The Biggest Artist of 2017 as a Conscious Rapper

The gradual success of Compton rapper Kendrick Lamar is an inspiring one for hip-hop culture. From humble beginnings in his hometown where he was raised in housing projects around gangs, Lamar earned his first solo #1 single in the US six years after his debut album with a single appropriately titled “Humble,” which debuted at the top of the charts. “Humble” was the lead single off of his latest record titled DAMN. in which he raps about the switch from being humble to braggadocios as he chastises his peers in hip-hop to stay humble as well. This was absolutely a different lifestyle for Lamar, as he got to where he is now through conceptual storytelling about the hardships he faced in his life.

His first two albums, Section.80 and good kid, m.A.A.d city were essentially scenes of a dramatic movie of his life growing up, where he caught the attention of many music critics by rapping about the prevalence and dangers of drugs in his community, his experiences with local gangs, the disenfranchised lifestyle in the projects, and much more. After these albums, he achieved mainstream success, but even though some might expect a privileged celebratory attitude from someone with his achievements, he used this broader platform to continue rapping about the harsh realities of his hometown and the US in his subsequent albums To Pimp A Butterfly and DAMN. Lamar is a conscious hip-hop artist in all aspects and he offers compelling points-of-views to sociopolitical issues in the US.

“How y’all let a conscious n**** go commercial
While only makin’ conscious albums?
How y’all let the braids on TV?
How y’all let the hood at the table?”

– Kendrick Lamar, “Mask Off (Remix),” (2017)

Lamar’s talent of vividly bringing these realities into the mainstream is surely a large part of his fanbase’s appeal to his music. His role has become similar to that of a journalist’s, though these broken communities hardly get mainstream media coverage, whereas he has been an eyewitness to them. All of his messages are delivered artistically into hip-hop bangers that not only inform people and stir up discussion, but also give people some nice tunes to enjoy and party to.

One of the most notable moments on DAMN. is on the song “DNA” which examines the perspective of conservative media on African-Americans, in which Lamar literally places a sample of a Fox News segment that criticized one of his 2015 performances after 67 bars about the racist misconceptions that are associated with his heritage. After the sample, he spends the rest of the song telling off his racist critics with bars empowering his race and a furious, aggressive flow to prove that he isn’t just playing around. This anger that he portrays on the song and throughout the album echoes a lot of the sentiments that the US had felt in response to a lot of the racism happening around the country. The performance that Fox News had infamously criticized for “doing more damage to young African-Americans than racism” was of Lamar’s 2015 single, “Alright,” in which he performed on top of a police car. In the preceding months, the US had seen many black victims of police brutality, and Lamar was bringing the issue to national television. The song “Alright” had also been famous for being a widely-used protest song for the Black Lives Matter movement, as well, which proves the impact of the compelling messages in his music. It makes perfect sense that Lamar has had one of the biggest albums of 2017 after a year of some of the most prominent turmoil across the US.