Every Kendrick Lamar Song, Ranked

Kendrick Lamar tends to preach peace over conflict, but a shadow lurks in even his cheeriest songs. Many artists are unpredictable, but for the 37-year-old rapper spontaneity is a worldview as much a style. His narratives constantly fork and waver, swinging from pole to pole. He prizes his contradictions and builds songs around the contrasts. The results are head-spinning. His party jams are antisocial. His therapy raps are petty and bullish. His disses promote unity. He’s rap’s resident theater kid, an observer who can wrest drama from any situation.

Kendrick Lamar Duckworth spent years finding his voice. Born in 1987 in Compton to working-class parents from Chicago, he grew up in the cradle of gangsta rap (Dr. Dre and Tupac’s “California Love” video was shot around the corner from his childhood home). By middle school, he was freestyling to DMX’s It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot at the lunch table. Under the name K.Dot, he released his first mixtape as a teenager, in 2003, rapping over beats jacked from songs by the Game and Jay-Z. By 2005, his raw talent landed him a deal at indie label Top Dawg Entertainment, but it took him six years and three mixtapes of Lil Wayne and 2Pac cosplay to grasp the nuts and bolts of songwriting.

Things took a turn when he officially changed his stage name to Kendrick Lamar in 2009, distancing himself from the winding freestyles of his K.Dot tapes: “I’m mature now,” he explained. “I want people to know that I’m an actual artist that does music.” On the Kendrick Lamar EP and the mixtape Overly Dedicated, his songwriting became more narrative-driven and moody. Calling himself a “good kid from the mad city,” he started to tease out his ambivalent relationships to California gang culture. Kendrick hadn’t yet amassed his arsenal of vocal tics and flows, but even his unstructured songs, such as “The Heart Part.1,” showed his delivery loosening and becoming more emotive and melodic.

By his 2012 major-label debut, good kid, m.A.A.d city, he’d developed his signature blend of knotty lyricism and liquid, multipart vocals. His storytelling took the shape of scrambled bildungsroman, set to dreamy and grand beats, and catapulted him to rap stardom. But despite collaborations with Taylor Swift and Maroon 5, Kendrick wouldn’t become a true crossover act until later. He followed his sprawling 2015 record To Pimp a Butterfly with 2017’s punchy and Pulitzer-winning DAMN., returning to the episodic writing of good kid. The album, led by the meme-ready video for the chart-topping “Humble,” finally cemented his mainstream status.

After becoming a father and experiencing yearslong writer’s block, Kendrick returned in 2022 with the bristling Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers, an abrasive record on which he burns his fame in effigy and insists that he’s no one’s savior. He reversed that approach on last year’s triumphant GNX, an epilogue to his historic beef with Drake on which he embraces the sounds of modern West Coast rap and heroically crusades against posers and leeches he claims are ruining the genre. These records’ conflicting ideas about self and community border on whiplash, but his stock has only continued to climb. Split vision can be deeply relatable.

Kendrick’s beef with Drake may be top of mind heading into his Super Bowl LIX performance, but the halftime show tends to be a moment when artists get retrospective, mining their own catalog for what’s still relevant to them and their fans. It will be illuminating to see how this performance becomes a reflection of how Kendrick thinks of himself as an artist and how much he still sees himself in conflict with Drake. In anticipation of his Super Bowl set, we’ve ranked the 173 songs Kendrick has released since ditching the K.Dot moniker 16 years ago, paying specific attention to guest verses, leaks, and freestyles, which have often been as impactful as his official tracks. Taken as a whole, Kendrick Lamar’s catalogue lays out the balancing act that defines his style: he’s a rap nerd and a pop aspirant, a champion and skeptic of hood culture, a repentant sinner who always doubles down.

173. “I’m Ghost” Kendrick Lamar and DJ Infamous Haze (2012)

Generic vacation raps over a beat that sounds like several Sidekick ringtones playing at the same time.

172. “Sex With Society” (2011)

Some freestyles are best left in the proverbial backseat.

171. “We Cry Together” Kendrick Lamar and Taylour Paige (2022)

Kendrick’s Baby Boy homage is grating and static; he has no ideas about the shouty couple other than their mutual toxicity.

170. “Keisha’s Song (Her Pain)” featuring Ashtrobot (2011)

Kendrick struggles to write women as vividly as he writes men, often depicting them as temptresses, sex objects, victims, or nags. That shortcoming is on full display here as he narrates the life and death of a sex worker over a maudlin beat. The hook, an overwrought Chris Martin impression from singer Ashtrobot, is the nail in the coffin.

169. “Vanity Slaves” (2009)

All socially conscious rappers have to record at least one song with hotep-core lines about slavery and chains.

168. “No Make-Up (Her Vice)” featuring Colin Munroe (2011)

Another sappy and thin attempt at empathizing with women, this time by bemoaning cosmetics.

167. “Pray for Me” Kendrick Lamar and the Weeknd (2018)

One of the most unbelievable moments in Black Panther is this bland pop rap playing in an underground South Korean casino.

166. “My People” featuring Jay Rock (2011)

Kendrick and Jay Rock bring some real op-ed energy to this limp track about Black-on-Black crime — which, by the way, is not real.

165. “6’7’ Freestyle” Kendrick Lamar and ScHoolboy Q (2011)

Kendrick loves Lil Wayne so much that he once rapped over Weezy songs for almost an entire mixtape. But he mostly stayed away from his idol’s wackier tracks for a reason: His take on the “Banana Boat”–sampling “6 Foot 7 Foot” is overly technical and dry.

164. “Thanksgiving” featuring Big Pooh (2009)

Real hip-hop (pejorative).

163. “Determined” (2009)

A self-pitying song pairing struggle raps with a prescient line about Kendrick’s future mortal enemy: “ … as you listening to K-D-O-T / Man, me and my girl split the bucket of KFC / She listenin’ to Drake and all I can say is, ‘Damn, these niggas that much better than me, baby?’”

162. “Trip” (2009)

TDE’s in-house producers learned alongside the rappers, slowly graduating from stiff boom-bap and soul samples to moodier, more sinuous arrangements. On this precursor to the much slicker “Hol’ Up,” Sounwave and Kendrick haven’t loosened up yet.

