Kendrick Lamar’s five most underrated songs
It is not for nothing that Kendrick Lamar is thought of as one of the greatest rappers of all time.
His career has produced so much quality music, from mainstream-friendly party anthems to deep, socially conscious reflections on modern life, to some of the greatest diss tracks to ever be recorded.
It is easy to think of Kendrick’s hits from over the years, because there have been so many of them. But to fixate solely on his biggest songs would be to miss his true contributions as an artist. While he can certainly make a number-one hit single (he’s made six of them) there’s much more to his discography than that.
Over the course of six studio albums, five mixtapes, a movie soundtrack, a compilation album, and an EP, Kendrick has released a lot of songs since he first emerged onto the scene. Naturally, given how many songs he’s actually put out there, it can be difficult to keep on top of them all, especially those tracks that are more subtle than his big hitters.
But exploring Kendrick’s lesser-known music is a profoundly rewarding experience. His songs tend to benefit from multiple listens, and some of the best ones can take a while to really land properly. There are a lot of Kendrick songs that manage to slip through the cracks, and, while this list is hardly an exhaustive attempt to point them all out, it’s a start.
Kendrick Lamar’s five most underrated songs
5. ‘Average Joe’
Featured on his fifth mixtape, Overly Dedicated, ‘Average Joe’ sees Kendrick rapping about his background in Compton. He talks of the people he grew up alongside, noting that, while these people were decent, the particular circumstances of their lives could very easily lead them down dark paths. Their lives were surrounded by gang violence, drug use and state repression, symbolised most bluntly by police violence. In conditions such as these, good people can be forced into doing bad things.
‘Average Joe,’ released in 2010, seems almost like a statement of intent. Featured on a mixtape that was the first to be released under the Kendrick Lamar name, this early song in his repertoire hints at the great music still to come. It is a deeply personal track, yet it makes a much wider point about the society within which its maker finds himself. It represented an early glimpse at the nature of Kendrick’s genius that would, in the coming years, become apparent.
4. ‘Kush & Corinthians (His Pain)’
‘Kush & Corinthians (His Pain),’ given that it features on a proper studio album, is hardly a “deep cut” as such, but it does nonetheless feel a bit overlooked. It appeared on Kendrick’s debut album, 2011’s Section.80, and while it’s fair to say that his specific style hadn’t entirely cohered yet by this point, it was certainly getting there. ‘Kush & Corinthians (His Pain)’ is arguably the clearest example of the direction that Kendrick Lamar was about to head in.
Produced by Wyldfyer, the song has a laidback feel, but lyrically Kendrick is working through a meaty idea. The song describes a tension in Kendrick’s life between staying on what he views to be a moral, religiously guided path or, alternatively, succumbing to vice. The song viscerally plays this tension out: “Look at me, look at me, I’m a loser, I’m a winner / I’m good, I’m bad, I’m a Christian, I’m a sinner / I’m humble, I’m loud, I’m righteous, I’m a killer.”
3. ‘Cartoon and Cereal’
‘Cartoon and Cereal’ arrived into the world as a free download in early 2012, between the releases of Kendrick’s first and second albums—arriving after Section.80 had come out, but before Good Kid, M.A.A.D City had dropped. The track had initially been intended to feature on Good Kid, M.A.A.D City, but, thanks to a combination of issues, that idea had to be scrapped. There were problems with the song’s samples, and, additionally, the track was leaked before it could ever be released on the album. So, in the end, it was delivered to the public as a standalone track.
Perhaps that’s why it doesn’t necessarily get the attention it deserves—it lacks the gravitas of having an album to back it up. But it’s a great song, with cartoons and cereal seeming to represent the broader ideas of childish entertainment and sugar. It’s not the easiest song to decipher, but there is a sense that Kendrick here is critiquing the numbing, nefarious effects of the mass entertainment industry and sugar addiction.
2. ‘Poe Mans Dreams (His Vice)’
‘Poe Mans Dreams (His Vice)’ isn’t entirely lost within the vast archive of Kendrick Lamar’s music, but there’s an argument to be made that it never took off as it had the potential to. The song is quite serene in tone, musically speaking, but the chorus is almost anthemic. The words “smoke good, eat good, live good,” delivered by Kendrick and repeated several times, are about as catchy a hook as one could imagine, yet the song is hardly one of Kendrick’s biggest.
The phrase “poe man” in the title refers to the way in which people in the southern states of America might say the word “poor,” but it also invokes Edgar Allan Poe. Poe had a particular knack for taking experiences from his own life and translating them into his literary work, albeit not necessarily in a very direct way. That’s interesting to note, because Kendrick could be said to do the same with his work. He seems, then, with this track, to purposefully be encouraging his listeners to view him in the same light as Poe.
1. ‘untitled 02 | 06.23.2014.’
It’s possible that ‘untitled 02’ is easy to overlook because of its name. Lifted from Kendrick’s Untitled Unmastered compilation from 2015, it is one of eight unnamed tracks, distinguishable from each other only by the dates that accompany them. In other words, it hardly jumps out from a record sleeve or from a playlist. But it’s a great song, another one that deals with its maker’s discomfort with finding fame and leaving behind his old life in Compton.
The song was released after he’d become a megastar due to the success of To Pimp a Butterfly, but it was recorded before that had occurred. The lyrics, then, are interesting in that they seem almost to preempt the fame-generated tensions that will soon take over his life. ‘untitled 02’ is a track written by a man who seems to know what’s about to come at him.