good kid, m.A.A.d city

This one's taken a while to gather my thoughts on and a lot of reading through lyrics, commentary and Wikipedia… it's always a good sign to feel so invested in an album, but the result is usually a pseudo-thesis of a review that, let's face it, nobody has the time to read. Anyway, here goes! Before his instant classic "To Pimp A Butterfly", Kendrick Lamar made "good kid, m.A.A.d city": a tighter, leaner piece which begins by looking inward and gradually shifts focus to create a vivid, intense picture of inner-city living in the hood. Broader than Kendrick's own coming-of-age story, it becomes a social commentary on hip-hop, the culture surrounding it, and the pre-conceptions surrounding that. Lamar explores the origins of gang hostility and violence, covering peer pressure, fear, vulnerability and a vacuum left by the absence of state support or role models. Without a doubt, it's the most immersive hip-hop album I've heard and it's all down to Lamar's excellent storytelling. Using a thoughtfully sequenced non-linear narrative, dynamic and expressive vocal performance, and snippets of conversation with his homies and his parents, Lamar weaves a complex narrative together which has transferred to some school syllabuses alongside James Joyce. Thematically, there's real weight thrown into every song and every line. "The Art of Peer Pressure" explores how gang culture escalated Lamar's teenage life towards crime, drugs and violence. "Money Trees" covers the necessity of material pursuits for survival and the cost it might have on morality. Things reach an apex on the epic "Sing About Me/Dying of Thirst", two tracks drawn together into one twelve minute piece which Lamar uses to remember those he knows who have died. The urgency and despair mingling in "Dying of Thirst" is so potent, and Kendrick's mastery of narrative really comes into its own by personifying his deceased friends. Musically, "good kid, m.A.A.d city" isn't as sprawling and diverse as what I've heard of Lamar's later work. It's also, by nature, mellow and insular, with little to jump out as dance music or hit material. The most played tracks - including "Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe" and "Swimming Pools (Drank)"- are as close as it gets, and they're either a thoughtful musing on the state of the music industry or an ironic take on clubbing and partying. Even in these tracks, the music is consistently cerebral, insular. The beats are mostly low-key, muted, often trap-influenced. Samples include, of all people, Beach House lending an ethereal quality to "Money Trees" and Janet Jackson looped into infinity on the sultry slow-jam "Poetic Justice." Some tracks are refreshingly upbeat to signal a new voice or time within the narrative: for example, "Backseat Freestyle" turns classic braggadocio into a flashback, a young K-Dot using his words as a naïve dream and a survival strategy. "m.A.A.d city" and "Compton" bring the classic 90's hip-hop sounds with hard, bombastic beats, pitch-warped synth leads and a feature from Dre himself. They're tributes to Lamar's musical heritage, which tie in with the narrative as a complicated mixture of pride and fear towards his hometown. I could try to go on and on, but really the key to "good kid, m.A.Ad city" is to listen. Although it's far from my usual style of music, one of its key strengths is that none of it is as straightforward as it appears. By packing each track so full of dual-meanings, twists and turns in the storyline and more allusions than you can shake a stick at, Lamar invites listeners to unpack the non-linear story, peel away the layers, discover new ways of hearing each track and piece together the good kid in the mad city. It's not yet at "classic" status for me, but I can see it being a long time before I get bored of this one.

Kendrick Lamar - changing the game since 2011, changing the use of capital letters and punctuation since 2012.

My favorite pure rap album of all time; the quintessential coming of age west coast rap album; filled with bangers and thought provoking songs; one of the best storytelling albums of all time

Offensive, disgusting and stupid. 1 / 5

People talk about this guy like he's the second coming but all I just heard was an hour and 20min of hipster dog shit. 2/5.

Bitch, don't kill my vibe. I have actually seen Kendrick Lamar live around the time this came out, but he was upstaged by a Tupac hologram...as we all are sometimes.

Objectifies women and gets his rocks off fantasizing about violence against women. Pathetic and sick.

Musically dull, lyrically offensive.

This is better than Hotel California for sure.

