Kendrick Lamar’s favourite Ice Cube album: “A crazy, crazy album”
Kendrick Lamar has secured his own legacy as a West Coast legend, up there with the very best of them. But before his rise, he was just a kid who loved rap music—and he looked up to the greats that came before him.
Kendrick, understandably for someone who grew up in Compton, is a huge fan of NWA, and he loves the work of its individual members, too. He’s listed Dr Dre’s The Chronic and 2001 as two of his all-time favourite albums, while Ice Cube’s Death Certificate is up there, too.
Kendrick spoke about his love for Death Certificate to Complex back in 2012, noting how the album was frequently heard in his household while he was young. At that time, he couldn’t quite wrap his head around how important a record it was—but that understanding came later.
“I remember them playing that in the house as a kid but not really knowing how much it would influence the world,” Kendrick said. “So I really doubled back to it a few years back and really sat down and listened to it. It’s just a crazy, crazy album.”
Noting that ‘A Bird In The Hand’ was his favourite song on the album, K-Dot went on to discuss the potential influence that Death Certificate had had on his own musical development. “I’m sure it was a big influence,” he said, “just what he talked about.”
Kendrick noted that, on the record, Ice Cube “talked about a lot of stuff that was going on in the world,” while managing to blend those loftier topics “into the streets.” From a “raw standpoint,” Cube helped to translate big ideas into language that the young Kendrick could understand. “That’s why,” Kendrick said, “I like that the most.”
Ice Cube was clearly an important predecessor for Kendrick, and Cube himself is certainly happy to claim as much. On his 2024 song ‘It’s My Ego,’ Cube explicitly drew a connection between himself and K-Dot, rapping, “I was Kendrick before Kendrick / Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, like Jimi Hendrix.”
Cube elaborated on what he meant by this during an appearance on Rock the Bells Radio, declaring that he, like Kendrick, had been a provocative artist during his day. “An artist that said what I felt,” Cube continued, “put it all out there, very critical of the system and the government and what we have to go through as Black people in this country.”
Cube believes that his career set the stage for a figure like Kendrick to step into later. “I think he’s the same kind of artist,” he said of the younger rapper, “a thought-provoking artist. I was that before he was.” Given his own love for Cube’s work, Kendrick would surely agree.