Kendrick Lamar is definitely not the greatest rapper of all time.
Lamar has one classic album, but the rest of his work is not nearly as consistent, thrilling or deep as many rap fans claim.
Lamar has been widely praised as an all-time great by fans and critics, winning the Pulitzer Prize in Music in 2018 for his third album, “DAMN.” which also earned him five Grammy Awards, including Best Rap Album.
Despite the acclaim Lamar has received in recent years, his latest albums are distractingly inconsistent and cannot compare to his early material or the rapping of better emcees.
Lamar showcased his versatility as a rapper in 2011 with his mixtape “Section.80,” delivering speedy flows on jazz-hop barnburners like “Rigamortus” and smart lyricism with a socially conscious edge on slow jams like “No-Makeup (Her Vice).”
If Lamar caught the rap world’s attention with “Section.80,” he revolutionized it with his debut studio album “good kid, m.A.A.d. city” in 2012.
The album’s highlights are even stronger than his material on “Section.80,” with aggressive bangers like “Backseat Freestyle” and “m.A.A.d. city” as well as emotional songs like “The Art of Peer Pressure” that vividly describe the troubles Lamar faced growing up in Compton.
Even more than the strength of Lamar’s individual tracks, the way they flow together into a cohesive story makes “good kid, m.A.A.d. city” the modern classic it is, seamlessly telling Lamar’s autobiographical tale of escaping gang violence and finding God.
Unfortunately, Lamar’s next album, “To Pimp A Butterfly,” gets so caught up in its own pretentiousness that it fails to be nearly as accessible and hard-hitting as his previous work.
The album delivers some of Lamar’s most personal songs, like his explosion of pride and self-hatred on “The Blacker The Berry,” where he repeatedly calls himself “the biggest hypocrite of 2015,” or confident proclamation of faith on “Alright.”
But at times, Lamar’s preaching feels hopelessly self-indulgent and empty, like on “How Much A Dollar Cost,” where he criticizes materialism by telling the ridiculous story of God disguising himself as a homeless man to ask Lamar for money.
“I” feels empty and contradictory with Lamar telling his audience to stop violence in the outro while encouraging violent revolution against police on the chorus.
While “To Pimp A Butterfly” is flawed, 2017’s “DAMN.” is downright mediocre.
More than half of the album is made up of Lamar’s worst material to date, mixing dumbed-down commercialism with patronizing lyrics.
At some points during “DAMN.” the production, a consistent highlight of the rest of Lamar’s music, falters along with his lyrics, like on “PRIDE,” where grating and shrill guitars and stiff drums make his passable verses completely unlistenable.
“LOYALTY. FEAT. RIHANNA.” is a stiff pop sellout that sounds more like the product of Lamar and Rihanna sleepily stumbling toward a paycheck, rather than the result of a genuine artistic vision.
Given how inconsistent Lamar’s discography is, plenty of rappers deserve the greatest-of-all-time label more than him.
Daveed Diggs has been rapping with the experimental group clipping. since the release of its debut mixtape in 2013 and has had a much more promising trajectory than Lamar’s, expanding his thematic scope to include sci-fi and horror narratives.
Beyond new school faces like Diggs, legendary rapper MF DOOM has been making technically masterful rap music since the release of his debut “Operation: Doomsday” in 1999.
Even by objective measurements, Lamar is not nearly the greatest rapper.
In a study published by music research website The Pudding that tracks how many unique words rappers used within their first 35,000 lyrics, Lamar sits squarely in the midrange with 4,017 words used, barely half the word count of the top rapper.
Lamar is also not the most critically acclaimed rapper.
He has won the Grammy award for Best Rap Album twice, tying him with duo Outkast and behind two other artists as the most acclaimed by the industry, with Kanye West winning the award four times and Eminem winning it six times.
Kendrick Lamar is definitely an influential and talented rapper, with many great songs and one classic.
But calling him the best rapper of all time is ridiculous.
