Without recognising this it is impossible to understand To Pimp A Butterfly (2015), the masterpiece upon which the Californian rapper surrounds himself with funk legend George Clinton, jazzman Kamasi Washington, and electronic wizard Flying Lotus. And not forgetting the legendary Stax label – home of Otis Redding, Carla Thomas, Isaac Hayes, Wendy Renee and the seminal 24-Carat Black – long admired by TDE, the collective founded by Anthony ‘Top Dawg’ Tiffith who has been around Kendrick Lamar forever. But there’s also John Coltrane, Sly & The Family Stone, Parliament and the soulful anthem “Only The Strong Survive” featured in the film Menace II Society. We can of course find DMX, Ice Cube, Kurupt and X-Clan in his DNA. We risk missing out an essential element of Lamar’s personality if we only consider hip-hop as a factor in his growth as an artist. So much so that the Californian rapper once said ‘I see myself as a jazz musician’. As he grew older – and through his encounters with Terrace Martin, Thundercat and Robert Glasper – he was introduced to the whole catalogue of great music being made by artists of colour. The Compton kid was named after the legendary Temptations singer Eddie Kendricks. Yet, as relevant as this selection is, it missed out a big part of Kendrick Lamar’s musical background: his parents listened to a lot of funk and soul. Even New Orleans rap has been important in his development: he has often recalled how Lil’ Wayne, Juvenile and the Hot Boys were his role models. We learn that he worships Californians DJ Quik and 2Pac as much as New Yorkers like the Notorious B.I.G and Jay-Z. They’re not really classified but are punctuated with comments and memories from ‘the good kid’ of the West Coast. What follows in the article is a very instructive list of 25 albums. Nor would you suspect that, as time went on, Kendrick Lamar would become more and more secretive, giving interviews only in dribs and drabs – although for Complex magazine he agreed to answer that million dollar question: what are your favourite hip-hop albums? – has a future, a resourcefulness and an intelligence, but you can even begin to imagine to what extent. Dre, you get the sense that this kid from Compton – the Los Angeles suburb known for spawning N.W.A. He is 25 years old and has just released Good Kid, M.A.A.D City. in 2017), neither was he the man with 13 Grammy Awards, nor the first rapper to win the very prestigious Pulitzer Prize. Kendrick Lamar is not yet the rap superstar capable of putting Rihanna and U2 together on the same record ( DAMN.

Lil ghetto boy dr dre album cover