To fully appreciate the impact of GKMC, consider the context it was released in. Of the 10 biggest rap hits of 2012, two were by Flo Rida, two featured Nicki Minaj rapping over EDM-style production (including “Starships”), and one was “Gangnam Style.” For better or worse, Kendrick’s Interscope labelmate Chief Keef had become a scapegoat for a perceived decline in rap lyrics and the fetishizing of ghetto violence by the media. Weeks before GKMC dropped, rap news was dominated by fights between G-Unit and MMG’s camps at the BET Awards.

Once GKMC sold 242,122 copies its first week, became the best reviewed rap album on Metacritic since Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, and discussions about the classic status of the album hit a fevered pitch, Kendrick morphed from a promising rapper to the face of “real hip-hop.” Not just because of his artistic achievement, but because his celebrity relied solely on his musical output—not beef, fashion choices, business ventures, or the other gimmicks that have seemingly become part of the standard package for nearly every rapper.

After the album’s release, Kendrick’s life was a whirlwind of tour dates and unexpected controversies. He toured non-stop in 2013, playing college campuses, festivals, opening for Kanye West on the Yeezus tour, and going on the good kid, m.A.A.d city world tour. During his tour, as he traveled from Sweden to Belgium with little Internet connection, Kendrick Lamar unintentionally set the rap world on fire.

On the night of August 12, 2013, Big Sean released the Kendrick Lamar and Jay Electronica–assisted “Control”—a song meant for Sean’s album, Hall of Fame, but left off due to sample clearance issues. On Lamar’s earth-shattering verse he called himself the King of New York, a claim he shies away from now: “I feel B.I.G. and Jay will always be the King of New York.” More important, Lamar called out nearly every rapper in his generation—from A$AP Rocky to J. Cole and even Big Sean and Jay Electronica—and claimed, “I got love for you all but I’m tryna murder you niggas.”

By the next day, “Control” had taken on a life of its own. Instagram was overrun with “Control” memes, storm clouds of rap debates gathered, and thinkpieces poured out—even legendary NBA coach Phil Jackson, who was mentioned in the verse, got in the mix, tweeting at Kendrick. Just about every rapper, whether they were mentioned in the song or not, commented on the verse or dropped a response track. TMZ ran up on any rapper they could find, trying to goad them into responding. The week of the song’s release, Kendrick picked up 208,000 new Twitter followers.

Rappers are supposed to want to best each other—“I’m better than him” sums up rap’s competitive mantra. But “Control” proved something contemporary philosopher Slavoj Žižek once argued about Wikileaks, what he calls “the paradox of public space”: “Even if everyone knows an unpleasant fact, saying it in public changes everything.” By naming names, Kendrick’s verse was the moment he asserted his dominance in rap. Earlier that year MTV had named Lamar the Hottest MC and Complex declared him the Best Rapper Alive; “Control” was when Lamar’s status as the best coalesced.

One rapper Kendrick didn’t mention in his “Control” verse was Macklemore. At the 56th Annual Grammy Awards, Macklemore’s The Heist beat Kendrick’s GKMC for Best Rap Album. Although Kendrick was nominated for seven awards, he went home empty handed, while Macklemore won Best New Artist, Best Rap Album, Best Rap Song, and Best Rap Performance. For fans on Twitter and members of the media (including Complex), Macklemore’s wins and Kendrick’s snubs served as a watershed moment for cultural appropriation in rap. To make matters worse, Macklemore Instagramed an apologetic text he sent to Kendrick after the awards that read, “I robbed you.”

“It wasn’t really a huge deal for me,” says Kendrick, who’s known Macklemore for over a year. “Macklemore deserves the accolades. That’s still my partner regardless. He probably didn’t need to Instagram the text. But what’s done is done.”

Like Macklemore’s success, Kendrick’s comes after years on the independent grind. In 2003, when he was 16, Kendrick dropped his first mixtape under the moniker K-Dot. He released three more mixtapes before reverting to his government name (omitting his last name, Duckworth) and dropping the Kendrick Lamar EP in 2009. Over the next two years, with his mixtape Overly Dedicated and his independently released first album, Section.80, he found the voice that made GKMC a classic. But Kendrick’s acuity with words predates his musical output.

“My first-grade teacher flipped out because I wrote the word ‘audacity’ in a story,” he recalls. “I knew the word only because I heard my auntie and uncles arguing, saying, ‘You got the audacity to take my motherfucking drink and pour it out?!’ I learned all my words like that, so when I went to school it was in my head.”

Kendrick’s perspective on life always comes back to his Compton roots. His upbringing provides him with a treasure trove of traumatic experiences that give his music a sense of purpose. On the lyrical blackout “m.A.A.d city,” he describes seeing a “light-skin nigga with his brains blown out.” Around age 5, he witnessed his uncle’s murder. In conversation, he casually recalls yet another murder, when he called his friend Yo to the barbershop just before someone shot up the block, killing one of their homeboys.

GKMC apparently only scratched the surface of the stories Kendrick has to tell. “There were so many things I thought he was gonna talk about in good kid that he didn’t,” says Kendrick’s manager Dave Free, who remembers the days when K-Dot couldn’t be spotted with a backpack, lest he be labeled a conscious rapper. “All these other stories, shit that will blow your brain, have never been heard before because they’re just too personal. There’s still so much to be said. The question is, is he gonna say it?”

Whether or not Kendrick tells those stories could go a long way toward determining if he’ll be able to top his major label debut. “I got a greater purpose,” he says. “God put something in my heart to get across and that’s what I’m going to focus on, using my voice as an instrument and doing what needs to be done.” The only place to do that is back in the studio.