for now that will doĪ solid effort by the good kid from the mad city, but whether it actually belongs on the shelf beside the true hip-hop classics remains to be seenĪ big-budget reminder that the 25-year-old hasn’t forgotten his rootsīy the time Georgia Gothic comes to a close, you’ve been taken to a defiant and confident point of redemption which simply oozes that carefree feeling you get when you’ve got the windows rolled down and the radio turned up real loud Kendrick Lamar may not have saved hip-hop, but he's certainly provided us with one of 2012's best records Perhaps Lamar's greatest gift is his ability to pull the listener inside the action while retaining an alienated detachment But at the very least, it's never anything less than fascinating It's a completely exhausting listen, one that might prove easier to admire than enjoy. Proves his talent to be as prodigious as his online output Lamar is an unlikely star: a storyteller, not a braggart or punch-line rapper, setting spiritual yearnings and moral dilemmas against a backdrop of gang violence and police brutality
Lamar concentrates the ideas of hip-hop narrative and nonfiction into such a form that’s shocking for how simultaneously accessible yet full of depth it isĪdd it all up and subtract the hype, and this one is still potent enough to rise to the top of the pileĬoming from the label that virtually created the template for the modern blockbuster rap album, Good Kid is an exercise in tasteful restraintĬompton MC matures quickly on this stirring major label debut What makes his success such a triumph, though, is that his vehicle was this immensely detailed, but accessible and warm-hearted origins story – the birth of a star Kendrick has unarguably emerged as a major voice in both hip hop and popular music. It’s impossible not to get excited by or be impressed with such a precise, imaginative display of talent
Listening to it feels like walking directly into Lamar's childhood home and, for the next hour, growing up alongside him This is a great album for many reasons, but a historic album maybe just for one: it is a gorgeous, poignant, real, and fitting final curtain for the era of gangsta rap it was borne from Here, Kendrick Lamar embodies the very idea that top-tier rappers are those who paint intriguing pictures with their words, and as a wordsmith Kendrick has painted a masterpiece m.A.A.d city is just as ambitious, but with much subtler shadesĪ powerful, significant, thrilling and astonishing affair, For now, it is safe to say that good kid, m.A.A.d city is the most potent exploration yet of one of the most interesting minds in rap musicĪs far as My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy/m.A.A.d city comparisons go, I think they work as inversions. It is a varied and dense listening experience that feels more like an emotional outburst than an assured statement of purpose. Lamar has bypassed the norm by producing an album that’s damn near unimpeachable Sort by ADM rating Sort by most recent review