Kendrick Lamar

New band of the week: Kendrick Lamar

Profile by Paul Lester, The Guardian, 3 August 2012

Independent, idiosyncratic 25-year-old rapper from Compton who's been making waves in hip-hop circles and has just cooked up a recipe for the big-time ...

Kendrick Lamar: Hammersmith Apollo, London

Live Review by Dorian Lynskey, The Guardian, 21 January 2013

ON A snowy night in London, Compton seems as distant as Mars. Twenty-five years ago the Los Angeles suburb was the epicentre of a hip-hop ...

Bottled Lightning: Kendrick Lamar: Hammersmith Apollo, London

Live Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 23 January 2013

John Calvert heads to a cold Hammersmith to be blown away by Kendrick Lamar — "A private epiphany, the rest is history" ...

Kendrick Lamar Voices the Ferguson Era

Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, Ebony, 17 March 2015

WE CAN FINALLY take Black Messiah off repeat; masterpiece two has arrived. To Pimp a Butterfly, Kendrick Lamar's thematically and musically layered 16-track sophomore album, ...

Kendrick Lamar: "I am Trayvon Martin. I'm all of these kids."

Profile and Interview by Dorian Lynskey, The Observer, 21 June 2015

LAST YEAR, the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention presented research demonstrating that "youth living in inner cities show a higher ...

Kendrick Lamar: untitled unmastered (Interscope/Top Dawg)

Review by Jamie Atkins, Record Collector, May 2016

LAST YEAR, under enormous pressure, rapper Kendrick Lamar released one of the most culturally and socially resonant albums in memory, To Pimp A Butterfly. ...

The new cool: how Kamasi, Kendrick and co gave jazz a new groove

Essay by John Lewis, The Guardian, 6 October 2016

A generation of jazz musicians has grown up with hip-hop in its blood. The result is the thrilling reinvention of a genre that has been ...

Kendrick Lamar: DAMN. (Interscope)

Review by Jamie Atkins, Record Collector, June 2017

Kung Fu Kenny strikes again ...

The Sound In Our Veins

Memoir by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Fader, 30 June 2017

"How would someone young get turned on to jazz, an art form with its most innovative days behind it?" ...

Sorry, rock fans. Hip hop is the only genre that matters right now.

Comment by Marc Weingarten, The Washington Post, 17 April 2018

NO ONE WHO has heard Kendrick Lamar's stunning album Damn could be at all surprised that it is the first nonclassical or jazz recording to ...

From street kid to Pulitzer: why Kendrick Lamar deserves the prize

Profile by Dorian Lynskey, The Guardian, 22 April 2018

The clarity, complexity and honesty of his lyrics alone merit the highest award for the hip-hop star and "greatest rapper alive". The first Pulitzer prize for ...

Kendrick Lamar plus James Blake: Genting Arena, Birmingham, Feb 9

Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, May 2018

This dazzling, audacious arena show will be talked about for years to come, but the rapper at the centre of it all stays humble  ...

Activism, Identity Politics, and Pop's Great Awokening

Comment by Jason King, Pitchfork, 11 October 2019

From Beyoncé to Kendrick to Kesha, pop's turn to political activism produced some of the decade's most memorable moments. ...

Kendrick Lamar: Glastonbury Festival

Live Review by Patrick Clarke, The Quietus, 28 June 2022

Kendrick Lamar might not be our saviour, but his headline slot at Glastonbury 2022 is a staggering demonstration of how an embrace of complexity and ...