Kendrick Lamar's albums, ranked

1st: good kid, m.A.A.d city - You could very legitimately argue that TPAB is Kendrick's finest album to date, but to me, GKMC is just absolute magic. It is such a cohesive record from start to finish, transporting you from wherever you are listening to the streets of Compton, a real 'day in the life'. I'm as rapt listening to 'The Art of Peer Pressure' as a child is to a ghost story, and 'Sing About Me, I'm Dying of Thirst' manages to completely enthrall for all of its 12 minutes. 'Backseat Freestyle', 'Money Trees', 'Swimming Pools' and 'm.A.A.d City' were all people were waiting for to come on at house parties that year, the pitch-shifting verse in the latter being a huge highlight for me. TPAB's politics was overt, but I like how subtly it was embedded in this record.