Ride along with the newly anointed king of West Coast hip-hop

West Coast hip-hop elders like Snoop and Dre have virtually anointed Kendrick Lamar to carry on the legacy of gangsta rap. His second studio album good kid, M.A.A.d city, conceptual enough to be a rock opera, certainly uplifts the genre with its near-biblical themes: religion vs. violence and monogamy vs. lust. Verbally nimble, Lamar experiments with a variety of different lyrical styles, from the Bone Thugz-type of delivery on “Swimming Pools (Drank)” to the more straightforward orthodox G-funk flow on “m.A.A.d. City feat. MC Eiht.” Like prog rock, Lamar’s tracks have songs within songs—sudden tempo changes with alter egos and embedded interludes, such as unscripted recordings of his parents asking for their car back and neighborhood homies planning their latest conquest. These snippets pepper the album providing an anthropological glimpse into his life in Compton. The deluxe version of good kid, m.A.A.d. city features five bonus tracks.