Absolute classic. Possibly my favorite modern rap album (though it's ten years old?!) I think what I love the most is the Outkast production and storytelling vibe.

I gave up before the album had finished. Some of the background melodies were alright but I find the ranting, language and sentiments hard to enjoy. I know that means I’m an old person but it’s not what I call music.

One of the best narrative albums at point blank range. Sing About Me, I'm Dying of Thirst might be in my top 10 songs.

Yeah, in terms of gansta-rap Kendrick is definitely my pick. There's some great artistic choices through the album that subvert the earlier clichés of gansta-rap, like playing the entire voicemail at the end of the first song and not using it as a little throwaway interlude but rather as a storytelling tool. Everything sounds great but there's some needed restraint in production that elevates it all to be more than a "I'm so hard and I party hard album". Some tracks are "take or or leave" it for me, and Money Trees goes a little long for me. Bitch, Don't Kill My Vibe is prob my fav. good kid also sounds great, that instrumentation and bass-line feels like some 70s odd synth/krautrock or some early electronic experimental stuff. Interestingly enough there aren't many songs on here that feel like they can be played in isolation or on some random playlist, the material is definitely best listened in an album format, which is probably the best compliment you could get for this list.

I really don't like this sort of drugged out hip-hop sound. Something about it just makes me feel bad, sort of stretched out and depressed. Every single song seems to be about drugs, his penis or comparing women to dogs, but somehow this is considered socially conscious and thoughtful rap. It simply doesn't make a good impression on me, not being receptive to the sound and outside the culture being rhymed about. I hope that the people who enjoy this have used it to work through dark personal issues and become better people. But for me, it is the sort of thing I would turn off if I heard it on the radio.

The hiphop I enjoy most has either great funky sampling and/or jazz or otherwise organic music and the actual MCing has got to be rhythmic. Right away in the first track the rhythmic rapping is thrown right out the window - I know it's a preferential thing but there's no sense of rhythm to this, it's stream-of-consciousness words that I've no doubt I'd never be able to do but it all exists completely independently from the music. As if they're 2 completely unrelated parallel entities that were just placed together almost randomly. Like - could you tell or would it matter if the chorus were the verse or vice versa? And these lyrics are junior-high level immature trash. That reaction was all from one track - yikes. BUT ... track 2 starts out almost completely differently; I like the music and the weird vocals. The lyrics are not interesting to me but there's a noticeable step up in tying the vocals to the music. The "real-life" voices (I hesitate to call them "skits") get distracting and for me lessen the impact of the songs. Have I mentioned these lyrics are weak? They're weak - come on pussy this dick that yeah yeah giggle giggle. OK the album definitely improves as it goes on - full stop - but ehh I had a real hard time getting through this - aside from the eye-rolling lyrics his voice is difficult to digest. As for my rhythmic critiques early, that aspect definitely gets much better on many of the following tracks - I know it's a stylistic choice and I choose to avoid the freestyle/stream type songs/rappers. "Money Trees" - I do like this one. I've heard some of Kendrick's later work which I do recall liking considerably more, but this one is not only not my bag but I would and will avoid this. 3/10 1 star