161. “How Much a Dollar Cost” featuring James Fauntleroy and Ronald Isley (2015)

The backing band tears this up, but Kendrick’s writing gets heavy-handed when he has a moral to impart. “Dying of Thirst,” “Untitled 01 | 08.19.2014.,” and “Faith” have far more conflicted ideas about religion.

160. “Big Shot” Kendrick Lamar and Travis Scott (2018)

Shuri would never bump this in the lab.

159. “Auntie Diaries” (2022)

Another clunky morality tale that builds to an empty gotcha. The thumping drums and quivering strings add dramatic flair, but this would be far more interesting if it were written from the perspectives of Kendrick’s trans uncle and cousin, whom he misgenders and presents as side characters in his personal awakening.

158. “Uncle Bobby & Jason Keaton” (2009)

Storytelling without drama is just summary.

157. “All the Stars” Kendrick Lamar and SZA (2018)

By-the-numbers stadium rap.

156. “Mortal Man” (2015)

Kendrick’s soul-searching on To Pimp a Butterfly comes to a head on this brooding track, which ends with him asking to be loved like Nelson Mandela by his fans, reading a poem that’s been recited in parts across the album, and “interviewing” the ghost of 2Pac. On paper, this makes for a complex end to an epic project, but the way he trivializes molestation allegations against Michael Jackson reveals this to mostly be an exercise in idol worship.

155. “I Am (Interlude)” (2009)

“For Free? (Interlude)” proves Kendrick’s enjambed and jittery writing style works well as spoken word, but here he sounds more like a Brave New Voice than a Watts Prophet.

154. “A Little Appalled” (2009)

Kendrick is still sorting out kinks in his delivery here, but you can hear his writing becoming more self-assured and flippant: “He changed his name, he a conscious rapper / Naw, motherfucker, I’m just Compton’s rapper.”

153. “Rapper Shit” Ab-Soul and Kendrick Lamar (2012)

This middling track was left off Ab-Soul’s Longterm Mentality for a reason.

152. “I Do This (Remix)” featuring U.N.I., Skeme, and Brown  (2010)

The original’s got way more swag, and the guests just take up space.

151. “Mirror” (2022)

“Savior” is more to the point, but sure, “Go, Kendrick, go.”

150. “Now or Never” featuring Mary J. Blige (2013)

This uplifting good kid, m.A.A.d. city bonus track probably goes hard in an aerobics class, and it would be a far too feel-good ending to such a harrowing album.

149. “Is It Love?” featuring Angela McCluskey (2009)

One of his first works of pure mood, “Is It Love” kicks off the Kendrick Lamar EP with spacey R&B melodies from the late Angela McCluskey and yearning rhymes from Kendrick. The songwriting emphasizes the atmosphere more than the rapping.

148. “R.O.T.C.” (2010)

While the K.Dot song “Compton Chemistry” has the same what-if-I-were-street conceit, Kendrick’s vocals and writing here are more evocative and urgent. “I be in spots, chopping the rocks like Flintstone feet,” he growls as his alternate-universe self.

147. “Celebration” (2009)

Kendrick becomes springier and more emotive when he’s got more rhythms to manage, an instinct brought out here by the unquantized drums of the Roy Ayers sample. This also features one of the first times he says “good kid mad city.”

146. “She Needs Me” (2009)

While he’s still shedding the Wayne tics, this suave and laid-back track is structurally and thematically a song Kendrick couldn’t have written as K.Dot.

145. “Faith” featuring BJ the Chicago Kid and Punch (2009)

Like “She Needs Me,” this shows Kendrick’s increasing attention to songcraft. While the verses don’t interplay the way they do on subsequent Kendrick songs, there’s little filler as he details various tests of faith.

144. “Wanna Be Heard” (2009)

A more stylish “Determined.”

143. “Compton State of Mind” (2009)

This doesn’t go as hard as “Compton,” but Kendrick’s hyperspecific flag-waving is charming: “I’m out here, I’ve always been out here / Since the Compton swap meet, black and red L.A. gears.”

142. “Far From Here” featuring ScHoolboy Q (2009)

A preview of the bluesy sensibility Kendrick would bring to his vocals once he started to regularly embrace melody.

141. “Let Me Be Me” (2009)

Look past the discount Polow Da Don beat and you can see Kendrick laying the bricks of his mythology, from placing trust in his family (“My mama said, ‘Boy, that don’t sound like you’”), to embracing authenticity (“Almost lost my life to the industry / Had to look through a photo book to remember me”), to eagerly playing the villain (“Make these motherfuckers hate me”).

140. “I Do This” featuring Jay Rock (2009)

The slow flows really highlight his offbeat humor.

139. “Barbed Wire” featuring Ash Riser (2010)

The subtle flow shift in the third verse when the main drums drop out is delightful.

138. “Ignorance Is Bliss” (2010)

Cornrow Kenny, a moniker Kendrick once used to describe his vengeful side, has entered the chat: “Kill him where he stand and stand over him, shake his hand / Then jump back in that minivan, double back to his block and blam / I ain’t backing down for nothing.”

137. “She Needs Me (Remix)” featuring Dom Kennedy, JaVonte, and Murs (2010)

Tweaks the original into a more straightforward player jam.

136. “Heaven & Hell” featuring Alori Joh (2010)

The fadeout in the second verse is slick as hell.

135. “P&P” featuring Ab-Soul (2009)

His first truly great hook, bolstered by anxious verses that swing and lash like a bullwhip.

134. “Black Boy Fly” (2012)

Another gkmc loosie that’s fine in the abstract but not as striking as the canonical tracks. It also suffers from having the same three-part narrative structure as songs from the album.

133. “meet the grahams” (2024)

“meet the grahams” — which Kendrick dropped within an hour of Drake releasing the fiery diss track “Family Matters” — was gutting. Kendrick frames it as an open letter to his rival’s family, telling Drake’s mother, father, child, and alleged daughter that the Torontonian is a “master manipulator” prone to lying and degeneracy. But removed from the battle, its grave tone and sepulchral mood feel bizarre and overwrought. “Truthfully, I don’t have a hatin’ bone in my body,” Kendrick claims. Sure, dude.

132. “Night of the Living Junkies” (2010)

The “my music is literal dope” concept is done better on “Nosestalgia,” but the crashing drums and catchy piano chords herald better Sounwave beats to come.

131. “H.O.C.” (2010)

Stoner rap for teetotalers: “I go in studio sessions and feel like a nerd / ’Cause I’m the only nigga there not smoking no herb.”

