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Kendrick Lamar's 20 All-time Verses So Far, Ranked

Photo: Maya Robinson and Photograph by Christopher Polk/Getty Images

This article first ran shortly before the release of To Pimp a Butterfly. In laurels of Kendrick Lamar's fourth anthology, DAMN., out now, we've updated it to include songs from TPAB and onward.

Its been two years since Kendrick Lamar released his expansive opus, To Pimp a Butterfly, and now he's dropped the tightly wound DAMN. , and then it feels similar the perfect time to reexamine some of his finest lyrical work to engagement (non including anything from DAMN.). We present Kendrick's all-time verses, including mixtape cuts, album tracks, cyphers, one-off songs, and features.

20. Kendrick Lamar, "Untitled 02," untitled unmastered, 3rd Poesy (2016)

Key lines: "I can put a rapper on life support / Guarantee that's something none of you lot want / Ten homies down and they all serving life / What is it like twenty-five hundred a month? / What if I empty my bank out and stunt? / What if I certified all of these ones? / Bitch I get buck, I'm every bit existent every bit they come."

Over the course of his still-young career, Kendrick has continuously fired warning shots at his competitors. This isn't fifty-fifty his greatest potshot (see everything beneath), but it'southward still enough for Kendrick'southward peers to dodge the bullets. A line like "I can put a rapper on life support" would be a mild threat coming from bottom rappers, merely knowing what we exercise nigh Kendrick's ain admissions of his fierce past makes this read more like a spooky hope if ever tempted.

19. Kendrick Lamar, "Hood Politics," To Pimp a Butterfly, 2nd Verse (2015)

Primal lines: "From Compton to Congress, fix trippin' all around / Ain't nothin' new, but a influenza of new Demo-Crips and Re-Blood-licans / Blood-red state versus a blue state, which one you governin'? / They give us guns and drugs, call us thugs / Go far they promise to fuck with y'all / No condom, they fuck with you, Obama say, 'What it do?'"

We didn't know it at the fourth dimension, but we heard part of "Hood Politics" before we e'er knew the song existed. Kendrick freestyled this verse beginning on the radio over a medley of Biggie instrumentals. This was long before the election went nuclear, but even and then Kendrick knew danger was lurking. He likens partisanship to gang affiliation and admonishes their hypocrisy, even putting a target on then-president Obama's back. No one's safe under Kendrick'south watch.

eighteen. Beyoncé feat. Kendrick Lamar, "Freedom," Lemonade, Third Verse (2016)

Key lines: "Ten Hail Marys, I meditate for practice / Aqueduct 9 news tell me I'one thousand movin' backwards / Eight blocks left, decease is effectually the corner / Seven misleadin' statements 'bout my persona / Six headlights wavin' in my management / Five-O askin' me what'southward in my possession."

This verse works equally a cousin of "Twelve Days of Christmas," if, say, the original were a countdown to the black apocalypse. Not everything Kendrick raps is about being a blackness homo in America, but his blackness seeps through every give-and-take. "Liberty" was the "Alright" of Lemonade and, while it would've served its purpose well enough without Kendrick (as y'all saw in its visual), he only farther punctuates Beyoncé'southward message of resistance with a breathless numbered list of anecdotal grievances.

17. Big Sean feat. Jay Electronica and Kendrick Lamar, "Control," Second Poetry (2013)

Fundamental lines: "I got dearest for you all, but I'one thousand tryna murder you niggas / Trying to make sure your core fans never heard of you niggas / They don't wanna hear non one more noun or verb from you niggas."

This verse, possibly even more than GKMC, is what made Kendrick hip-hop'southward about unsafe voice. Diss tracks are a rapper'due south bread and butter, merely few address competitors by name and chew them out 1 by ane with such murderous conceit. "Control" is arguably Kendrick's best-known song (pitiful, Big Sean). It's non necessarily one fans volition repeat word for word or even regularly play back, simply it's his most memorable manifesto: the birth of Rex Kendrick.

sixteen. Schoolboy Q, Jay Stone, Ab-Soul, Isaiah Rashad, and Kendrick Lamar, BET Cypher, Fifth Verse (2013)

Key lines: "I'1000 way more polished than 99 percent of the scholars yous thought had graduated / I'grand the primary that masturbated on your favorite emcee / Until the industry had wanted me assassinated."