no skips

93/100: Few artists reach the level of fame to be publicly acknowledged by on name. Many incredibly well respected artists never reach this level (sometimes arguably for the infortune of being given a generic name). Freddie Mercury is neither referred to as Freddie nor Mercury. Elton John is not Elton. But Tupac is Tupac, Kanye is Kanye, and Kendrick is—well—just Kendrick. This album holds a special place in my heart; therefore, I will be leaving all pretenses of impartiality at the door. This is the album that quite literally opened up the world of music for me. Before listening to this album, music was just something to be listened to—pleasant sounds, ineffable feelings, surface level appreciation. The first time I heard “good kid, m.A.A.d city,” something struck me—an imperceptible intuition that something worth understanding lay beyond the realm in which I’d hitherto been existing. By the Kendrick was boasting about having a dream in “Backseat Freestyle,” I had the rap genius app downloaded on my phone and was following along, line by line. I listened and read along to that album for weeks, maybe even months, listening to nothing else. I saw a respect for language and a mastery of music as a platform for a message nothing short of genius; in fact, orders of magnitude beyond that. Most rappers interject their albums with skits as separate songs. The good artists tie this skits smartly, maybe even humorously, into the story conveyed in their album. The great ones (if pluralizing that word is even legitimate is up for dispute), like Kendrick, weave these skits within songs, backed by musical tracks. In “The Art of Peer Pressure,” interjecting skits not only provide context—in one moment, letting the listener know that Kendrick’s and his friends’ robbery attempt has flopped, in the other, highlighting a police chase—they propel the song through its story. Beyond imaginatively clever uses of skits, Kendrick writes lyrics that reveal an incomparably creative relationship with language. In “Money Trees,” one set of three lines stands out in my mind. In the first line in this set, “dreams of living life like rappers do,” Kendrick focuses in on the topic of rap artists; however, in the third line, “I fucked Sherane then went to tell my bros,” he’s locked in on ideas of sex and women. To find a good line to fit between those two, most rappers would elaborate on what a rapper’s life is like, presumably a good way to tie sex and women into the topic of rap artists—making for a pretty seamless segue. Kendrick does something entirely different and wildly creative. As the second line in this set, connecting rappers to sex, Kendrick decides on “back when condom wrappers wasn't cool.” Upon first glance, this might seem to be a pretty abrupt transition from dreaming of living a rapper’s life of luxury to sex, but when read aloud, “condom wrappers” sounds a whole lot like “Compton rappers,” and Kendrick surely leans into this with his delivery of that line. Thus, Kendrick finds a way to deliver two ideas with one line, with both ideas tying the preceding and subsequent lines together. This is mastery. There are few albums with as much to analyze and interpret as “good kid, m.A.A.d city” (most of those few are also Kendrick albums). The fact that this album opened up that world of analysis and interpretation within music for me elevates it beyond those other Kendrick albums. This is my favorite album of Kendrick’s—it was my first—it will forever remain that way, and I am in no way surprised that this album held up to the same level I remember from my last listen through.

Boring album. Some decent bass lines. Lyrics are meh and even annoying at times. Nothing great to say about this one.

One of my favorite albums, I put this above to pimp a butterfly personally

Can we just rename this genre "Narcissistic Gun, Dick, Pussy Rap"?

Not in my edition of the book so! Obviously not essential to listen to before you die! 2012. 1 star. Purile, sexist, misogynistic, obnoxious shite that gets boring reallll fast. Strange that it's OK for black rappers to use the N* word but if anyone else does you're racist. Or that it's OK for them to call women bitches and pussy and hoes (whores), but if anyone else does you're misogynistic. Or that it's OK from them to to boast about how high and doped they get, but if anyone else does then you're just a fucked up junkie. Just saying. "I pray my dick get big as the Eiffel Tower/So I can fuck the world for seventy-two hours". FFS, grow up.

Has a mixtape vibe. but for Christ's sake change your tone occasionally. It's all autotune and plodding vocals it's actually painfully boring to listen to.

I know that Kendrick Lamarr is viewed as some sort of god, but I cannot for the life of me work out why. "Bitch, don't kill my vibe" makes me want to question why he's putting that voice on. The flow vacillates wildly between "hey this is pretty decent" and "ohmygod, what is this amateurish tosh?" The whole album seems to delight in wobbly bass, which doesn't half get tiring after a while. TBH, not sure I'm going to sit through the rest of this.

I really dislike music like this: lyrically uninteresting, unamusing braggadocio, misogyny and unconstructive violence; musically lightweight, dull and meandering pointlessly. Sadly, 0 stars isn't possible.

While I’m still a hardline tpab fan, holy shit this album still holds up. All of the singles are still great and everything about it is great

Had not heard this before, and found it to be quite a bit more enjoyable than "..Butterfly". Really immersive, with interesting effects such as the voicemails which make the whole thing "cinematic" as intended. A wild success

But where is the ninja turtles?