130. “P&P 1.5” featuring Ab-Soul (2010)

That extra 0.5 — a beat switch, a new verse rapped in the style of Texas screw, and a bridge that interpolates Rick James’s “Give It to Me Baby”— really beefs this up.

129. “Opposites Attract (Tomorrow W/O Her)” featuring JaVonte (2010)

“We Cry Together,” but listenable.

128. “Chapter Ten” (2011)

While this interlude isn’t as striking as the fuller songs on Section .80, Kendrick’s brief verse hits harder than the album’s many skits.

127. YouTube-only “Alright” snippet (2015)

Toward the beginning of the “Alright” video, this zippy teaser plays as Kendrick and his Black Hippy bros bounce around a car. It’s never been officially released, but the snippet has taken on a life of its own as fans have chattered about it for a decade.

126. “Two Presidents,” Kendrick Lamar and YG Hootie (2013)

Split-duty split vision. This song’s concept lags Jeezy’s “My President Is Black” by a few years and is nowhere near as exultant, but “Kendrick Martin” and “Hootie Malcolm” pair well together, finding common ground in the struggle to balance tolerance and militance.

125. “Untitled” (2024)

After rallying rap around hating Drake last summer, Kendrick popped out in the fall to expound his scorched-earth vision for the music industry. “I think it’s time for me to watch the party die,” he says with icy intensity. The song’s veiled threats aren’t as lucid as those from the height of the beef, and Kendrick doesn’t explore his own role in promoting “the party,” but his delivery is gripping.

124. “Cut You Off (To Grow Closer)” (2010)

A hushed precursor to “Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe.”

123. “Tammy’s Song” (2011)

Tammy is as one-dimensional as Keisha, but the beat’s waterlogged synth flutters and the clever flip of C-Murder’s “Down for My Niggaz” make this soar.

122. “Growing Apart (To Get Closer)” featuring Jhene Aiko (2010)

Jhene Aiko’s questioning chorus works more like a looped sample than a rousing hook, echoing Kendrick’s pondering.

121. “The Heart Part. 1” (2010)

“The Heart” songs often take the form of a single verse that winds and weaves as Kendrick bares his soul. On the first edition, he cribs Yasiin Bey’s twinkly “UMI Says” beat for a yearning vent session about his ambitions as an artist, the pressures of Compton, and the relief he feels after releasing the Kendrick Lamar EP. “I’m free / Finally I can say I’m me,” he exhales like he’s been reborn. 

120. “Buried Alive Interlude” Drake featuring Kendrick Lamar (2011)

The Toronto rapper, already a star, cedes the spotlight on this offbeat Take Care interlude, which finds Kendrick processing fame over a yawning beat co-produced by core Drake collaborator 40. Drake doesn’t rap on the song, but the inclusion of it on his otherwise self-centered and hit-oriented sophomore album underscores his enthusiasm for Kendrick at the time. The song is both Kendrick’s “Busa Rhyme” moment and a tacit acknowledgement that he and Drake have some stylistic and thematic points of overlap, from a love of brooding production to a mistrust of women.

119. “Average Joe” (2010)

A more bespoke and locally flavored “Compton State of Mind,” complete with clomping G-funk drums and keyboard chords.

118. “Black Panther” (2018)

Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther depicts its titular superhero as a levelheaded statesman and family man. Kendrick imagines the Wakandan king as a tormented prisoner of duty whose attention is always divided. He says “king” dozens of times, and each utterance feels like a leash being tugged rather than a title.

117. “Poetic Justice” featuring Drake (2012)

From the delicately chopped “Any Time, Any Place” sample to the smoldering horniness to the twangy way Kendrick says “want” and “song,” this drips with style. And I’ll say it: The patronizing Drake verse is Good.

116. “Kendrick Lamar’s Interlude” Ab-Soul featuring Kendrick Lamar (2014)

A fun callback to 2011’s “Ab-Soul’s Outro,” providing a status update on Kendrick’s state of mind after the hostile reception of his bizarrely controversial “Control” verse and his rising stock following GKMC. “A good kid? Yeah, that’s only in my mama’s eyes / I seen a dead body at 5 and that shit made me traumatized / So these days, a little blood on my hands ain’t nothing,” he seethes.

115. “The Heart Part 5” (2022)

Kendrick’s scattered ideas about “the culture” don’t always connect on this so-so “Heart” entry, but the plush beat and the artfully spliced sample of Marvin Gaye’s “I Want You” sample make his wavering feel fluid rather than meandering. In the third verse, he raps as the late Nipsey Hussle, imagining what the slain rapper might say if he could have a heart-to-heart with his loved ones. But Nip feels more like a device than a character, a feeling validated by the video for the song, in which deepfake technology morphs Kendrick into Nip and other famous Black men.

114. “Chapter Six” (2011)

Nate Dogg rider hums reimagined as hushed street gospel.

113. “Monster Freestyle” (2010)

The only person who went harder over the “Monster” beat is Nicki Minaj.

112. “The Heart Pt.2” (2010)

When Kendrick raps over live drums (or ones made to sound live), his rhymes tend to zigzag as if he’s speaking off the cuff. Here, his voice fractures and cracks multiple times over the soft percussion of the Roots’ “A Peace of Light” instrumental, which he treats as a confessional.

111. “Fuck Your Ethnicity” (2011)

Kendrick goes for broke with the vocals, threading mumbles, cheers, double-time flows, and alien voices. But he never loses lucidity: “Racism is still alive.”

110. “Untitled 04 | 08.14.2014.” (2016)

None of the tracks on untitled unmastered., Kendrick’s 2016 collection of B-sides from To Pimp a Butterfly, is fully fleshed out, but this is the thinnest. Even so, the horny hook has some potential.

109. “Father Time” featuring Sampha (2022)

This soulful outlier on the otherwise prickly Mr. Morale swings between therapeutic epiphanies and knee-jerk flexes as Kendrick runs down the ways his dad has inspired him and hardened him.

108. “County Building Blues” (2012)

Across Kendrick’s catalogue, the social-services building in Compton symbolizes poverty and shame. But on this dreamy and hopeful track, narrated by the squeaky inner voice of “Swimming Pools,” he casts the struggle as the prelude to a come-up. The mood is so cheery that even the L.A. riots come to herald better days.

