The Lil Wayne album that Kendrick Lamar called a “heavy influence”
Kendrick Lamar has always surprised fans with his albums. His various bodies of work always sound different, and he has managed to adapt his sonic over the years to keep up with the mainstream while also staying original.
The Section.80 emcee has delivered high-quality bodies of work for years, and listeners can hear a vast range of influences in his music. He has managed to achieve this by working carefully with specific musicians.
From Dr Dre to Hit-Boy and Pharrell, Lamar has worked with various producers to achieve a range of sounds. However, he has also incorporated many of his early influences into his music. Whether it’s DJ Quik, E-40 or Snoop Dogg, Lamar loves his West Coast material.
However, few know that, as a youngster, Lamar listened to a lot of music from the South. Although he listened to the obvious outfits like Outkast and Geto Boys, in a strange twist, Lamar was also extremely into artists from Louisiana.
In an interview with Complex, the Compton native spoke about some of his favourite albums and highlighted several artists from the ‘Pelican State’ who he used to listen to growing up. One of the albums K.Dot used to listen to regularly was B.G’s Chopper City.
Opening up about the 1999 project, Lamar explained why he loved it, citing, “How raw it was. It was just dirty. I like B.G.’s tone too, the way he pronounces words. I like all their tones. They’re all just unique in their own way. My favourite songs are] probably ‘Thug’n’ and ‘Cash Money Is An Army.’”
The Good Kid m.A.A.d. City also listened to Lil Wayne while he was in the group Hot Boys and loved the 1999 project Guerrilla Warfare. Speaking about the album, Kendrick revealed, “I would say Turk and Wayne were killing it—B.G. too.” He even revealed his favourite song, asserting, “My favourite joint was probably ‘Ridin’.”
However, like many others, following the declining careers of artists like B.G. and Turk, Kendrick Lamar continued to follow the epic journey of Lil Wayne and insisted that Cash Money, fronted by Lil Wayne’s Tha Block Is Hot had a huge impact on him, disclosing, “They was killing the game. Cash Money was a heavy influence on the West Coast, I don’t think the world know. Mannie Fresh made the type of beats that still have the bass in it. LA love that bass.”
He explained how the West Coast didn’t embrace the less bass-filled boom-bap style but did warm to it later, unveiling, “We weren’t really choppin’ to the boom-bap feel until later on, but they had that bass, that ridin’ music. They had a style, that’s why we love ‘em.”