Meh. Production is good but I'm just way to white for this shit. Never gonna listen to this again.

c.r.A.A.p city

Auto tuned junk. No idea what the big deal about this is. Not even bordering on interesting.

This album sucks lmao

This was really good. I'm gonna need to listen to it through a few more times to take it all in. Great storytelling.

Damn.

Masterpiece, one of the best hip hop albums of the last 2010s.

I've been told so many times to listen to Kendrick Lamar, but rap / hip hop generally speaking wasn't my thing. Or, at least, I thought it wasn't my thing - until I started making my way through the 1,001 album list - and now I'm learning that I was wrong. Certainly not fine poetry, but my takeaway from this album is Kendrick has a unique way with words and metric, and he lays it on top of a smooth beat and some well crafted melody. I'm not surprised this album is polarizing - but even as a non-rap fan, I really do think it's extremely unique and interesting. I can't help but give it five stars.

Rating: 10/10 A classic, one of the greatest hip-hop albums of all time. Not only is this one of best produced rap albums of all time, it is also one of the best lyrically as well. The album feels like a movie, Kendrick takes the listener on a journey through his childhood and the crime-filled streets of Compton. The lyrics paint a vivd picture of the street life of Compton and Kendrick does this with varied deliveries, clever wordplay, and thought-provoking lyrics. I have listened to this album many times and am still discovering new meanings lyrically. A truly timeless album. Favorite songs: pretty much all of them. Least favorite song: Real.

One of the best concept albums ever and Kendrick’s best imo. The Art of Peer Pressure is one of the most vividly depicted stories in song form I’ve ever heard. Sing About Me I’m Dying of Thirst encapsulates so many different themes, it’s a masterpiece of a song. One of the best albums of all time

Easy 5 stars and Kendrick’s second best album behind TPAB imo. To this day I still do not understand how tf Macklemore won the rap album Grammy over this

A hood classic

I don't listen to a ton of rap, especially not full albums, but this is one that I actually listened to quite a bit back in the day. This came out my senior year of high school and was pretty huge for a few years after that. I think I like this a lot because the sound is pretty understated through most of it. There's not a ton of gimmicks or anything, it's just really strong lyrics and good beats across the board. Lyrically, you really get a snapshot into Kendrick's life growing up, and the snippets of people talking between songs are both funny and pull together the album nicely. I don't have a ton to say about this, but it's about as strong of a rap album as I've come across. It does get a bit weaker at the end (it's drags on just a little bit), but it's good enough otherwise that it's not a real issue. Kendrick is obviously super talented, and it was nice to revisit this one. This is 12 years old now (which is hard to believe), but it doesn't really sound dated at all to me. Favorite song: Money Trees Other: Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe, Backseat Freestyle, The Art of Peer Pressure, Poetic Justice, good kid, m.A.A.d. city, Swimming Pools (Drank), 4/1/24

Et mesterværk, konceptuelt, stramt narrativ, teknisk vanvittigt, fyldt med bangers

about the only modern hip hop artist I can stand. some great songs on here. can be kind of long at some points but it flows well

Wow. Unexpected but brilliant

Not bad. I'm not a big hip hop/rap fan but i did enjoy this album. Will check more from him

I really enjoyed this album. Great lyrical moments and really interesting melodies and riffs (especially for a rap album). I felt like I got a really great glimpse and understanding into Lamar's life and the challenges of growing up in an area where gang activity is so prevalent and complex to avoid. I think I'll listen to this one again multiple times and continue to discover new moments and lyrics every time.

My second Kendrick Lamar LP after To Pimp A Butterfly, and I like this one more. The production is as immaculate and confident; the content less ambitious and maybe the better for it. Still shows a preference for cleverness over tunes that scrapes against the pop superstructure. Asks a lot of a listener and pays back, but doesn’t follow through on the bravura opening.

