Music
7 "DAMN." Lyrics That Prove Kendrick Lamar Is King
Kendrick just dropped another classic. These standout lines prove he's the best rapper alive.
We’ve had more than a week now to digest "DAMN.," Kendrick Lamar’s fourth album and another affirmation of his spot on top of the rap game. Gone are the horns and funk of "To Pimp a Butterfly," replaced by more typical hip-hop production while maintaining his atypical talent. There is neither a better storyteller around in hip-hop right now nor is there someone with a better penchant for wordplay. He is what hip-hop purists refer to as "lyrical" in every sense of the loaded term. His work is both dense in structure and in content, so we’ve taken the time to unpack seven lyrics that prove Kendrick Lamar is the best rapper alive.
“This is how it is when you’re in the Matrix/Dodgin’ bullets, reapin’ what you sow/And stackin’ up the footage, livin’ on the go/And sleepin’ in a villa/Sippin’ from a Grammy and walkin’ in the buildin’/Diamond in the ceilin’, marble on the floors/Beach inside the window, peekin’ out the window.”
Song: “DNA”
Why it’s great: I don’t know when or if Kendrick Lamar breathes. He packs so much into each bar, but that’s not all that’s impressive. He’s also painting a vivid picture of success and its bizarreness while carrying on complex, multi-syllabic rhyme scheme. This is how you do excess without being too … excessive.
“I been stomped out in front of my mama/My daddy commissary made it to commas/Bitch, all my grandmas dead/So ain’t nobody prayin’ for me, I’m on your head, ayy”
Song: “Element”
Why it’s great: K-Dot is a brilliant storyteller and he makes it look easy by saying so much in so few words. He obliquely references his mother refusing to let him succumb to bullies and making him fight back as well as his father’s career in crime and his grandmother’s role in his life — keeping the family together. Few rappers could be this subtle, as Kendrick finds new and compelling ways to tell the same essential parts of his life story.
“I feel like it ain’t no tomorrow, fuck the world/The world is endin’, I’m done pretendin’/And fuck you if you get offended/I feel like friends been overrated/I feel like the family been fakin’/I feel like the feelings are changin’”
Song: “Feel”
Why it’s great: “Feel” is a Drake song if Drake were better at rapping. Kendrick expresses many of the same sentiments — disillusionment, isolation, inflated self-confidence, distrust — but better. His repetition of “I feel like” brings together the disparate, often conflicting feelings that have arisen from fame. And for as big as his star is, they don’t seem that removed from the normal human experience.
“We all woke up, tryna tune to the daily news/Lookin’ for confirmation, hopin’ election wasn’t true/All of us worried, all of us burried, and our feeling’s deep/None of us married to his proposal, make us feel cheap/Still and sad, distraught and mad, tell the neighbor ‘bout it.”
Song: “Lust”
Why it’s great: Kendrick Lamar doesn’t just have the best rap line yet about Donald Trump’s election, he also has one of the greatest expressions from any artist about the pain it’s wrought. He captures the disbelief that morphed into dread and our desire — no, our need to vent to anyone who will listen. We feel cheap because even though the majority of us didn’t support Trump’s proposals, we’re now bound to them in an illegitimate relationship.
“Hail mail, Jesus and Joseph/The great American flag/Is wrapped and dragged with explosives/Compulsive disorder, sons and daughters/Barricaded blocks and borders/Look what you taught us!”
Song: “XXX” (feat. U2)
Why it’s great: Continuing with politics, Kendrick provides a succinct and poignant musing on the U.S.'s role in global politics, its obsession with war and its need to create borders both within and around the country. These ugly truths, these sins of a nation, are what enabled Donald Trump to become our president.
“At 27 years old, my biggest fear was bein’ judged/How they look at me reflect on myself, my family, my city/What they say ‘bout me reveal/If my reputation would miss me/What they see from me/Would trickle down generations in time/What they hear from me/Would make ‘em highlight my simplest lines”
Song: “Fear”
Why it’s great: Here is Kendrick aware of his legacy, already seeing himself as someone whose work will still be relevant generations down the line. But he’s also acutely aware of how rappers can be picked apart by the media and those who don’t understand hip-hop. He may be an all-time great, but he’ll be chastised for the littlest things by simpletons.
“Twenty years later, them same strangers you make ‘em meet again/Inside recording studios where they reapin’ their benefits/Then you start remindin’ them about that chicken incident/Whoever thought the greatest rapper would be from coincidence?”
Song: “DUCKWORTH”
Why it’s great: We’re kind of cheating by narrowing it down to a single line, but this song is really about the whole. “Duckworth” is perhaps Kendrick’s greatest exhibition yet as a storyteller. He exhibits impeccable pacing, scene setting, a knack for detail and a sense of the greater truth: How one seemingly small decision can change the life of everyone involved, even those who aren’t. The story of Top Dawg sparing the life of Kendrick’s father in a robbery is almost too good to be true.