Rumor has information technology, Kendrick came up with this entire poetry on the spot, which is about unheard of in today's read-lyrics-off-my-iPhone freestyle culture. If y'all idea his "Control" verse was harsh, Kendrick upgraded from a handgun to an AK-47 with this 1 — and he uses that Mobb Deep beat to his best advantage.

15. Game feat. Kendrick Lamar, "The Metropolis," The. R.East.D. Album, Fourth Verse (2011)

Primal lines: "'Compton!' a nigga gotta scream that shit / Never went commercial, never Tv set-screened that shit / Tin't cake or screen that shit, now everybody sing that shit."

Kendrick'due south received many a cosign from Due west Declension rap'due south elite, and Game is no different. This is his opus to their urban center of Compton, merely not merely does Kendrick steal the evidence on the hook, he has the vocal'due south best poesy. He'south become such a poster kid for making it out of the city live that the music even stops for him. Kendrick fires off his anthemic poetry mostly a capella at such lightning speed information technology'll leave you dizzy.

14. Kendrick Lamar feat. James Fauntleroy, "How Much a Dollar Toll," To Pimp a Butterfly, 3rd Verse (2015)

Key lines: "Guilt trippin' and feelin' resentment / I never met a transient that demanded attention / They got me frustrated, indecisive and power trippin' / Sour emotions got me lookin' at the universe unlike / I should distance myself, I should continue information technology relentless / My selfishness is what got me hither, who the fuck I'm kiddin'?"

Kendrick Lamar is the consummate storyteller, and on "How Much a Dollar Cost," he wrestles with how fame forces a level of cynicism that renders empathy a liability by amalgam a circuitous Biblical narrative. In short, he meets with a beggar who's revealed to be God in the mankind. The run across sparks an especially introspective section where Kendrick begins to reset his moral compass by considering if you can put a toll on humility. (A sign of songs to come, plainly.) No wonder this was Barack Obama'due south favorite vocal of 2015.

13. Kendrick Lamar, "Pond Pools (Drank)," adept kid, m.A.A.d city, 2d Verse (2012)

Key lines: "The liberty is granted as soon as the impairment of vodka arrived / This how you capitalize, this is parental advice / Then plainly I'm overinfluenced by what you are doin'."

But Kendrick tin write a vocal about sexual temptation and all the ways alcoholism corrodes the mind, then turn it into a club banger. You probably heard this song for the first time at a bar, played it back at home, and felt bamboozled. This song is at its best in the second verse, when Kendrick experiences a sort of Gollum/Sméagol circuitous and spars with his conscious about taking just one more shot.

12. Kendrick Lamar feat. Assassin, "The Blacker the Berry," To Pimp a Butterfly, Third Poesy (2015)

Primal lines: "I'1000 African-American, I'm African / I'm blackness equally the heart of a fuckin' Aryan / I'm black every bit the proper noun of Tyrone and Darius / Excuse my French, merely fuck you lot — no, fuck y'all."

Kendrick has never really spoken this explicitly about race. Many interpreted the song as a response to Azealia Banks's criticism about his comments on Ferguson, and maybe it is, only it hits deeper. It doesn't feel as reactionary every bit that theory would propose (though mayhap Azealia's what drove him over the edge), but rather a laundry listing of grievances against America's horrendous history of race relations that's long been gestating in Kendrick's bones. Either way, the timing couldn't take been better.

11. Kendrick Lamar, "Sing About Me," skillful kid, m.A.A.d city, 3rd Verse (2012)

Key lines: "And I'm not sure why I'm infatuated with death / My imagination is surely an aggravation of threats / That tin can come near, 'cause the tongue is mighty powerful / And I tin can proper noun a list of your favorites that probably vouch / Maybe cause I'thou a dreamer and sleep is the cousin of death / Really stuck in the schema of wonderin' when I'mma remainder."

Part of what'due south made Kendrick Lamar one of the greatest storytellers hip-hop's ever seen is his ability to communicate fifty-fifty the virtually cautionary of tales from his life in Compton with dignity. You lot never get the sense that Kendrick'south passing judgment on the lives he's seen destroyed by gangs and prostitution — he'southward trying to make sense of it all. He sees himself in Dave and his brother, and in Kiesha and her sister in the vocal's outset 2 verses, and to stop the song'southward devastating first half, Kendrick tries to make peace with their demise past wondering about the inevitability of his own.

x. Kendrick Lamar, "Hol' Upward," Department.fourscore, 2nd Verse (2011)

Cardinal lines: "As a child I killed 2 adults, I'm too advanced / I lived my 20s at 2 years old, the wiser man / Truth be told, I'thou like 87."