The Art of Peer Pressure and Sing About Me, I'm Dying Of Thirst are remarkable songs.

good kid, m.A.A.d city Sherane, love the drum and bass sounds. Backseat freestyle Good Kid is superb On the surface it’s easy to just hear guns’n’bitches, but there’s definitely a lot more to it than that. Has a similar lyrical feel to Illmatic, not glorifying or wallowing in gang and street life. Some good sweating too. You know what else I like - his very clear diction. He should be applauded for that. Great sound, particularly like the bass, drums and piano combos, and the variation of drum sound from song to song. Some great little earwormy hooks, not obvious necessarily, but found myself humming them after listening to it. I’m not that up to speed on a lot of rap music of the last 10 or 15 years but I thought this was very good. It’s quite long but it didn’t drag too much. It’s between a 3 & 4, and I’m really keen to listen again, so will probably plump for a 3 for now, but scope to go up to a 4 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Not a huge fan of this album but it wasn't terrible

Tasty baked goods between the ears, but the contrasting cock strutting gets wearing. Maybe a later KL will work for me.

Como me gusta mucho el de pimpear la mariposa, creí que iba a disfrutar también este disco de KL. Sin embargo, me pasó como me pasa con casi todos los discos de rap: me harto a la mitad de la primera canción. Considerando que este disco dura casi 80 minutos, puedo dar fe de que la experiencia no fue placentera.

I wanted to like this. I really tried. I must be missing the gangsta hiphop gene.

Incredible number of listens on YouTube. It’s solid stuff but don’t understand why…

It was alright

good flow, lyrics were meh, other shit too, most annoying was the 15 out of 60 minutes of filler, background sounds

This is shitty hiphop on another level. I can't find anything I enjoy on this album.

Irritating

Didn’t listen

I've never been a fan of the genre, it's probably a cultural thing. While I've been able to listen to several albums and enjoy parts of them, this proved impossible with this one. I got three tracks in before decidiing life is too short.

Just not my vibe. Liked that one about the homies though

Peak

Great!

Certified hood classic. One of my favourite albums. Less than To Pimp a Butterfly, but before that, I was obsessed with this album. I love the concept of a kid (a good kid) growing up in Compton (maad city) and being pressured into gang activity but then finding God after one of his friends gets shot from a rival gang. I think the story telling throughout the album is incredible and it paints a vivid picture to the listener. Some of my favourites is The Art of Peer Pressure and Sing About Me, I'm Dying of Thirst. To me, this is one of, if not the best concept album I've heard. What I love about Kendrick is his ability to be able to pull an entire album together and be able to not just produce "party singles" like most hip-hop artists.

it's good

it’s just so so good. and even so much more foundational than I originally had in mind after hearing GNX

Love one of your bucked-headed hoes? No way. Love this album? Yes way.

goated album from goated rap man, not much more to say other than that. Top 3 Favorites: Bitch, Don't Kill My Vibe, Poetic Justice, and Sing About Me, I'm Dying Of Thirst No bad songs 4.75/5

Did somebody say dominos

I think this is a perfect album and very clearly written by someone with an Eiffel Tower-sized dick.

Banger

Probably his masterpiece ngl

Such a great album

I think this album is excellent. When I first heard it I just listened to it as a straight album but on subsequent listening realized that the songs were loosely connected and my appreciation grew. Don’t know how Kendrick has the ability to write meaningful, personal songs that still sound fresh and fresh exciting. This is the album that propelled him to superstardom and for good reason.

My kids were all up in my grill about not giving five stars to To Pimp a Butterfly. But now I’m even more glad I didn’t because this album is a much better listen! All the stars!

Even if I’m not gonna listen to this a lot, it has to be a 5. The storytelling, production, artistry are all second to none.

Hypnotising

Overall, Kendrick's best album.

I mean, come on. Great storytelling of Kendrick’s life, what’s not to love here. Top 10 best rap album of all time and this isn’t even the guys best.

This is not his best but i enjoy this one the most

well yes!

This was already one of the best rap albums ever made in my book, so it was no surprise this gets the full 5* with ease. This is storytelling at it’s best with bangers and more introspective tracks fitting seamlessy together. My personal favourite Kendrick record.

