Kendrick Lamar Duckworth (born June 17, 1987) is an American hip hop recording artist from Compton, California. Lamar embarked on his musical career as a teenager under the moniker K-Dot, released a mixtape which garnered local attention and led to his signing with Carson-based independent record label Top Dawg Entertainment (TDE). Lamar began to gain major recognition in 2010 after his first retail release, Overly Dedicated. The following year, he released Section.80, his first independent album, exclusively through iTunes. The album included Lamar's debut single, "HiiiPoWeR". By that time, Lamar had amassed a large internet following and had already worked with several prominent artists in the hip hop industry, including The Game, Snoop Dogg, and Busta Rhymes.
His performance on Austin City Limits was first-rate. Not sure how you can watch that and not be moved. He is worth the hype.
Yeah, that performance was stunning. Meanwhile, To Pimp a Butterfly keeps getting better and better with each listen for me.
Picked up To Pimp A Butterfly on vinyl yesterday, and it was one of the best vinyl purchases I've made in a while.
Remember first hearing Kendrick in December 2011 after seeing a few of his songs appear quite high up on Rap Radar's Top 100 of 2011. Hiiipower and Rigamortus were the songs so I got them up on Spotify and I was blown away, listened to Section.80 shortly after and then it all blew up the next year when he released GKMC. It's been great to see how far he's gone, who knows how much further he can go.