107. “Untitled 03 | 05.28.2013.” (2016)

Uncle Sam appears across TPAB as an archfiend offering Kendrick material wealth for the price of his soul. The character’s not as devilish on this funky offshoot, but the concept still lands.

106. “Like That” Future and Metro Boomin featuring Kendrick Lamar (2024)

Kendrick entered Future’s druggy world on the “Mask Off” remix, but on this opening salvo to the Drake beef, he claims the Pluto-verse as his own: “My temperament bipolar, I choose violence.”

105. “Michael Jordan” featuring ScHoolboy Q (2010)

A charismatic and bouncy riff on the Lex Luger sound that also pays tribute to the Chicago roots of Kendrick’s family and his love of Wayne.

104. “Blow My High (Members Only)” (2011)

Kendrick first took a stab at slab music on “P&P 1.5,” but here it’s not pastiche. The way he chuckles when the Aaliyah sample drops is charming.

103. “Untitled 01 | 08.19.2014.” (2016)

Salvation is out of reach for Kendrick as he imagines himself being left behind during the rapture on this agitated track.

102. “Look Out for Detox” (2011)

Kendrick tears into this throwaway beat like he’s just been told this is the last song he’ll ever record.

101. “Nosetalgia” Pusha T featuring Kendrick Lamar (2014)

Kendrick called out 11 rappers as his peers on “Control,” and went on to collaborate with just three of them afterward, Pusha T among them. Over an echoey and blaring Nottz beat, they tap the darkness of the crack epidemic, Pusha recalling the adrenaline of the trade and Kendrick channeling the ambient stress. This is coke rap as a fever dream.

100. “Opps,” Vince Staples and Yugen Blakrok (2018)

A rare and fun instance of post-GKMC Kendrick (who is uncredited, but raps an entire verse and the chorus) being out-rapped twice.

99. “Black Lip Bastard (Remix)” Ab-Soul featuring Black Hippy (2012)

A quintessential Black Hippy song, built on the intimacy of Kendrick, Ab-Soul, Jay Rock, and ScHoolboy Q spending endless hours in the same space.

98. “i” (album version) (2014)

“i” was released as a single months before TPAB landed, and its message of self-love struck many listeners as pat compared to his frenetic past work. Kendrick responds to that feedback on the album version, which trades his smooth vocals on the single version for a throatier delivery and cuts off the third verse for a clunky and misinformed skit about the etymology of the N-word. The skit is annoying, but the swapped vocals bring out the desperation in Kendrick’s self-affirmation and align the song with the despondent “u.”

97. “THat Part (Black Hippy remix)” ScHoolboy Q featuring Black Hippy (2016)

Black Hippy are at their best when supporting each other on their solo songs, where they take or cede the spotlight in service of a larger idea or theme.

96. “Alien Girl (Today With Her)” (2010)

Lil Wayne used to call himself a Martian to highlight the ways drugs warped his delivery and perspective. Kendrick has a similar out-of-body experience on this spacey cut, but a very fine woman drives his spirit quest rather than a substance.

95. “The Heart Pt.3 (Will You Let It Die?)” (2012)

An overlooked “Heart” entry that works as both the opening and closing credits to GKMC, extending appreciation to Kendrick’s supporters and influences, most notably DMX: “Thank God for the album I idolized / It’s dark and plus hell is hot, that’s the start of this crazy ride.”

94. “range brothers” Baby Keem and Kendrick Lamar (2021)

No one brings out Kendrick’s inner goofball like Baby Keem.

93. “dodger blue” featuring Wallie the Sensei, Siete7x, and Roddy Ricch (2024)

Breezy SoCal rap that’s subtly menacing. “Have you ever took a fade and ran three more back to back?” Kendrick asks calmly. You can almost hear his sleeves being rolled up.

92. “Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe (Remix)” featuring Jay-Z (2012)

The original is superior and Jay-Z, who tries to make hanging with Hillary Clinton sound cool, was a shadow of himself at the time. But Kendrick is clearly stoked to be rapping alongside his idol.

91. “GOD.” (2017)

Exuberant prosperity gospel that’s haunted by guilt. “Don’t judge me!” Kendrick pleads as he recounts charged scenes from his life.

90. “A.D.H.D.” (2011)

A precursor to “Swimming Pools” that channels molly and weed as well as booze. While Kendrick openly questions party culture here, tying his generation’s casual drug consumption to the epidemics of the 1980s, he fits right in with the instrumental’s wavy synths and murky drums.

89. “Untitled 07 | 2014–2016” (2016)

You’d think a bop, a diss, and a skit being tethered together would be a drag to sit through, but this eight-minute track is easy listening. “I could never end a career if it never start,” a line largely believed to be directed at Jay Electronica, is an all-time burn.

88. “gnx” featuring Hitta J3, YoungThreat, and Peysoh (2024)

Kendrick hasn’t recorded many posse cuts in the past decade, so this cypher with a handful of underground L.A. rappers is special. Everyone brings their A-game, and Kendrick distills his crash-out mentality to a single line: “I’m trippin’ and I’m lovin’ it.”

87. “Control” Big Sean featuring Kendrick Lamar and Jay Electronica (2013)

Kendrick banged out a lot of features in the months after GKMC was released, popping up on songs with A-listers like Eminem and Miguel as well as lesser-known acts like Quadron and ZZ Ward. But this fiery verse on an unreleased Big Sean track highlighted the new way he was writing and being perceived by his peers. “I got love for you all, but I’m tryna murder you niggas / Tryna make sure your core fans never heard of you niggas,” Kendrick growls after mentioning nearly a dozen rappers by name.

Those lines and the verse as a whole are playful, akin to Wayne saying he was the greatest rapper alive for years. But it became a flashpoint, and several of the named rappers, Drake among them, criticized the song in interviews and response records. This would go on to spark rows with Big Sean, Jay Electronica, and most substantially Drake — quite a feat for a single verse.

86. “reincarnated” (2024)

Rapping over a sample of 2Pac’s “Made Niggaz,” Kendrick pays homage to his forebears in rap and entertainment, building to a candid one-on-one talk with his god that echoes DMX’s “Ready to Meet Him” and “Mortal Man.” Other acts of interpolation on GNX are subtler, but one of the clear goals of this song is to openly condemn the way Drake impersonated Pac on the diss “Taylor Made.” Kendrick views his ties to past rappers as literally sacred.

