80 spawns many of the intellectual ideas that Good Kid then polishes and serves up to a mainstream crowd. The record, which was completely wrung out by Interscope, is the album of a million remixes, is multilayered, it’s a meaningful and deep as you want it to be, and every time you listen, if you are looking for something new, you’ll find it. References to Usher and Ciara anchor it in my own adolescent nostalgia, which is then totally exploded by stories of neighbourhood shootings and gang violence. Using a nonlinear narrative thread, it tells the story of a day in the life of teenage Kendrick Lamar whilst functioning as a touchpoint that works for a range of audiences as well as a multimedia window into a life that is, for me at least, at once comforting and familiar as well as alien. Let’s start by talking about how this, a debut album from a new (to most of the world) rapper is a concept album, called a short film by Lamar himself, illustrated by family album photos, actually functions as an autobiographical bildungsroman. This record, Lamar’s major-label debut after a series of fire mixtape releases, is a mind-boggling, breathtaking tour de force (see, I told you this was gonna be a personalised list).

Kendrick lamar albums list