The 60 Greatest Kendrick Lamar Songs

Kendrick samples a famous recording from the late artist Dash Snow for this mixtape cut that served as an introduction to his talents. It’s a fitting pairing. Like Snow, Kendrick would emerge as one of the culture’s most uncompromising voices. On “The Heart Pt. 2” he’s painting a vivid and urgent portrait of an artist coming into his own. His voice grows palpably intense at moments, a glimmer of the freewheeling verses he’d soon deliver on studio albums. The track feels like discovering, in real time, a once-in-a-generation talent. —J.I.

“Keisha’s Song (Her Pain)” is an epic portrait so haunting it sticks with you long after you’ve stopped listening. Kendrick Lamar’s empathy makes this tragic tale go over like a soothing balm. Keisha’s in the neighborhood doing what she does. But only he really sees her: She’s someone’s daughter or little sister. He honors her, observing, “in her mind, she made it where/Nothin’ really matters.” Keisha’s demise at the end also feels, chillingly, like her redemption. —W.D.

In retrospect, Kendrick Lamar’s highly anticipated collaboration with Dr. Dre sounds like a commercial path he ultimately didn’t take. But it helped introduce him — mostly considered a critic’s darling at the time — to the radio kingmakers who ultimately determine whether a rapper scores major chart hits. While Lamar’s work can be impressively dense, there’s nothing confusing about the woofer-rattling bass, mic-trading boasts, or “Recipe” chorus that ends, “What more can I say? Welcome to L.A.” —M.R.

“I don’t give a fuck about no politics in rap my nigga,” Lamar tells us on the 10th song on To Pimp a Butterfly. Taking cues from Notorious B.I.G.’s “Notorious Thugs” and Jay-Z’s “Imaginary Player,” his rap State of the Union offers an omnipresent view of the game as he casts his lens from Compton to Congress, riffing on Democrats and Republicans alike (“Demo-Crips and Re-Blood-licans”), and describing a summit with Jay himself. —J.B. 

With BJ the Chicago Kid on the hook, the neo-soul vibe of “Kush & Corinthians” neatly encapsulates Kendrick Lamar’s concerns: fear of impromptu street violence, a yearning for deeper spiritual commitment, and questions about life and society. “I wonder will the eyes of the Lord look at me,” he admits. “Ride to it, because you never know/When a bullet might hit and you die to it.” —M.R.

“I’m going through something in life/But pussy and Patrón will make you feel alright,” harmonizes Kendrick Lamar on what may be his first viral hit. It’s a lush melody that’s marked by anguish: He opens with a story about getting beaten up and nearly killed, then asks why people use sex and alcohol to cope with the pain of existence. Since Kendrick Lamar EP isn’t available on streaming platforms, listeners may be more familiar with the track’s Overly Dedicated sequel, “P&P 1.5.” —M.R.

Not a salute to the school-to-military pipeline, but an ode to every time a passionate person almost stumbled into some reckless shit — the times when you’re one call away from the worst best decision of your life. Here Kendrick evokes his own years spent on that edge, evoking his own restless hunger in a series of tragic images and tempted thoughts. When BJ the Chicago Kid comes in singing the chorus of Common’s “The Light,” it’s a salve for the real. —M.P.

In the essay collection Promise You Will Sing About Me: The Power and Promise of Kendrick Lamar, Ann Powers writes that Lamar projects “an appealing masculinity that doesn’t seem to be tragic, or deeply harmful to women — you might even, at times, call their music feminist.” While less-forgiving critics might object to Powers’ view, “She Needs Me” and the way Lamar frames a woman’s attraction in humanistic terms shows how, at best, he presents a more complex perspective on male-female relationships than his most of his peers. —M.R.

Only Kendrick Lamar can make a declaration about the ineffable power of love into a pop-worthy earworm. When he asserts, “ I know y’all love it when the drugs talkin’, but/Shut the fuck up when you hear love talkin’,” it’s like the ultimate Verzuz between agape and your fave’s bullshit babble about Xanys. Summer Walker adds some seductive lines about the sacrifices involved (”it ain’t love if you ain’t never eat my ass”), and Ghostface references the Twilight Zone before ending with a plea to listen to the stars. W.D.

On “Heart Pt. 6,” Kendrick Lamar pays homage to his former label TDE and Black Hippy, the crew of LA rappers that nurtured him to stardom. “Everything I had was for the team,” he raps, and flows over SWV’s “Use Your Heart” in a straightforward cadence filled with warmth and appreciation for their support, even as he acknowledges that his departure from TDE in 2022 resulted in bruised feelings. “Heart Pt. 6” feels like another nail in the coffin for his long-running beef with Drake, who tried to get the better of Lamar by releasing a mocking diss with the same title. But instead of reclaiming a signature series that began in 2010 by spewing more damaging invective at his rival, Lamar offers love to his friends.–M.R.