85. “Complexion (A Zulu Love)” featuring Rapsody (2015)

The way the beat shifts for Rapsody’s verse is the real Zulu love.

84. “The Recipe” featuring Dr. Dre (2012)

A humid, throwback rider joint that features a surprisingly nimble Dr. Dre. Although the gangsta-rap stalwart signed Kendrick to Aftermath, he has played a quiet role in his career, appearing on only a handful of tracks with him. But Kendrick’s emphasis on quality control and craft can arguably be traced to the notoriously meticulous beat producer.

83. “Mr. Morale” Kendrick Lamar and Tanna Leone (2022)

The thump on this is nuts.

82. “Crown” (2022)

Duval Timothy’s plangent piano melodies appear all over Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers, but here they operate at maximum strength, guiding Kendrick’s reedy croons.

81. “Die Hard,” Kendrick Lamar, Blxst, and Amanda Reifer (2022)

The naked vulnerability of “The Heart” songs, rejigged as longing R&B.

80. “BLOOD.” (2017)

“BLOOD.” is pretty dang compelling for a skit, setting up the off-kilter mood of DAMN. with slow-boiling narration from Kendrick, enigmatic singing from Bēkon, and eerie strings and synth pads.

79. “30 for 30” SZA and Kendrick Lamar (2024)

SZA and Kendrick talking shit over the same sample as Rich Boy’s “Throw Some D’s” goes down very smoothly.

78. “Ronald Reagan Era (His Evils),” (2011)

A raucous tour of Compton that trades the apprehension of “Average Joe”  for pride. Like the Wu-Tang Clan, Compton gangs ain’t nothing to fuck with, Kendrick explains, as he, RZA, and Ab-Soul survey the streets. He’s unfazed though, because “they fuck with me, and bitch, I love it.”

77. “United in Grief” (2022)

I can name maybe 20 rappers living and dead who wouldn’t be absolutely clobbered by these drums.

76. “Untitled 08 | 09.06.2014.”

“Blue faces” is a clever metaphor for the emotional emptiness of extreme wealth, and Thundercat’s hushed coos and relentlessly funky bass lines give this a serious groove. It says a lot about Kendrick’s songwriting standards during the TPAB sessions that a track this robust didn’t make the cut.

75. “6:16 in LA” (2024)

Kendrick’s beat choices throughout the Drake beef were inspired. This follow-up to the brash “Euphoria,” set to a soulful loop of an Al Green song, is eerily peaceful and ruminative. “God, ah, my confession is yours, but / Who am I if I don’t go to war?” Kendrick says, as if he must beef for the sake of his soul.

74. “Ab-Soul’s Outro” featuring Ab-Soul (2011)

A slick and jazzy Section .80 highlight that also explains Kendrick’s mind-hopping and restless writing style: “I spent 23 years on this Earth searching for answers / ’Til one day I realized I had to come up with my own / I’m not on the outside looking in / I’m not on the inside looking out / I’m in the dead fucking center, looking around.”

73. “For Free? (Interlude)” (2015)

Kendrick’s decision to have a Black woman’s voice represent America’s greed has never made sense to me. But his zigzagging flow here, timed to increasingly boisterous jazz, is mesmerizing.

72. “These Walls” featuring Anna Wise and Thundercat (2015)

Kendrick artfully mixes genres and metaphors on this toxic tale of a love triangle involving an incarcerated man, his estranged lover, and a famous rapper.

71. “Savior” Kendrick Lamar, Baby Keem, and Sam Dew (2022)

An unambiguous rejection of the messiah expectations placed on — and cultivated by — Kendrick that also revisits some of the empty solidarity of the George Floyd protests. There’s straw men in the writing here, but “Capitalists posin’ as compassionists be offendin’ me” is a bar.

70. “Gloria” Kendrick Lamar and SZA (2024)

It’s funny as hell that this is one of Kendrick’s best-written love songs given Gloria is just the pet name for his pen.

69. “The Hillbillies” Kendrick Lamar and Baby Keem (2023)

In addition to bringing out Kendrick’s funnier side, Keem also nudges Kendrick toward rapping more loosely. This carefree track finds the cousins trading jokes and flexes over Jersey club drums and a warped Bon Iver sample. It feels like a backyard wrestling match, as cozy as it is hectic.

68. “For Sale? (Interlude)” (2015)

A five-minute interlude that features some of the knottiest rapping and vocal contortions on TPAB and ends with a lush instrumental outro rippling with darkness and light. Lucy’s got that good good.

67. “Hol’ Up” (2011)

Sounwave and Kendrick do the fusion dance.

66. “Kush & Corinthians (His Pain)” featuring BJ the Chicago Kid (2011)

A smoky Wyldfyer beat pushes Kendrick to lay out his proudly contradictory ethos: “I’m a loser, I’m a winner / I’m good, I’m bad, I’m a Christian, I’m a sinner / I’m humble, I’m loud, I’m righteous, I’m a killer / What I’m doing? I’m saying that I’m human.”

65. “Institutionalized” featuring Bilal, Anna Wise, and Snoop Dogg (2015)

Aesop’s Fables for the Homies.

64. “PRIDE.” (2017)

Guitars play important roles in setting the mood throughout DAMN., especially on this groggy track about the loopiness of pride.

63. “Luther” Kendrick Lamar and SZA (2024)

Imagine this playing at the end of Black Panther instead of “All the Stars.”

62. “Paramedic!” SOB X RBE (2018)

A showcase for the short-lived original lineup of rowdy rap group SOB X RBE that connects Compton to the Bay Area. Although Kendrick’s not credited, his jaunty hook and ad-libs glue everything together.

61. “N95” (2022)

A steamroller of a track that mocks cancel culture while taking it very seriously. The hook is fun as hell, though.

60. “wacced out murals” (2024)

This incensed coda to the Drake beef is even more indignant and agitated than “Not Like Us” and “Euphoria,” encapsulating the aggy headspace Kendrick is in throughout GNX. “Old soul, bitch I probably built them pyramids / Ducking strays when I rap battled in the Nickersons / Where you from? Not where I’m from, we all indigenous,” he raps, seeding ideas about reincarnation, roots, and pedigree explored elsewhere on the album.

59. “LOYALTY.” featuring Rihanna (2017)

Long live cloud rap (and Rihanna features).

