My favorite Kendrick other than “storytelling Kendrick” is “irked Kendrick.” When Kendrick is fed up and has something on his mind, it leads to some of the best moments in hip-hop we have seen. This is a prime example.

The Russell Westbrook bar is one of my favorite bars ever by Dot, and nothing in rap brings more excitement out of me than when the greatest rapper alive at the moment tells people he’s exactly that without caring what people think.

The cinematic nature of this song is what makes it stand out so much. Everyone has hanged with their homies or homegirls and been peer pressured, and your friends might have succeeded, despite you not wanting to give in. The beat gets more eerie as the song goes on and makes me as the listener more anxious. 

The penmanship in this song is the best we are going to see in 2022.

The rawness Kendrick displays is strong enough to break generational curses. This is a Pulitzer-level song itself, and the third verse when Kendrick screams gets me emotional.

A song about Lamar hearing his mom be physically abused and not being able to do anything about it, due to him being a kid, will be a song we look at for years to come. The song will be known as one that healed a bunch of homes of grown adults who experienced seeing physical abuse growing up.

This was Barack Obama’s favorite song of 2015, and off one listen, you can understand why.

In the track, we hear how a homeless man is trying to persuade Kendrick to give grace by giving him a dollar, and Kendrick in real time is refusing. Once the homeless man claims that he is God, Kendrick has to question his selfishness, if he fails the test of life, and won’t be accepted to heaven. “How much does a dollar cost?” is what he is left to think about.

Lamar calling himself repeatedly through this song “the biggest hypocrite of 2015,” has always made me want to hear him explain more about his reasoning, despite him saying why in the last bar of the song.

Lamar is such a powerful artist who uses the rap form to spread such a powerful message that it made the lyrics even more meaningful knowing that it comes from him of all people. Lamar is not a clout chaser like some people in the age of social media activists. And in 2015, when this song dropped, especially after Trayvon Martin’s death in 2012, it made a black teenager like me go protest and help lead demonstrations. K-Dot challenging his “hypocrisy” made me make sure I do my best to not have any of my own. 

In my eyes, before there was the infamous “Control” verse, it was “Backseat Freestyle” as the song challenging other rappers in the game to step their bars up with very boastful rhymes.

I’m always shocked hearing how producer Hit-Boy says this beat was meant to be an R&B song for singer Ciara.  

I always imagined that once this song dropped that Hollywood’s best directors were blowing up K-Dot’s phone, throwing buckets of money to Lamar of making a movie based on this song.

The song tells the tale of an encounter between Kendrick’s father and Top Dawg. Top Dawg robbed the KFC Mr. DuckWorth worked at, and if things went south, I wonder where Kendrick will be now.

With the title of the track, you should know this song will be about the drug influx in LA and Kendrick Lamar’s views of watching that growing up. Lamar is from Compton and got to see firsthand how the crack epidemic ruined certain aspects of his neighborhood as a child.

This song is a thoughtful record that questions why teenagers do certain things they do, such as drink or smoke or party.

Funny enough, this song is the first song that comes on when I plug my phone into the AUX. The majority of the time, I don’t skip the song just to feel the nostalgia it brings. I even close my eyes to imagine myself riding in a 1970 Cadillac down south Figueroa Street in Los Angeles. 

“Every n***a is a star.”

Hearing this song’s bass line, punchy verses, and production, in general, is simply magical. This track is an amazing intro to an album that will go down as one of the best intros of the decade. George Clinton turns this track from great to legendary.

This song tells a tale of Lamar at the ages of 7, 17, and 27, and I don’t know if it’s PTSD from my childhood (listen to the song and you’ll get what I’m saying) or the beautiful way he explores three different periods of his life, but this song gives me chills every time.

The anaphoric use of the words “I beat yo ass” for eight minutes and the vocal changes he uses in this song are top-tier art that only Kendrick Lamar can pull off.

“So Appalled” is my favorite song on Kanye’s West My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, so when I heard Kendrick Lamar’s debut single contained a sample of it while being produced by upcoming rapper J. Cole, I was already a believer in Lamar. This felt like the beginning of a new era of hip-hop.

“Swimming Pools” was a bunch of people’s mainstream introduction to Kendrick, and the song is a banger. The banger was heard worldwide at every party and club, but the message about how his grandfather’s alcoholism is one to reflect on. 