Kendrick’s poetry drops into the middle of “For Free? (Interlude)” like a floating dolly shot — cool, spacey, and artfully subversive. He’s overcharging Betsy Ross’ Stars and Stripes for all the unhealed wounds left on the backs of his ancestors. “Evidently, all I seen was Spam and raw sardines,” he tells a frustrated woman. As long as “the man” can conjure up so-called welfare queens, he’s gonna have to put up with some shit talk. —W.D.

“How Much a Dollar Cost” is “What if God Was One of Us?” but on MLK Boulevard. Like the Richard Linklater stand-in in Waking Life, Kendrick Lamar, in his retelling of his interaction with an unusually persistent houseless man, seems to ask, “What if life is one big test to see if we’re ready for heaven?” We never are. Weighty philosophy and concern with final things are on Kendrick’s mind. He makes them relatable and engaging. —W.D.

“Father Time” is one of the standouts from Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers, partly thanks to an expressive chorus by Sampha that exemplifies the feeling of pushing through obstacles. Lamar’s plight is a familiar one to fans of his past work like good kid, m.A.A.d. city: coming to terms with a “tough love” father who refused to admit defeat or loss. He unfurls his “daddy issues” over a skipping, piano-inflected beat that sounds whimsical and melancholy. “You really need some therapy,” Lamar’s life partner Whitney Alford advises. M.R.

Rapping over the beat from J. Cole’s “A Tale of 2 Citiez,” Lamar riffs on everything from his status as the new rap superstar to Kanye West’s presidential campaign to how much lawyer fees now cost. The track was released alongside Cole rapping over Kendrick’s “Alright,” but Kendrick got the upper hand on his remix. “Every time I start writing, I get sentimental,” says the Compton rapper, and then he starts crying and rapping at the same time. Don’t get it twisted: He still does this better than anyone. —J.B.

“Complexion (A Zulu Love)” is like a jazzy vignette that might appear in an underappreciated gem from Black cinema. Kendrick and a firing-from-all-cylinders Rapsody make the thorny topic of colorism sound playful. Like a swap-meet iteration of Ossie Davis, Kendrick tells his would-be Ruby Dee, “Beauty is what you make it/I used to be so mistaken/By different shades of faces.” Rapsody responds with, “I love myself/I no longer need Cupid.” The many shades are an oasis. —W.D.

Is it possible to lose innocence when you’re Black? How often have you lied so you can go kick it? Kendrick is immaculate at setting scenes, at painting details a listener knows perfectly. Even if they’ve never balled at that park, or flocked their neighbor’s home, we’ve all had friends that get us in more trouble than we’d manage on our own. “The Art of Peer Pressure” is a testament to the perils of masculinity and proximity; a near-death portrait where everyone goes home. —M.P.

The Black man’s Butterfly Effect. Whether you believe in coincidence or not, every action comes with consequences. By the record’s end, we know Kendrick wouldn’t exist if shit went another way in that KFC way back. This is Dot as a vessel, channeling two pivotal figures of his life into an autobiographical current that weaves all three stories into one. You hear where they come from, and what they’ve become. Another storytelling masterclass, with a twist. —M.P.

Kendrick Lamar’s not one for his own oversimplification. He’ll offer an elegy for the dead as quickly as he’ll kill you himself. Peep how he says the word  “conscious” with such disdain here, scoffing at the reductive qualifiers of early adopters. No, this is Compton, and Kendrick is well aware of reveling in all that comes with it. Boisterous and dazzling as ever, this record was early confirmation that Dot was not the one to trifle with. —M.P.

“Shit don’t change until you get up and wash your ass nigga,” says Bilal on this ode to hard work, being trapped inside of systemic racism, and doing good in life. It has Snoop Dogg interludes, first-person narratives from Kendrick Lamar’s friend, who feels like a fish out of water at the BET Awards, and the psyche of your homies referring you to as a god. —J.B.

Named after actor Wesley Snipes and sampling Boris Gardiner’s 1973 song “Every Nigger Is a Star,” the opening track on To Pimp a Butterfly sees Lamar ruminating on Black celebrity from the perspective of his teenage self. “Wesley’s Theory” let everyone know that his new magnum opus would not be good kid, m.A.A.d city, with an underwater groove from funkmasters George Clinton and Thundercat propelling him into his new groundbreaking phase. —J.B.

