Kendrick Lamar
If you are a fan of hip-hop then it is pretty obvious that you already know who Kendrick Lamar is. This 25 year old rapper didn’t become what he is today by just a hit single. Kendrick was just 16 years old when he put out his first mixtape called, “Youngest Head N*gga in Charge”. During this time he was going by K-Dot. He also produced a few more mixtapes but during this time no one knew who he really was. Kendrick’s biggest breakthrough was the moment him and Charles Hamilton had a freestyle contest. In 2012, Charles Hamilton produced approximately 394 mixtapes. During 2012 he was very well known and Kendrick knew that. He challenged him to a battle and destroyed him on stage. After that his name was finally out there.
Around 2006-2007, Kendrick formed a group with Jay Rock, Ab-Soul, and Schoolboy Q. There group were named Black Hippy. During this time they were all new rapper coming into the industry but each of them were very strong in their own way. Many big artists started to become fans of Kendrick. This was important because this gave way to may collaborations with many big artists with The Game, and Kendrick’s mixtape “C4”. Lil Wayne is a big fan of Kendrick. He allowed him to use his instrumentals from the Carter III to produce a mixtape with freestyles over instrumentals used in the Carter III. After that there were many hip hop fans that claimed the C4 was better than the Carter III and that there were rumors that Kendrick was the ghost lyricist for the Carter III. This is amazing publicity for the new artist. Lil Wayne was being considered the best rapper alive during this time and there were fans saying that Kendrick’s mixtape was better than his album. Kendrick finally ditched his old moniker “K-Dot” in 2009 and started going by his real name Kendrick Lamar. His first self-titled EP as Kendrick Lamar was called Overly Dedicated. This was his first album that reached Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop albums chart. This album finally...