58. TDE BET Cypher, Black Hippy and Isaiah Rashad (2013)

ScHoolboy Q spends the entirety of Kendrick’s two-minute verse shaking his head in disbelief as his labelmate blazes through the “Shook Ones, Part II” instrumental. While the syllable-shredding tour de force includes multiple shots at Drake and Papoose, Kendrick’s breath control and internal rhythm are the real showstoppers. He veers on and off the beat like a biker threading lanes.

57. “family ties” Baby Keem and Kendrick Lamar (2021)

A switchy Baby Keem showcase that ends with Kendrick doing a hilariously spot-on impression of white guys who call everyone “brother.”

56. “Poe Mans Dreams (His Vice)” featuring GLC (2011)

Meditative anxiety rap that anticipates more frenzied songs like “good kid” and “m.A.A.d. City.” His casual delivery belies the melancholy lurking beneath his family pride.

55. “YAH.”

Hymnal boom-bap.

54. “heart pt. 6” (2024)

This sentimental ode to the early days of Black Hippy and TDE applies some structure to the “The Heart” formula while maintaining the series’ emotional theme. As Kendrick tells it, the group didn’t pan out because he wanted to break out as a solo act. The song doubles as a rebuke to Drake cribbing the title during the beef.

53. “man at the garden” (2024)

Prosperity gospel that brims with bloodlust: “I’m crashing out right now, no one’s safe with me.”

52. “Compton” featuring Dr. Dre (2012)

Does GKMC need this pandering Dr. Dre cameo that announces Kendrick is officially West Coast rap’s new golden child? Probably not. But I refuse to throw out this titanic Just Blaze beat with the bathwater.

51. “The Blacker the Berry” featuring Assassin (2015)

Black-on-Black crime is still not real — but Kendrick’s blistering mix of racial pride and ignominy on this song about defying and perpetuating hate is gripping, especially as his manic flow hits odd pockets of the martial beat. The lacerating Assassin hook is the cherry on top.

50. “Silent Hill” Kendrick Lamar and Kodak Black (2022)

Kendrick and Kodak Black bond over messiness and parenthood atop an undeniably springy beat. It’s genuinely shocking that neither of the proudly erratic rappers mentions they’re both Geminis.

49. “Collect Calls” (2012)

Nimble flows, layered ideas about how incarceration affects families, and an echoey, haunted asylum of a beat. Note that this features the best-written woman character in Kendrick’s catalogue that is not his mom.

48. “Backseat Freestyle” (2012)

This callback to the bar-heavy K.Dot days, cleverly presented as a period piece of sorts on GKMC, acknowledges both the fun and ridiculousness of young rapper flexes.

47. “LOVE.” (2017)

Smoldering R&B that can support a slow dance or a shoulder lean.

46. “Purple Hearts” Kendrick Lamar, Summer Walker, and Ghostface Killah (2022)

The refrain on this gospel-tinged track — “Shut the fuck up when you hear love talking” — harkens back to “Is It Love,” but this offers far more perspectives on the perennial subject in Kendrick’s music. For Kendrick, love takes the form of grace and forgiveness despite lust and infidelity.

45. “i” single version (2014)

When this song was released, it was received as schmaltzy self-affirmation, but the spastic rapping and production tell another story: Constant positivity is the sole check against self-harm.

44. “The Heart Part 4”

Before this, Kendrick cleared his chest on “The Heart” songs. Here, he beats it: “Mo’ bars, no peers, no scars, no fear — fuck y’all, sincere.”

43. “Count Me Out” (2022)

Kendrick thrashes like a shark out of water across the therapy-inspired Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers, snapping at the listener, himself, and hangers-on as he details his many stressors and bugbears. “Count Me Out” is one of the more entertaining and rewarding outcomes of that flailing approach, the turbulent writing building into a defiant and catchy chorus that offers respite from Kendrick’s ailing mind.

42. “HiiiPower” (2011)

A Super Saiyan version of “A Little Appalled.”

41. “Rigamortis” (2011)

An iconic exercise in breath control and shit-talking that celebrates the simple joys of going in over a fly-ass loop.

40. “Sherane a.k.a Master Splinter’s Daughter” (2012)

Sherane is never given a reason for setting Kendrick up, but the anticipation of the presumed booty call sets the stage for immersive storytelling. The watery, moonlit Tha Bizness beat ups the tension of Kendrick’s thirst.

39. “Worldwide Steppers” (2022)

“8 billion people on earth, silent murderers” is one of many haunting lines Kendrick fires off while weaving through this spooky, off-kilter beat.

38. “King’s Dead” Kendrick Lamar, Jay Rock, Future, and James Blake (2018)

Future and Jay Rock are the true stars of this rubbery thumper, but the Kendrick coda, in which he raps as Marvel supervillain Erik Killmonger, is a thrilling plot twist.

37. “Sing About Me, I’m Dying of Thirst” (2012)

Out-of-body experiences are a fixture of Kendrick’s writing. Like a telepath, he’ll slip into the head of a character, warp his cadences, and pitch to embody their voice — sometimes even conversing with them, as he does here with the sister of Keisha and the brother of a slain friend. He uses these freaky exchanges to explore what makes people tick, to understand both their choices and his own. Answers often elude him, but the body-hopping approximates intimacy.

After speaking with and about the dead on the first part, he shifts to confronting himself on the second, pleading for salvation over spectral wails. The scope of its storytelling is an incredible one-two punch — diminished only by his thin portrayal of Keisha’s sister..

36. “LUST.” (2017)

A crash-out anthem that tucks a caveat into its calls to go for broke: “Just make it count.”

35. “tv off” featuring Lefty Gunplay (2024)

Like “Not Like Us,” “tv off” is co-produced by 2010s ratchet-music mainstay Mustard, whose beats emphasize bounce and snap. Kendrick fits right in, caroming off the percussion like a pinball. His frequent voice and flow changes amp up the fun, especially once the second beat kicks in.

34. “Not Like Us” (2024)

“Not Like Us” may not be his best work, but it is a legacy-defining one. The song ushered in a full-on resurgence for Kendrick, netting him the biggest hit of his career and an undisputed L.A. anthem. He performed it five times at last year’s Pop Out, his revue celebrating both West Coast rap and his decisive thrashing of Drake. A few months later, it won five Grammys, including Record of the Year, an honor that’s only gone to one other rap song. The malevolence of this cursed banger will plague and stimulate clubs, dance floors, and Juneteenths for generations.

