Damn. Daniel. With barely 24 hours having passed since the release of his fourh studio album, Kung Fu Kenny has set the rap game ablaze — again. After failing to drop an album April 7th, Kendrick Lamar dropped an atomic bomb of a project at midnight on April 14th, and fans went ape. There will be a lot of dramatic breakdowns of the album as it continues to sink in, but one track in particular, “DUCKWORTH.,” immediately begs the question: is Kendrick Lamar currently the best storyteller in Hip Hop?
Hip Hop has had its share of great storytelling. Slick Rick‘s breakthrough song “Children’s Story,” and tracks like “The Moment I Feared,” made him a storytelling icon to younger artists — at the time. Nas, who has a new album coming this year, has numerous songs that rank among the top in the sub-genre. Kool G Rap’s “Ill Street Blues” is another great example of brutally vivid storytelling. Then there are songs like Eminem’s “Stan,” or Outkast’s “Art Of Storytelling,” which all took linear storyline based Hip-Hop to new heights.
More recent efforts like Royce Da 5’9‘s “Tabernacle” and Your Old Droog‘s “G.K.A.C” ooze storytelling mastery, but on Damn., K.Dot took it up about 10 notches.
“DUCKWORTH.,” produced by 9th Wonder, is an elaborate, mind melting outro. It gives a detailed — and unabashedly candid — background on Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith, and another character named “Duckie,” who it turns out is Kendrick’s father. Duckie’s demeanor prevented Anthony from killing him in an armed KFC robbery two decades ago, ultimately allowing present history to have unfolded, taking the album full circle. It’s a blend of The Usual Suspects and the ideological concept of the butterfly effect.
“You take two strangers, and put ’em in random predicaments, give ’em a soul/So they can make their own choices and live with it/Twenty years later, them same strangers/You make ’em meet again /Inside recording studios where they reapin’ their benefits/Then you start remindin’ them about that chicken incident /Whoever thought the greatest rapper /Would be from coincidence?/Because if Anthony killed Ducky, Top Dawg could be servin’ life/While I grew up without a father and die in a gunfight.”
If the song itself wasn’t enough, he also included lyrics in reverse, as foreshadowed in the intro by world famous DJ, Kid Capri. “Just remember, what happens on Earth stays on Earth! We gon’ put it in reverse.” Fans immediately attempted to decode it.
Kendrick seems to have delivered what heads wanted on all fronts — and if his crown is at all in question, theories of a possible second album could further shut down naysayers.
You gotta admit it… He is one of the greatest ever. The man hasn’t dropped out a weak procject yet (even kl ep, C4 and OD were cool), TOP10 easly fellas.
His albums keep on getting worse
Section.80>gkmc>Tpab>damn
Devin the dude one of the best story tellers, don’t really get the Kendrick Lamar hype, too annoying for me & nothing special but compared to the Dr Seuss mumblers I guess so. Big Krit only dude to come out past 2000 I can even tolerate but to each they own
Where does it rank? Sure as hell not in the top 10 just because of some Twitter users!!! WTF is going on with these journalist living in the Twitter world and trying to compare it to the Real World. Social Media “buzz” doesnt equal Real Life Street buzz. Know that. Kendrick Lamars new album sucks. Raekwon and Joey Badass albums are way better.
Ummm…no.
Ummm…yes.
Dope song but it doesn’t rank any where close. Stop the mindless dick riding. I swear, ya’ll will milk whatever the current “in” artist/topic of the day is and make up outlandish articles like this. Y’all a bunch of bored ass staff writers up at HHDX.
You mad? ??
You a HHDX writer? Nobody would defend these lame asses
Not mad at all. You gay?
You can’t mention storytellers and not mention BIGGIE. Fuckin travesty.
Ass Licking
RAP is fucking ART not a fucking track meet. There is no 1st 2nd 3rd place. like goddamn, little fucking yachty could be the greatest story teller to me if I like his stories in his raps so please Quit acting like y’all are the chosen ones who get to rank something as biased as fucking rap music. Just please stop y’all aren’t the rap gods who get to make our opinions for us. So please sit down and report the news, don’t feed us your homegrown bullshit
I remember my first day of Hip Hop.
It cant touch Immortal Technique Dance with the Devil or You Never Know…not to mention Yukmouths verse on Girl
Did nobody listen to the song 4 your eyes only? Or shit that whole album. Kdots new album is good but jcoles tells a way better story
Kendrick is in a league of his own right now. Untouchable in the game. Savior of hip-hop. WHO MAD?
Who is he saying us from drake? Hes the best mainstream rapper i would never put him above Lupe whos always rapped about better subject matter and stories then kdot.
Y’all blowin tf up out this man. It was a cool story. But 4 Your Eyez Only had better storytelling, better lyrics, better content, and a lot more important meaning.
Yeah I agree with the most, K-Dot’s buzz right now is comparable with catch me outside girl – pure twitter buzz, no substance. Watch his sales drop next week as people realize they’ve been misguided by the media… AGAIN! Cole’s storytelling is mesmerizing, Kendrick’s is just informative.
Guess him pushing nearly 500K first week is proving you wrong….
Cool story. Good song. Definitely refreshing. Other than that, simmer down..
I’m a kendrick fan, but this isn’t even the best storytelling track that 9th wonder has produced. “Walk Like a Man” from Murs 3:16 blows it out of the water
i could name a 100 more iconic hip hop story based songs that more iconic/better
Just amazing from top to bottom. It may not be the best story telling song ever but its amazing. A lot of people don’t really get its not just about the song, but also the timing outside and inside the song itself. He waited 4 albums to tell that story. lol. that’s just amazing to me. lol. And as far as people comparing, I am sorry, you cant. This is a real life story about his own pops and the person that signed him decades later. not something made up in his head or something that he saw. lol. and lastly, I know someone really didn’t include snoop and d cole in that list. Snoop was never lyrical, and j cole is great, but hes never had a 5 star album like this, nor gkmc, nor to pimp a butterfly.
and my fav rapper is nas to just let you know.
Respect
J COLE forest hill drive is a masterpiece, its way better than DAMN. Stop dickriding
If DX knew anything about hip hop(They Dont) they wouldve wrote this article about the new Raekwon record feat. Ceelo Green – Marvin. Much much better beat and story telling
I still don’t get the outro of this song. I mean the reverse. Could someone bail me out?