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Kendrick Lamar’s reputation precedes him, but how much do you really know about the artist and his work? It’s certainly hard to believe he's only in his mid-thirties, since he’s already created the immense legacy that usually takes people’s entire lives—or their too-sudden deaths—to achieve.

There are few artists as respected as K-Dot, being both a rapper’s rapper as well as nearly every pop fan’s choice of hip hop. Kendrick Lamar Duckworth (you can guess why he dropped the last name) maintains the marvel of rap’s lyrical integrity while still providing the bangers that everyone’s body craves.

Born to a father who was embroiled in gangs and a mother who named him after American singer-songwriter Eddie Kendricks of the Temptations, Lamar’s upbringing was a mix of Compton streets and musical expression. He dropped his first full-length project when he was just 16, a mixtape titled ‘Youngest Head N–a in Charge (Hub City Threat: Minor of the Year)’ under the pseudonym K-Dot, and was soon signed to Top Dawg Entertainment.

Check out this gallery to see just what makes him such a big deal.

▲The Pulitzer Prize has a reputation of being stuffy, taking 54 years to recognize anything outside of the European classical tradition (and it was still only jazz music).

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Lamar's 2018 win was an enormous victory for a genre that wasn't ever recognized by the institution as a legitimate art form.

▲His album 'Damn.' was America's top-selling hip-hop album of 2017 and featured two very special guest artists: U2 and Rihanna. The song 'Humble' had more than 40 million views on YouTube and reached number 1 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart. Lamar had already earned more awards than we could count, but the Pulitzer award signaled something much more important.

▲Hip hop had already taken center stage in the realm of popular music, but the prize signified the rapper's hugely influential and technically brilliant role as an artist.

▲Lamar's music has changed the rap game, particularly in the way he fearlessly treads pressing subject matter, including the state of black lives in America.

▲The Pulitzer Prize called his album "a virtuosic song collection unified by its vernacular authenticity and rhythmic dynamism that offers affecting vignettes capturing the complexity of modern African-American life." Figure out what exactly that means by diving into his lyrics.

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Like many rappers, Lamar was raised in Compton, California, among gang violence and poverty. But unlike many rappers, he's turned his past into a responsibility to the future.

▲On 'm.A.A.d city' he reveals that he saw someone get shot at a burger stand. In 'Money Trees' he reveals he saw his uncle murdered at a Louis Burger, and in 'Swimming Pools' he adds that he grew up around a lot of substance abuse.

▲In 'DNA' off his album 'Damn.' he raps, "I know murder, conviction / Burners, boosters, burglars, ballers, dead, redemption / Scholars, fathers dead with kids / And I wish I was fed forgiveness."

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From his 2015 album 'To Pimp a Butterfly,' Lamar chants, "We gon' be alright," sending a message of hope and solidarity which the Black Lives Matter movement embraced.

▲'Wesley's Theory' on 'To Pimp a Butterfly' uses satire to imagine if the stereotypes of hip hop were unleashed on the country: "I'ma put the Compton swap meet by the White House / Republican run up, get socked out [...] Uneducated, but I got a million-dollar check like that."

▲Lamar references the failed promise made after slavery was abolished, in which freed black men were to be given land and a mule, when he raps, "I need forty acres and a mule / Not a forty ounce and a pit bull," on his track 'For Free.'

▲Lamar is frequently called the best rapper because he writes everything he raps, and he works hard to bring out new ideas, as opposed to many rappers who repeat the same narratives. In 'King Kunta' he calls them out and says, "Most of y'all share bars, like you got the bottom bunk in a two man cell."

▲Rappers who talk about cars, money, mansions, and general materialism overshadow real issues and set unrealistic ideals for listeners, and Lamar asks on his song 'Institutionalized,' "F–k am I s'posed to do when / I'm lookin' at walkin' licks? / The constant big money talk 'bout the mansion and foreign whips."

▲On 'Hood Politics' he raps, "Critics want to mention that they miss when hip hop was rappin' / M–r if you did, then Killer Mike'd be platinum," arguing that rap had to, and did, evolve for the better.

▲In his song 'How Much a Dollar Cost,' Lamar tells a tale of meeting a homeless man and refusing to give him a dollar, only to find out that the man is God in disguise, who tells him a dollar costs "The price of having a spot in Heaven," all of which is to criticize greed.

▲On 'The Blacker the Berry,' he controversially asks, "So why did I weep when Trayvon Martin was in the street / When gang banging make me kill a n–a blacker than me?" alluding to society's disproportionate attention to police brutality when black-on-black violence still rages.

▲He describes on the song 'i' what the word means to him by referencing the Ethiopian word "Negus" which describes, "black emperor, king, ruler [...] The history books overlook the word and hide it / America tried to make it to a house divided / The homies don't recognize we been using it wrong."

▲On 'Mortal Man' Lamar says, "A war that was based on apartheid and discrimination / Made me wanna go back to the city and tell the homies what I learned / The word was respect [...] If I respect you, we unify and stop the enemy from killing us."

▲Lamar asks the hard questions on 'XXX' when he raps, "Donald Trump's in office, we lost Barack / And promised to never doubt him again / But is America honest or do we bask in sin?"

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'The Blacker the Berry' confronts listeners with every racial slur and stereotype about black people, from anatomy and hair to watermelon and chicken, and Lamar says, "This plot is bigger than me, it's generational hatred / It's genocism, it's grimy, little justification."

▲The Fox News reporter is sampled on the song 'DNA' saying that "hip hop has done more damage to young African-Americans than racism in recent years," but Lamar has proved that wrong.

▲On the same album, in the song 'YAH', Lamar says, "Somebody tell Geraldo this n–a got some ambition," and, if nothing else, the album's Pulitzer Prize sends a clear message to Rivera.

▲On 'PRIDE' he raps, "See, in a perfect world, I'll choose faith over riches / I'll choose work over b–s, I'll make schools out of prison / I'll take all the religions and put 'em all in one service / Just to tell 'em we ain't s–t, but He's been perfect."

▲Along with greed, systemic racism, social justice, and politics, Lamar has also rapped about his own birth. "I was born in '87 / my granddaddy a legend," from 'Nosetalgia.'

▲"My mama told me that I was different the moment I was invented / Estranged baby, no I'm not ashamed," from 'untitled 06.'

▲"I didn't develop, I was born with this talent / Brain swell up," from 'Track 10.'

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Lamar's 2022-2023 'The Big Steppers Tour' was the highest-grossing rap tour of all time, and in 2023 he was honored on Billboard's list of the greatest rappers of all time.

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In 2025, Kendrick Lamar took home five Grammy Awards for his explosive diss track 'Not Like Us,' a hit aimed at fellow rapper Drake. The song, which dominated charts and sparked widespread cultural conversation, earned Lamar critical acclaim for its sharp lyrics, bold delivery, and impact on the hip-hop landscape. His Grammy wins solidified the track’s status as a defining moment in rap history.

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The hip-hop icon continues to captivate fans and critics alike with his sophisticated lyricism. In a high-profile feud with Drake, Lamar fearlessly addressed his rival's personal life and controversial portrayals of the Black community in his music. Lamar's ability to produce a series of intricately rhymed diss tracks within days solidified his status among fans and critics.