33. “Peekaboo” featuring AzChike (2024)

Drakeo the Ruler–inspired boogieman raps from two of L.A.’s finest.

32. “FEEL.” (2017)

Kendrick casts the whole world against him, compacting the nervous tension of “The Heart” songs rather than releasing it.

31. “Untitled 06 | 06.30.2014.” (2016)

While love songs featuring CeeLo are forever tainted, this untitled unmastered. standout is more about candor than seduction. “Look at my flaws, look at my flaws,” Kendrick entreats over a plush soul arrangement, eager to share his imperfections with a lover to put her at ease.

30. “Hood Politics” (2015)

The decision to limit the groovy Thundercat riff that opens this to a skit is a crazy flex, and the lyrics that follow only up the chutzpah.

29. “Momma” (2015)

A soulful ode to home powered by Isley melodies, Soulquarian drums, G-funk squelches, and synths.

28. “euphoria” (2024)

Nuclear-grade hatin’.

27. “hey now” featuring Dody6 (2024)

This GNX highlight bridges nods to snap music, G-funk, and nervous music as Kendrick and Dody6 trade taunts over a thumping club beat. While Kendrick is very much a formalist who prizes lyricism and storytelling, he’s a student of the full genre.

26. “You Ain’t Gotta Lie (Momma Said)” (2015)

A swinging and warmhearted olive branch to posers, “You Ain’t Gotta Lie” features multiple earworms.

25. “Black Friday” (2015)

Back when they were friends, J. Cole and Kendrick decided to trade the beats to “Alright” and “Tales of 2 Citiez” and release freestyles to them. It was intended as a casual show of camaraderie, but Kendrick blows Cole out of the water. And he has the audacity to rap, “I kill this whole fuckin’ beat if Cole let me.” This guy.

24. “Mother I Sober” featuring Beth Gibbons (2022)

This disquieting tale of family strife is startling in its detail and execution. Kendrick raps in a pianissimo murmur for nearly the entire song, tying familial abuse his mother experienced to his personal struggles with confidence and faithfulness. Where most of his music casts his omniscient people-watching as a superpower, here his constant witnessing is punishing. “I wish I was somebody / Anybody but myself,” trip-hop legend Beth Gibbons whispers for the hook, recasting Kendrick’s signature impersonations as an attempt to escape the things he’s seen.

23. “Cartoon & Cereal” (2012)

Where “The Art of Peer Pressure” condenses a fraught period in Kendrick’s life to “one lucky night,” this takes the inverse approach, dilating a mundane activity — eating cereal while watching cartoons — into an unsettling mood piece about a childhood split between joyful and menacing environments.

22. “HUMBLE.” (2017)

If Sounwave is the No I.D. to Kendrick’s Common, Mike WiLL Made-It is the Kanye West. The trap maven’s jouncing drum programming and uncluttered arrangements push Kendrick to swagger and bob, tweaking his sense of timing. He’s a full-on wiseguy on “HUMBLE.,” rattling off cheeky one-liners while sounding supremely unbothered. Humility this is not.

21. “The Art of Peer Pressure” (2012)

Fleet, cinematic storytelling that’s so rich with detail and tension you can almost forget he’s rapping. This also condenses the core duality of Kendrick’s music to a richly ironic couplet:  “Really I’m a peacemaker / But I’m with the homies right now.”

20. “squabble up” (2024)

When Kendrick uncoils his writing, his flow grows zippier and more supple, freeing him to dip in and out of pockets and spring off the downbeat. That’s the case on “squabble up,” where the playful bounce stems from his delivery as much as the Latin freestyle–inspired beat.

19. “good kid” (2012)

Red and blue gangs, red and blue lights, and red and blue pills all come for Kendrick’s neck on this feverish GKMC title track. The hazy, blasé Pharrell hook ups the sense that Kendrick is alone amid the Compton chaos.

18. “u” (2015)

Kendrick’s conscience introduced himself as an ally on “Swimming Pools,” but here he’s a ruthless critic, enumerating all the ways the rapper has failed relatives and friends. The self-flagellation is uncomfortable and dark, and the instrumental’s whorl of warped voices, sax melodies, and bass lines intensifies the feeling that he is trapped within his choices.

17. “Untitled 05 | 09.21.2014” (2016)

The push-pull between light and dark, community and self, peace and war, is a fixture of Kendrick’s writing, but here the balance is off. The grim mood the band conjures is intoxicating, and the avenger of Kendrick’s first verse comes dangerously close to committing murder, saved only by the chance sight of his target hugging his son. Salvation, Kendrick suggests, is accidental.

16. “Real” (2012)

After a day of fun, stress, lust, and death, Kendrick takes a candid look at himself and his peers, daring everyone to dream beyond their circumstances. “I count lives, all on these songs,” he says as if tallying up the findings from his Dantean journey through the streets and minds of Compton. Music isn’t just a pastime for him: It’s a sanctuary.

15. “King Kunta” (2015)

If the funk is not within you, you’ll discover it when this bass hits.

14. “Swimming Pools (Drank)” (2012)

The hallucinogenic liquidity of bullet time applied to binge-drinking culture. It’s truly one of the weirdest hits ever conceived, Kendrick’s suspicion of alcohol and altered states completely at ease with the instrumental’s boggy, druggy sound.

13. “FEAR.” (2017)

Kendrick’s Sunken Place, “FEAR.” dilates dread into a stunning reflection on family, faith, and mortality.

12. “DNA.” (2017)

Kendrick repeats himself often on DAMN. — for emphasis, to create tension, and to convey his multiplicity. He does all three here, over another Mike WiLL barnstormer that gives Kendrick ample space to wriggle his way through all his conflicting ideas about his heritage. Irked by a Fox News segment that condemned his music, he asserts he’s got “power, poison, pain, and joy” inside his DNA, but he’s unsure which defines him from moment to moment, finding clarity only in hurtling forward.

11. “Money Trees” featuring Jay Rock (2012)

A woozy hustle anthem for folks who know the system is rigged against them and still cop scratch-offs. “A dollar might turn to a million and we all rich,” Kendrick raps over a blissed-out Beach House sample. Might.