A musically impressive album with fantastic storytelling that runs through the whole release.

needs no introduction

el mejor de K dot

Master fuckin piece

This is the greatest rap album of all time. At least top 3 for me. Anyone who says TPAB is better is either pretentious or lying. I'm also shocked by the amount of low 1-2 star reviews for it on this site. I know that rap isn't for everyone but a shocking amount of them showed a lot of closed-mindedness. (which if you're going to do a project like this seems insane, at least to me. The whole point of this was to broaden my musical horizons and discover music I never would have found before). I've seen a lot of people calling the lyrics weak (are you even listening) and misogynistic/ sophomoric and like... that's the point. Kendrick is able to portray a kid growing up in the rough streets of Compton, trying to do everything to do good in his life but constantly weighed down by every single person around him. All told in a way where this album is closer to cinema than it is music to me. I feel like it's rough to give something on here a perfect score because it always takes me a few listens to really, really truly get an album and this is the same case here but still, Kendrick is head and soldiers above almost everyone in his era of rap and this is still his magnum opus to me. 10/10

5+

Was listening just expecting some Backseat Freestyle, but instead got some Poetic Justice. This was Real.

This album has so many good songs, its hard not to give it 5 stars. Rap and Hip Hop at its finest.

Kendrick Lamar got robbed when Macklemore won a Grammy over Kendrick's own album. Even Macklemore himself said "Good Kid, M.A.A.D City" should have won the award. This album is the best 2010s rap album I've ever heard. I just love it so much that I got the hype surrounding it. Hope I get "To Pimp a Butterfly Next". 5 stars for "Good Kid, M.A.A.D City".

Das hip hop Album dass mich am meisten berührt hat. Länger nicht gehört aber wenn das keine 5 Sterne sind dann idk was.

damn near perfect album. it takes you through kendrick's struggles with peer pressure and life in compton as a young man. it has bangers, beautifully written stories, and tragedy. a must listen

One of the best of all time.

a modern classic in every sense of the word.

flawless in every way and one of my favourites of all time

The highs are high enough on this album that it makes up for some of the skits and dumb stuff on there.

This album brings back a lot of fond memories. Might be the best rap album released in the past 10yrs.. I love Kendrick. What an artistic thoughtful lyricists. You can hear his past pain and struggle in his rhythm and rhymes.

My favorite Kendrick (yes, over TPAB), boasting his finest beats and top-tier storytelling. Feels like a movie about someone's home, dirty laundry and all.

Znakomite i ponadczasowe. Dużo utworów wartych zapisania, a nawet te, których nie zapisałem są ciągle bardzo dobre. Lekki, chillowy klimat. 5/5

Okay, if the price of getting an album like this is a Kings of Leon album the day before, I guess I'll pay the toll. Should be no surprise that I love this album (TPAB is one of my favorite albums ever, ever). In my mind I'd always give it a bit less than a 10, and I think the reason is the song "Real." That song annoys the hell out of me, the hook sucks. But what I forget is that EVERY other song on the album proper is a banger, 11 for 12 if you ask me. And quite a few of the deluxe tracks are incredible too. Kendrick locked the hell in on this album, and it really is a rap classic, it's a pretty expertly-woven concept, storytelling album but with enough bounce and accessibility to be a huge pop success. This one still charts on the Billboard 200, and you can tell why. So, so many bangers. "Money Trees" is probably my favorite, but in the years I've been listening to this that has changed many times. There's no denying for me, today, that this is a five star album, even with "Real." An album can have a skip and still get a 10/10. Fight me. Favorite tracks: Like I said, everything but Real, plus The Recipe, Black Boy Fly, and Now or Never from the deluxe tracks. Wait, that's all the deluxe tracks too. Good lord. Album art: The deluxe cover is a fan parked on the street. The color contrast is great, and recently Drake crushed a replica van in a music video during their beef, that was cool. The standard cover I think is even better. Little baby Kendrick being held by some family members, eyes censored out. Really cool. 5/5