Kendrick Lamar reveals the worst song he’s ever made: “That shit was was just garbage”
Kendrick Lamar has already established himself as one of the greatest hip-hop artists, but even he’s embarrassed about some of his songs. Many fans might know the Compton rapper’s music as early as Overly Dedicated in 2010, but he has a whole catalogue of music that isn’t available on streaming platforms.
In 2009, Kendrick released a mixtape titled C4, mainly consisting of freestyles over beats from Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III album. One of the songs, ‘Bitch I’m in the Club’, which uses T-Pain and Play-N-Skillz’s instrumental for ‘Got Money’, is a moment to forget, according to K. Dot himself.
“My wackest song, y’all probably can look at it on YouTube, too. It’s called ‘Bitch I’m in the Club’,” he admitted on Big Boy’s Neighborhood. “That was our shit, though, back then. If I listen to it now, I’m like, ‘Oh, man.’ If I hear it, I’ll remember the lyrics.”
He added, “That was a reach, man. We was loving it. I just know the level of reach that I was doing when I wrote the record. From what was playing on the radio to what was on TV. [Lil Wayne was] definitely running radio around that time.”
At a time when Kendrick was still making a name for himself, he felt that he was trying too hard to match what other major rappers were doing. From the song’s sound to the subject matter, all of it didn’t align with who he was as a person. There are very few times Lamar has been inauthentic with his work, but this was certainly one of them.
Just one look at the lyrics presents a different world to the themes he focuses on today. “Bitch, I’m in the club/ With the homies, tell me what’s good/ I’m tryna get these hoes single/ And this is my single,” he raps on the chorus. In one of the verses, he also spits, “I got a hundred dollars on me (I’m rich, bitch)/ Baby girl, I know you want it (This dick).”
When asked to pinpoint the moment he knew he made it, Kendrick addressed the song again during an interview with Forbes. “I think when I made a terrible single, and that shit was just garbage. That’s the real moment for sure,” he said. “It’s the real moment because, at that point you’re at your lowest, and what you think you should be doing.”
He continued, “But at the same time, I wasn’t aware that that was my highest point because I got back in there and I did it all over again, and continued to push through. That’s when I realised I really wanna do this, because I ain’t give up when I made a terrible arse song.”
K. Dot was so ashamed of the track that he refused to name it. “It was a hard drive full of them, I can’t even tell you one,” he said. “I said this probably in an interview a while back, it’s a record… Nah, I ain’t even gonna say the name, ’cause y’all be looking it up and finding it and everything.” When told that all publicity is good publicity, Kendrick replied, “Right. Well, not with this song.”