Kendrick Lamar is a popular American rapper. Born in Compton, California, Lamar’s strife circumstances growing up fueled his love for hip-hop and rap. During his school years, one of his teachers encouraged him to be a writer and focus on poetry. This quickly drew Lamar to a love for songwriting.

Lamar began focusing on his music career during highschool, freestyling and battle rapping under the stage name K.Dot. Lamar began recording and releasing mixtapes even after graduating highschool. This led to him signing on with Top Dawg Entertainment and co-founding the hip hop supergroup Black Hippy.

By Lamar’s third mixtape release, he decided to retier his stagename and release music using his first and middle name, starting with his 2009 extended play Kendric Lamar. Two years later Lamar released his debut studio album Section.80, which sold 5,000 copies in its first week within the United States and debuted at number 113 on the US Billboard 200. His work led him to start small tours in college campuses and venues across the U.S. and even be recognized by popular artists like Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre.

Lamar’s second album Good Kid, M.A.A.D City,  released two years later. It was a collaborative album with Lamar working with popular producers including Pharrell Williams, Hit-Boy, Scoop DeVille, Jack Splash, and T-Minus. He continued to tour and even opened for Kanye West’s Yeezus Tour.

Lamar went on to release four more albums, with the 2017 album DAMN pulling him into the mainstream. In recent years his feud with Drake produced a numerous amount of tracks that led to him winning five Grammy Awards including Song of the Year and Record of the Year.

Currently Lamar has over 109 million streams on Spotify.