10. “The Spiteful Chant” featuring ScHoolboy Q (2011)

The brassy sample that forms the backbone of the beat doesn’t lend itself to being looped, but Sounwave’s carefully arranged drums and Kendrick’s snaking melodies artfully navigate the epic wall of sound. This is less a chant and more a fireworks show celebrating the permanent expungement of all turncoats and pests.

9. “Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe” (2012)

Kendrick holds stardom at a distance on this mellow and introverted song, demanding time alone with his music as new people and lifestyles surround him. The chorus doesn’t feel rude despite its obvious coarseness, the word choice softened by Kendrick’s desperate need for solitude. Sometimes you gotta pop in.

8. “ELEMENT.” (2017)

This was one of the first songs Kendrick performed at last summer’s Pop Out. The combative pride of “ELEMENT.” fit the provincial mood of the night, but the song is as distraught as it is bellicose. “Bitch all my grandmas dead / So ain’t nobody praying for me / I’m on your head,” Kendrick raps. His pride is his final defense.

7. “Wesley’s Theory” (2015)

“Wesley’s Theory” is the nightmare to the dreamy hope of “Money Trees” and “County Building Blues.” After opening with a sample of Boris Gardiner’s “Every Nigger Is a Star,” the track hurls Kendrick into a tar pit of liquid bass lines, synth sirens, and warped shrieks and screams. Thundercat, Dr. Dre, and George Clinton drift in like A Christmas Carol ghosts to offer direct and indirect warnings, but only Uncle Sam, who Kendrick voices as demonic auctioneer, sounds the most authoritative and enticing. This is G-funk as acid bath.

6. “Untitled 02 | 06.23.2014.” (2016)

Kendrick pleads for God and his label boss, Top Dawg, on this shifty track, which begins as addled blues and morphs into fiery jazz rap — but only Top answers. That sense of abandonment and support fuels a blitzkrieg of a verse where Kendrick runs down all the homies at the label and in his life he’s willing to die for. “I could put a rapper on life support / Guarantee that’s something none of you want,” he threatens. In a world without God, the homies are a sanctum.

5. “Alright” (2015)

“Alright” is an anthem of survival that promises more days rather than better ones. Inspired by a trip to South Africa in which Kendrick visited Nelson Mandela’s cell, the cautiously optimistic track extols the work of perseverance, citing previous Black struggles as evidence that the future is not foreclosed. His split vision fractures further, infinitely, as he imagines a tomorrow for every Black person no matter what we face today. The conviction of the song’s conceit — “We gon be alright” — makes it fitting for public protest as well as private prayer. Kendrick’s tumbling flows, full of shouts, grunts, chants, raps, and melodies, channel multiple strains of Black music, upping the sense that the “we” he invokes is multigenerational and capacious, an ark that can endure any flood.

4. “Rich Spirit” (2022)

Kendrick plays against type on this calm and masterful Mr. Morale cut. Where he normally expresses agitation through heat and friction, here coolness conveys his testy mood. Calling himself “the aloof Buddha” and “Christ with a shooter,” he struts over the snappy, bass-heavy beat with papal authority, his composure belying his menace. Instead of offering relief, lucidity sharpens his misanthropy. “Stop playing with me ’fore I turn you to a song,” he warns. If “Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe” is an outstretched hand demanding distance, “Rich Spirit” is a balled fist stowed in a pocket.

3. “XXX.” featuring U2 (2017)

“Let’s talk about gun control,” Kendrick says half-seriously on this exhilarating two-faced track. He’s just finished advising a friend to seek revenge for his slain son at all costs, and delivered this counsel over a shrieking, frenzied Mike WiLL beat that sounds like Run-D.M.C.’s “Walk This Way” compressed into manic trap. But on the soothing second part of the song, removed from the rage and bitterness, Kendrick can see the game at work: “It’s nasty when you set us up then roll the dice, then bet us up / You overnight the big rifles, then tell Fox to be scared of us / Gang members or terrorists, et cetera, et cetera / America’s reflections of me, that’s what a mirror does.” The song is quintessential Kendrick duality — fighter and lover, Malcolm and Martin, André 3000 and Antwan André Patton.

2. “DUCKWORTH.” (2017)

Kendrick is a masterful storyteller, but before DAMN., his narrative songs tended to hew to the classic three-act structure of conflict, rising action, and resolution. “DUCKWORTH.” decisively breaks that habit, scrambling the histories of Top Dawg and Kendrick’s father, Ducky, into a jigsaw pile of vignettes, locations, and soul samples. His lurching flow sifts through all the pieces, gradually assembling them into a warm, providential ode to the two men who fundamentally shaped both his life and, unwittingly, each other’s. “Life is one funny mofucker,” he says at the top of the song, sounding both grateful and amazed. This goes beyond his mission to “count” lives on songs, instead connecting them across time and space.

1. “m.A.A.d. city” featuring MC Eiht (2012)

Compton comes alive on this frenetic and layered portrait of home. On the menacing first part of the song, Kendrick is stuck on the back foot, ducking stray bullets, dodging trigger-happy Pirus and Crips, and keeping mum as he walks among known killers. The wordplay accents the visceral anxiety: “Pakistan on every porch,” “the coroner between the sheets like the Isleys,” “make sure you’re corporate or they’ll be calling your mother collect.” Kendrick and his crew “adapt to crime” by arming themselves, but this both magnifies their paranoia and enlists them in the ambient violence. He seems utterly trapped inside this world, destined to be a shooter or be shot.

But midway through, the script flips as the beat shifts from booming club drums and tense violin slashes to hydraulic G-funk. Suddenly, Kendrick, supported by OG rapper MC Eiht, is a denizen of this mad city rather than a victim. His breathless rhymes become supple and slick as he slides over an instrumental modeled after Ice Cube’s “Bird in the Hand.” No longer trapped, he hatches schemes of his own, his anxiety supercharging his situational awareness.

The song complicates the innocence Kendrick projects elsewhere on GKMC and prior songs, embracing all the ways his environment has shaped him. This insoluble ambivalence is the foundation of his music, from his first EP to GNX. The anguish he resents and harnesses as a vocalist is all here. The hypocrisy he repents for and repeats throughout his catalogue is all here. The nervous, hopeful “we” of “Alright” begins in these hectic, thrilling streets, a heaven and hell where angels huff angel dust and good kids protect a vibe by any means.

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