Kendrick Lamar's "good kid, m.A.A.d city" turns 10

 

KENDRICK LAMAR's second album was a gamechanger for me. Coming from Punkrock (in the Mid-90s with GREEN DAY, THE OFFSPRING or NIRVANA) my relationship with Hip-Hop was non-existent. I digged some stuff from EMINEM, DR. DRE or SNOOP DOGG when it was hyped in the late 90s but I never went deeper and ignored the whole genre. I couldn't connect to it and it was too far away from my ever-growing love for HC/Punk...

...then in 2012 my brother recommended me an album I should definitely check out. The brother I heavily laughed at when he was listening to German Ghetto-Rap in his adolescence. I loathed his taste in music. He added a lot to my strict ignorance of the genre. But somehow I got older and more open-minded by 2012... and so I gave this album a shot. I can't remember why I did neither why it clicked. But it did. The album I'm talking about is "good kid, m.A.A.d city". And it was the beginning of my love for Hip-Hop. Since getting into KENDRICK I relieved all of 90s-Hip-Hop, kept me informed about new releases and also discovered the Memphis-Rap-scene from the 90s, one of the most fascinating movements in the history of music. In the last 10 years I went through some large phases (weeks, probably a few monts or up to half a year?) where Hip-Hop even outdraw all of HC/Punk when it came to my listening behaviors... and that's something I never thought would happen to me.

"good kid, m.A.A.d city" still is THE KENDRICK-album for me. It's the GTA: San Andreas of music albums. It's KENDRICK's "Illmatic". It's the album that portrays KENDRICK the way he is (was). It's the best Hip-Hop-record of the 2010s, maybe even the overall best album of the decade.

Thank you, little brother!