Kendrick'south lived a life rocked by the "ghetto dejection," and at 27, he's seen more than virtually will in a lifetime. But it's non just what he'due south seen that makes him and so sympathetic, information technology's also what he's done … and what he's capable of doing. This is one of the first times nosotros hear Kendrick confess to having killed, and whether or not that'southward true is anyone's gauge, but it's telling of Kendrick'southward character and candor. At that place's no manufactured aspirations of gangbanging to be had hither, it's simply bullet holes and compromised morals that he can't milk shake. He ends the poesy screaming (not literally) for help.

9. Drake ft. Kendrick Lamar, "Buried Alive Interlude," Take Care, Offset Verse (2011)

Key lines: "Looking in the mirror, I'm embarrassed / I'm feeling like a suicidal terrorist / React similar an baby whenever you lot are mentioned / Mind over matter never worked for my nemesis."

Most probably don't think Kendrick Lamar and Drake accept a lot in common. On the exterior, that's truthful. Merely their individual thoughts and "vices," as Kendrick calls them here, aren't all that different. Drake's made a career out of talking nearly some of his more superficial woes — fame, women he barely knows, money — only all those things affect Kendrick, too. And he interrupts Drake'south own album to map out the two rappers' parallel trajectories with a barely lucid story about how he perceives his antagonist.

8. Kendrick Lamar, " Hiiipower," Section.fourscore, 2d Verse (2011)

Key lines: "I'k continuing on the field full of land mines / Doing the moonwalk, hoping I blow upwards in time / 'Cause 2012 might not exist a fucking fable / Tryna exist a fucking legend, the man of mankind / Who said a blackness human being in the Illuminati? / Concluding time I checked, that was the biggest racist political party."

Kendrick has an unreal agreement of the English linguistic communication, and he flexes it supremely on "Hiiipower," referencing revolutionaries and weaving together anecdotes about institutional racism, sexism, classism, and every -ism one might blame for what he considers our rotting civilization. This is besides Kendrick's fashion of appointing himself his generation'southward Martin Luther King Jr. and investing in another sort of high ability.

seven. Kendrick Lamar feat. Nuance Snow, "The Heart Pt. 2," O(verly) D(edicated), First Verse (2010)

Primal lines: "Nosotros used to lamentatory over a turf, fuck lamentatory over a poesy / Niggas dying, motherfuck a double entendre / And this is Comp-ton, lions in the land of the triumph."

Y'all can't really spotlight any one line from this song. Information technology's performed as an extended stream of consciousness, delivered in what sounds similar one long breath — that Kendrick eventually chokes on after in the song — that'south deeply personal, even for Kendrick'due south standards. He talks about his uncle being locked up, confrontations with police, and what's it like to spend some fourth dimension in the mind of a black human born and raised in Compton for a couple minutes. At that place's not many metaphors at work here, but reality according to Kendrick.

6. Kendrick Lamar feat. Ab-Soul, "Ab-Soul's Outro," Section.80, Fifth Verse (2011)

Key lines: "You've ever seen a newborn baby kill a grown man / That's an analogy for the manner the world make me react / My innocence been dead."

Kendrick does a lot of soul-searching in this song, and he eventually arrives at a limbo in this spoken-word piece. He wants to rectify rapping about "money, hoes, and clothes," but he can't practice that without sounding like a hypocrite, and he knows it. The just thing he can practice is reaffirm his perspective, which is that of a man who's had to deed like a man for longer than he should. This is the cost it'southward taken on him, and information technology's a declaration that, because of his potent will, he'southward dedicated to rapping on his terms — even it makes you uncomfortable.

5. Kendrick Lamar, "Alright," To Pimp a Butterfly, Pre-Chorus (2015)

Primal lines: "Wouldn't y'all know / We been injure, been down before / Nigga, when our pride was low / Lookin' at the globe like, 'Where do we become?' / Nigga, and nosotros hate po-po / Wanna impale us expressionless in the street fo sho' / Nigga, I'm at the preacher's door / My knees gettin' weak, and my gun might blow / But we gon' be alright."