The song is about women’s sugar walls and how a certain woman who is dealing with her man “Dave” (who we find out more about later on this list) who’s facing a life sentence has relations with a certain famous rapper to get over her separation anxiety. I wonder who the rapper is.

Kendrick wanted people to “feel” him on this song, and that’s exactly what we did.

The first song released on Overly Dedicated is a masterclass. Hearing the song in 2022 is so ironic, because one of the bars says, “And if my record never breaks, I still won’t break my promise / I promise to keep it honest.” You can tell how sincere he was with that statement, and he eventually had more success than he ever imagined with being a multiple-time Grammy winner and being the top guy in the last decade.

“DNA.” is a unique song that was elevated by a wonderful music video.

There are other great songs on DAMN. that are more acclaimed by K-Dot fans, such as “HUMBLE.” or DUCKWORTH.,” but this song is the premier song to me.

“DNA.” is technically the first song we hear on DAMN., and he uses “DNA.” as a juxtaposition of the success and riches he has now earned, but his “DNA.” is also tracing back to slavery. Lamar has a wonderful way to make his listeners think about our privilege while making enjoyable music we can listen to at all times. 

“Rigamortis” is the song that let it be known that Kendrick will be a force to reckon with. If you want to show someone any song on Section.80 as a reference to listening to the album, this is the one. Kendrick admitted this song took him three takes to do, and you can see why. The braggadocios and dauntless bars scream star in the making. 

Anyone who can rap this song word for word should look into a career in rap.

This song rightfully was associated with many Black Lives Matter protests over the years with a very empathic hook and will go down as the most illustrating song of the past 20 years. If I was ranking songs on their impact, this would for sure be #1.

The Pharrell-produced track came at the right time as it made us “woosah” during a time when tensions were high around the globe. The song was truly an era-defining moment during a place and time in our country I hope we don’t experience again. 

Kendrick is not afraid of being himself, and we truly get a full glimpse of that in the song “u.” Kendrick did something we saw only once from him on BJ the Chicago Kid’s “His Pain,” crying while rapping, but still telling a beautiful story.

“U” is such an intense song that Kendrick pulled deep down from his childhood to that current moment to make one of his most vulnerable songs to date. The second and third verses of this song are so powerful that they will make a gangster cry. It’s one song that if you’ve never heard it before, you should at least once in your lifetime. It’s very telling that a song like this is before the #5 song on this list. Despite the content that doesn’t go away that quickly, we should know eventually everything’s going to be “alright.” 

You might be able to tell my favorite Kendrick Lamar album by the last three songs. “Money Trees” is an absolute banger. Jay Rock’s performance is a top 10 feature of the 2010s. “Money Trees” is the second most streamed 6+ minute song in Spotify history for good reason.

Kendrick Lamar perfectly tells us in this song that material things don’t make trauma and pain we experienced in our lives go away. Kendrick’s ability to pick apart certain common man struggles and bring nuance to them is perfect. Anna Wise on the hook is perfect as well.

“My angry adolescence pided” and/or “My angels on angel dust” is a fan favorite tracks and the one song in Lamar’s discography that I’m for certain will get everyone at a festival jumping and singing word for word. 

“M.A.A.D City” is a song full of chaos that slowly builds up and gets more and more hype as the song goes on until we hear the eventual dispirited outro that tells the whole story of the album Good Kid, M.A.A.D City.

Undoubtedly, this is the #1 song.

“Sing About Me, I’m Dying Of Thirst” is two songs with one that tells one of the best stories we’ve seen in hip-hop. The first perspective in this song comes from Dave’s brother after Dave was killed in swimming pools; the second one is Keisha’s sister from Section.80‘s “Keisha’s Song,” and the last one is Kendrick’s perspective.

This is modern day poetry at its finest, despite a simple beat. Kendrick’s storytelling ability makes me captivated the entire 12 minutes. The production on this track is an excellent example of the musicality in hip-hop. Taking the Bill Withers sample and turning it into this is amazing.

The poignancy of the song and it being a true story makes it his best song ever. Also, at Day N Vegas, Kendrick ended his set with this song and said it’s his favorite ever, so if you don’t take my word of the legit-ness of the song, take Dot’s.