When Kendrick Lamar begins “N95” by unburdening himself of worldly obsessions and reveal the “ugly as fuck” human underneath them, one can hear echoes of De La Soul’s 1989 chant “Take It Off.” “Take off them fabricated streams and them microwave memes,” raps Lamar as he illustrates his talent for unearthing arcane hip-hop idioms to address our post-millennial present. Some critics justifiably chafed at his allusions to “cancel culture,” and lyrics like “the world in a panic, the women is stranded, the men on the run.” But even as Lamar centers his masculinity, he struggles to discern between his real, spiritual self and societal expectations, and it’s the latter impulse that carries him through.–M.R.

Many folks didn’t know what to make of the advance single from To Pimp a Butterfly. What did Kendrick Lamar mean by “I love myself?” Heard now, it sounds like a tribute to self-love and self-worth that was ahead of its time. The album version of the track adds further context: There are audible nightclub noises as Lamar struggles to make his message of positivity heard above the din. —M.R.

An unflinching examination of a Compton mind run ragged by a fame that’s absorbed it and the pain it can’t evade. Here, Dot drags us lower than ever: We hear his thoughts, his people, and his bottle taking turns telling him he ain’t shit. We’re viscerally present as he wallows in absence, asking all these questions without answers we can hear aloud. After four minutes, one wonders if Kendrick even made it out of the booth. —M.P.

The list of sought-after reference tracks for Dr. Dre is long — no one has heard Jay-Z’s demo of “Still D.R.E.,” nor the Eminem versions of songs he wrote for 2001 — but “Look Out for Detox” is something else entirely, a promo song so virtuosic that the legendary producer could never cut it himself. —P.T.

Sampling “So[rt]” by Knxwledge, the ninth song on To Pimp a Butterfly is a list of Kendrick Lamar’s virtues, and an image of his trip to Africa. Kendrick knows everything: Compton, street shit, consciousness, highs, lows, and not caring about receiving recognition for his goodness. With this deep cut, he also deepened his critical acclaim. —J.B.

“I’ll kill them all before I let them kill my joy,” promises Kendrick Lamar in this angry retort to his critics. His growling, vindictive words – prefaced with a dramatic intro by LA singer Deyra Barrera – are partly inspired by a backlash that ensued when the NFL announced his halftime performance at Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans, and hometown superstar Lil Wayne admitted he had wanted the opportunity for himself. (The two eventually talked it out.) Amid callouts to sundry other dustups, Lamar embraces his status as a polarizing rap icon, and someone whose ideas are too provocative to be universally embraced. “Niggas thought that I was antisocial when I stayed inside my house,” raps Lamar in reference to a long hiatus between 2018’s Black Panther: The Album and 2022’s Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers. “You better off to have one woman, everything tricky right now.”–M.R.

Lamar’s habit of picking apart his weaknesses sparks this highlight from DAMN. When he raps, “I can’t fake humble just ‘cause your ass is insecure,” he could just as likely be talking about himself. But unlike the hit single “Humble,” there’s no rousing chorus to lessen the tension; instead, Lamar just harmonizes, “Maybe I wasn’t there” as his voice drifts off. What initially seems like another dive into Lamar’s doubts eventually focuses on the personal costs of not sharing love and empathy. —M.R.

“Poe Man’s Dreams (His Vice)” is a stylized everyman’s slice of life. Kendrick Lamar’s worldview is that of a sympathetic auteur’s. Every detail is on granular display — you can all but feel and smell the half-eaten chicken boxes and the reek of humanity off the folk in line at the check-cashing spot. He observes, “But anyway, this for my pops/On his lunch break eating in that parking lot.” The languid beat hits a chill, egalitarian sweet spot. —W.D.

By the early 2010s, the turn-of-the-century soul-sampling aesthetic in rap production had been pared down to where the seams in beats were more visible. It sounds as if Canei Finch’s beat for “Westside, Right on Time” is being played live on a sampler as Kendrick and Jeezy trade irresistibly low-stakes verses. —P.T.

Over a slow-rolling sample of the 24-Carat Black’s 1973 single “Poverty’s Paradise,” Kendrick takes an experimental approach to excavate his subconscious. As a songwriter, the rapper is skilled at the art of the perspective shift, imbuing songs with the kinds of narratives fit for an analyst. Here, we trace the development of fear —  from a childhood fear of parental retribution to adult fears of financial collapse — taking a germ of a feeling and unearthing a world of feeling. —J.I.