If this were a ranking of Kendrick'due south best songs, "Alright" would come out on top. Information technology'southward an urgent canticle released amid a fasten in police brutality against black people that emerged every bit both the black community'south save and rallying cry at protests beyond the land. Its "Nosotros gon' exist alright" dirge is what rap history will recall, but we'd all do well not to forget Kendrick'south piercing remarks reflecting on what brought us to this defiant affirmation of survival that come straight before information technology.

4. Kendrick Lamar ft. Gunplay, "Cartoon & Cereal," Bridge (2012)

Central lines: "Now, I was raised in a sandbox, side by side to you and her / You was holding the handgun, she was giving nativity / To a baby boy to be but like you lot, I wonder what's that worth."

Information technology's a shame "Cartoon & Cereal" didn't make GKMC, because it would've made the perfect supplement to the anthology'southward skits involving Kendrick'south parents. That album is intensely autobiographical, but it doesn't delve as much into those closest to Kendrick: his female parent and father. "Cartoon & Cereal" feels like an extension of that album's cover, a photograph of a young Kendrick with his uncles and grandfather, a scene he describes in this vocal's standout span as a room full of Wile Eastward. Coyotes. The style Kendrick sees it, he never stood a chance. He was built-in in the wild, where cartoons and cereal aren't promised.

3. Schoolboy Q feat. Kendrick Lamar, "Blessed," Habits & Contradictions, Third Verse (2012)

Cardinal lines: "As the record spinning, you lot was hearing angels entertain / Every pun intended, that was wicked, coming from your brain / Recognize you listened and you didn't striking the block once again / That's considering the minute afterwards you had knew you lot would be slain / Open upwardly another chapter in the book and read 'gain / Story of a gun-clapper really tryna brand a alter."

Optimistic songs about gang life are hard to come by, merely Q and Kendrick know a thing or ii about getting out of that lifestyle. Kendrick hits the nail on the head in a verse in which he smartly stresses the last word of every stanza, emphasizing that each day could be your last if necessary action isn't taken to modify how yous live it. The issue sounds like a passing of the torch from Ice Cube'southward "It Was a Skillful Day."

2. Pusha T feat. Kendrick Lamar, "Nosetalgia," My Name Is My Name, Second Poesy (2013)

Fundamental lines: "Go effigy, mothafucka, every verse is a brick, your son dope, nigga / Now reap what you lot sowed, nigga (Delight reap what you sowed, nigga) / I was born in '87, my grandaddy a legend / Now the same shit that y'all was smoking is my profession, permit's get it."

Is there a more chilling opening to a verse than, "Do you lot wanna come across a expressionless body?" Kendrick ofttimes sounds like he'due south about to come up unhinged, and he adopts an especially crazed period here for a re-creation of the first time he smoked weed laced with crack, which he references to explain how it feels to come from a legacy of drug dealing. Of course, he flips that unabridged narrative on its head and, in one line, makes all of Tony Montana's allure suddenly seem overrated.

1. Kendrick Lamar feat. MC Eiht, "g.A.A.d city," good kid, m.A.A.d metropolis, 2d Poetry (2012)

Key lines: "Cocaine laced in marijuana / And they wonder why I rarely smoke now / Imagine if your first blunt had you foaming at the rima oris / I was straight tweaking the side by side weekend, we broke even / I made allegiance that made a promise to see you bleeding / You know the reasons just still won't ever know my life / Kendrick a.k.a. Compton'due south human sacrifice."

Kendrick'due south most ironclad lyrical operation has him taking united states all, as he says, on a "trip downwards memory lane." Just it'due south more similar a descent into Hell. This is Kendrick's memoir, a coming-of-age story of a kid from Compton thrown into a state of war without even the smallest hope for a end-fire. We've heard well-nigh his impale-or-exist-killed mentality, why he feels such a disconnect from his childhood, and how he'd give anything to save as many as he tin from following his same path before information technology's besides late. And in "m.A.A.d metropolis," we find out, in detail, the exact moment Kendrick became "Compton's homo cede" — with the caveat that information technology still doesn't mean we know a damn thing about him. It's not merely the all-time vocal on Kendrick's debut album, but it stands, more than two years later on, equally the strongest verses of Kendrick's career so far. We tin can only imagine what else he has in store.

Kendrick Lamar's 20 Best Verses So Far, Ranked