Kendrick Lamar Best Posts: Kendrick's greatest calendar year?

Jakey · Jan 18, 2016

Jan 18, 2016

So... 2010, I know Kendrick released music earlier in previous years, however I'm starting off here at the start of a new decade. I didn't know who Kendrick Lamar was in 2010 and didn't start exploring his music that year until years after I got to him. This was the year that he released his mixtape Overly Dedicated on September 14th and also released Kendrick Lamar EP on the last day of 2009.

Kendrick Lamar has came along way from where he was in 2010 to where he is today with a significant increasing amount of popularity which means that not everyone would be familiar with his Overly Dedicated days. OD had many unsung great tracks on it along with a few highly praised tracks such as The Heart Pt.2, arguably one of his greatest songs on that mixtape. A couple of my other personal favourite songs off this mixtape are Opposites Attract, Growing Apart and PP 1.5.

Commercially this year was far from Kendrick's best year, but Kendrick built a foundation in 2010 that gradually grew into bigger and bigger things.

This was the year that I discovered the great Kendrick Lamar, I was casually listening to Game's new 'The RED Album' where I came across the song The City featuring Kendrick. Back then I didn't listen to any lesser known rappers at all, but Kendrick's verse intrigued me, he killed it, I had to find more of him. 2011 was also the year he released his debut independent album Section.80. The forums name sake.

Section.80 displayed significant improvement in his music, he whole album was brilliant. Creating songs like A.D.H.D, Ronald Regan Era, The Spiteful Chant and HiiPower, this was the birth of sensational artist. The album didn't quite kick off, but it was later strongly appreciated after future success. Kendrick Lamar also noticeably appeared in Drakes Take Care album with his own interlude Buried Alive. Drizzy does have an eye for talent.

Again, Kendrick wasn't one of the biggest rappers in 2011 but the music he released was quality and is now greatly appreciated.

We all know what happened this year, 2012 is a year that Kendrick Lamar would never forget. Upon releasing Section.80 and other songs in the previous year, Kendrick started to gain some popularity which attracted him to some major record labels. And finally picked one, joining a childhood hero in Dr. Dre and signed with Aftermath Entertainment. 2012 was a huge year for Kendrick Lamar, releasing an absolute masterpiece named Good Kid, M.A.A.D City.

GKMC took the whole world by storm. Today this album is easily considered a classic. It's hard to pick standout songs on this album because it's collectively a brilliant cohesive album. But it all started with the release of the single Swimming Pools, one of his greatest commercial singles to date. It lead onto many other great songs including M.A.A.D City, Backseat Freestyle and one of my personal favourites ever: Money Trees. The album didn't quite get the recognition it deserved at a certain award show, but that didn't seem to faze Kendrick in the slightest. Kendrick also featured in a platinum selling single f---in Problems with ASAP Rocky.

This year is in strong contention as Kendrick's best year. It's certainly top 2 and will compete for number 1. Popularity wise, this was probably Kendrick Lamar's greatest year of his career as of yet.

After the success of Good Kid, M.A.A.D City, Kendrick was one of the most popular Hip-Hop artists in 2013. While he didn't release a new project in this year, he lived off the success of his last album, releasing singles such as Poetic Justice with Drake and b---- Don't k--- My Vibe. We still saw new music by Kendrick, keeping up with a decent year by featuring on a lot of other songs.

We all knew the nickname King Kendrick and 2013 was the year that Kendrick let everyone know that he knew that he is the mighty King Kendrick. Signing off as the King on a verse in a cypher at the BET Awards he also featured on a loose Big Sean track called Control. That verse got the whole community talking as he name dropped all of the hottest rappers out with brilliantly arrogant lines. Other noticeable features were Love Game off the latest Eminem album, Collard Greens with Schoolboy Q and Forbidden Fruit with J Cole.

Kendrick Lamar still remained hot in 2013 without releasing a project. He was still commercially on top of the game and didn't quite disappoint any of his fans that year.

Kendrick took a little break this year and a deserving one as well, even though TDE said at the start of the year that we will see an album from every TDE artists including Kendrick. Instead Kendrick traveled around South Africa learning important values in life. He was also cooking up something really special that we saw in the preceding year. But of course he did feed us a little with a single and a few features, but there was nothing that significant from Kendrick this year.

Towards the end of the year, Kendrick was getting ready for his upcoming album. While he didn't release it that year, he gave us a single off it, that was later changed. The single was i. This spiked some controversy, not many people were interested in the direction this song was going towards the album. I thought it was a solid track, always have. Kendrick featured in a remix of the Imagine Dragons song Radioactive. I didn't hear this song until last year. It was one of those songs where he spazzes out. Killed it.

Quiet year for Kendrick Lamar, he decided to take a little break from music this year, he did help fellow TDE artists with their projects but nothing else that noticeable.

Holy s---, 2015... Have we ever seen a Hip-Hop artist get us much critical praise as Kendrick did this year? Kendrick certainly went in this year. The much anticipated second studio album with Aftermath finally approached us. The subject matter and sound of the album split a lot of different opinions among fans and listeners, but it was a very personal album to Kendrick, his fans all appreciate that.

To p---- A Butterfly started with the song The Blacker The Berry, this was a very emotional song, you can feel Kendrick's anger from it. TPAB contained a lot of brilliant songs that were highly praised my many critics. One of them being King Kunta, leaked by our very own Luke. Another single was Alright which might go very well in the upcoming Grammy Awards. Kendrick had also featured in the very surprising Dr. Dre album, where he arguably had the best guest verse of the year with Deep Water.

Section Eighty voted Kendrick Lamar as the 'Artist of the Year' in 2015, he obviously had a very successful year, but was it his best?

I'll let you decide S80.