If you turned on the radio in a major California city at the end of 2024, you’d probably hear Kendrick Lamar screaming, “Mustaaaard!” He may be a noodl-y, introspective lyricist, but he can deliver a righteous slapper when he wants to. “TV Off” is one of those moments. Musically, DJ Mustard (along with collaborators Sounwave, Jack Antonoff, Sean Momberger, and Kamasi Washington) create a beat reminiscent of “Not Like Us,” Lamar’s Grammy-winning global smash. But if “Not Like Us” represented Lamar dancing on the grave of his rival Drake’s reputation, then “TV Off” finds him joyously striding the corridors of fame on his way to Super Bowl halftime show glory. “It’s not enough,” he chants as he reveals his hunger for more power.–M.R.

Over O.C. Smith’s much-sampled song “Stormy,” Lamar raps, “Ain’t nobody prayin’ for me,” on the fifth song on DAMN. It’s a list of all the issues that are on his mind; Kendrick sounds ferocious as he alienates himself from the rest of the world, including his family and friends. —J.B.

“I’m willin’ to die for this shit,” Lamar screams on this competitive rap track from DAMN. First introduced by LeBron James on Instagram, the song riffs on Kendrick being the best in the rap game, his daddy’s jail money, and his fights in front of his mother. Produced by James Blake, this track planted K.Dot’s flag as the best rapper alive, without a doubt. —J.B.

Kendrick is in a universe entirely on his own when it comes to vocal agility. Across his verses, there’s a dynamic cadence that refuses stagnation, floating between pitches and tempos with unimaginable ease. On “Untitled 07” he’s elastic and fluid stretching lines like “life won’t get you high,” like they were Play-Dough. His voice draws out, long and expansive, before he quickly collects the slack, twisting another lyrical knot. The track closes on a softer, almost jazz-like sensibility. It’s almost unfair how good he is.  J.I.

“There’s supposed to be a good exhibition within the game,” raps Lamar on the Kendrick-Drake War’s uncomfortably personal turning point. “But you fucked up the moment you called out my family’s name.”Meet the Grahams” takes the form of an open letter to the rapper’s parents, son and alleged daughter, an act of deft concern trolling: Even when going for the jugular, Lamar is uniquely artful. The grimy beat is provided by the Alchemist, making it closer to the legacy of coolly sinister East Coast beefmongers like Jay-Z and 50 Cent than the more fiery confrontations of West Coast rappers like 2Pac and Ice Cube.–C.W.

Not long after winning his Drake feud with the Number One total knockout “Not Like Us,” Lamar released this giddy victory lap, a celebration of his untouchable status over a rubbery sample of Debbie Deb’s roller rink classic “When I Hear Music.” Lamar has had many “moments” in his career, but he usually confronts them with doubt and introspection. This time he revels in it, an unapologetic party jam with the bounce of San Francisco hyphy music and an allusion to the don’t-give-a-fuck attitude of his hero 2Pac: “Spit a loogie at the camera, speed off, yeah, it’s us.”–C.W.

Released a week before Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers, Lamar’s six-minute track not only previews the album’s themes – straining to evolve beyond one’s beginnings into a better, more loving place – but also serves as a tribute to fallen Black Men, particularly the rapper Nipsey Hussle. “And I can’t blame the hood the day that I was killed/You had to see it, that’s the only way to feel,” he raps. Production trio Beach Noise lovingly samples Marvin Gaye’s “I Want You,” conjuring an elegiac, introspective tone for a man finding peace within himself. M.R.

As on “Money Trees,” Kendrick builds tight constraints around his verses on “Cartoon & Cereal,” confining each to a careful meter and controlled momentum to set up a showstopping climax by a guest star. This time it comes from Gunplay, the uncontrollable Florida rapper whose outburst is pure, furious catharsis. THC’s beat is perhaps the most innovative Kendrick has ever rapped on, through, deep inside of. —P.T.

Despite his greatest gift being his ability to craft delicately intricate maps of his inner self, Lamar Kendrick isn’t necessarily a didactic or “conscious” rapper. He’s too dynamic to be pinned down by an easy categorization. He’s also just too damned good at making straightforward pop hits. Take “Loyalty”: The Rihanna-assisted track on 2017’s DAMN. has all of the ingredients of a bonafide hit, and Kendrick takes it into a new realm with his inventively acrobatic cadence. Naturally, the lyrical depth is there, but Kendrick is as good as any rapper at having a good time, too. —J.I.

Lamar went on a three-year hiatus after releasing the luxurious, pan-genre Black Panther soundtrack. When he returned in 2021, he came out swinging. The pummeling “Family Ties” — a collaboration with his younger cousin Baby Keem — deftly bridged the stylistic and temporal gap between Lamar’s vintage lyrical roundhouses and the punchy, rage-y moshpit trap of 2021. Ready for war (“smokin’ on your Top Five tonight”), Lamar assumes the same fighting stance he had on the landmark “Control,” ready to battle a new generation without social media gimmicks, trending topics or false streams.–C.W.

“I’m sick and tired of being tired,” Kendrick croons at the start of “Untitled 02,” before imploring in the song’s otherworldly refrain for someone to “get God on the phone.” There is indeed something mystic underpinning much of Kendrick’s output. You get the feeling that these are songs intended to access something beyond, or at least something deeper. Here, he might as well be a prophet. The layered texture of his vocals lands like hearing someone imbued with a spirit. For what it’s worth, Kendrick seems right at home. —J.I.

“Mother I Sober” is like the contemplative addendum to 2015’s chaotic “u.” Whereas that To Pimp a Butterfly deep cut depicted Kendrick Lamar in a hotel room with just a bottle of liquor and the fractured shards of his ego, this piano-driven gem presents a man with great burdens (as an artist, father, and son) reflecting on how he became whole. “Pacify, broken pieces of me, it was all a blur,” he confesses in this heartfelt dialogue between him, his mother, and us, the grateful listeners. On “Mother I Sober,” Kendrick makes even the quiet moments resound with unquestionable authority. W.D.

“I wanted that shit to sound just as crazy,” producer Mike Will Made-It told NPR. “I wanted it to sound like he’s battling the beat.” “DNA” is a blunt-force trauma in musical form, with Kendrick recounting where he started from and how he’s now stunting. Using a Fox News clip that criticizes his music, he attacks everyone from all angles. He is fighting the beat. The outcome: a song that is used in commercials, pregame intros, and bumped in the streets all over the country. —J.B.

“I’m African American, I’m African, Black as the moon,” raps Lamar in a frenzied, sharp flow. With a roaring chorus from dancehall artist Assassin and a thumping jazz-funk rhythm led by Terrace Martin, this is a forceful in-your-face statement. Lamar evokes the fiery, pro-Black rhetoric of the Panthers, despite a curiously poetic admission that “I’m the biggest hypocrite in 2015/Once I finish this, witnesses will convey just what I mean.” —M.R.

This vulnerable song on good kid, m.A.A.d city became one of the album’s most enduring, each line a carefully constructed ode to a real life love interest, the concept album’s elusive Sherane and to hip-hop itself. The song spilled out once Lamar heard Scoop Deville’s cinematic beat that chirped with a chopped-up sample of Janet Jackson’s 1993 hit “Any Time, Any Place.” That sample flip was a special piece that I was saving for the right artist,” Deville told Complex. “[T]he fact that it was even cleared amazes me.”--C.W.

“Sing About Me (I’m Dying of Thirst)” legit sounds like a Faulkner title. And unsurprisingly, Pulitzer Prize winner Kendrick gives us something worthy of the literary greats. His questions to himself (about why he chooses to immortalize his close friends in his songs) feel as poignant as the dialogue from a timeless unreliable narrator. If Kendrick has doubts about his responsibility as an artist, we have none about him being the best of his generation. —W.D.

“Aiming at your celebrity/This is studio felony,’’ says the young upstart from Compton on “Rigamortus.” Recorded in three takes, with Kendrick rapping in a double-time flow over a taut, jazz-inflected beat, this highlight from his first album, Section 80, got him on Drake tours, made him a new Interscope signee, and had people thinking about changing the name of their favorite rapper. —J.B.

“Ronald Reagan Era (His Evils)” is about the first generation of crack babies. Kendrick, who was born at the peak of Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” initiative, details how it felt to live in Compton during that hellish period. “1987, the children of Ronald Reagan/Rake the leaves off your front porch with a machine blowtorch,” he deadpans. He’s too young to remember smiling pictures of the former B-list actor turned right-wing demigod, but he’ll never forget those battering rams in his hood. —W.D.

Made with L.A. legend DJ Quik, “King Kunta” is Kendrick Lamar’s effective stab at G-funk, a sound he has largely bypassed since early collaborations with the likes of the Game. It’s a raucous, hard-funkin’ party track that finds the newly crowned GOAT declaring supremacy. “Bitch, where was you when I was walking?/Now I run the game, got the whole world talking,” he brags. —M.R.

This appealingly jazzy outtake from the To Pimp a Butterfly sessions finds Lamar and Co. at their loosest. He drops a verse about a troubled man “living with anxiety, ducking on sobriety,” but it sounds casually tossed off, like a freestyle. Anna Wise offers a dreamy chorus about someone jumping into the pit of hell; Top Dawg Entertainment head Punch makes a rare vocal appearance; and Jay Rock and Lamar close with a verse that brings the song’s theme of crisis into sharper perspective. —M.R.