Good Kid: M.A.A.D City

Product Information

The tour consisted of 23 headlining shows, 22 international music festivals, and 15 United States music festivals. Hailed as the new face of west coast rap, the 24 yr-old Compton-native has already been making his mark on the music scene.

At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received an average score of 91, based on 36 reviews. Dre and his hirelings lay under the raps and choruses establish a musical continuity that shores up a nervous flow that's just what Lamar's rhymes need. while Alex Macpherson of The Guardian found "Lamar's depiction of downtrodden women" to be "unnecessarily prurient and unconvincing".

Lamar is the James Joyce of hip-hop", he said, "in the complexity of his storytelling, in his knowledge of the canon, and in his continuing focus on the city of his upbringing—Compton.

Recording sessions for the album took place at PatchWerk Recording Studios in Atlanta, Encore Studios in Burbank, TDE Red Room in Carson, and "At My Mama's Studio" in Los Angeles. It was certified triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in June; for combined sales, streaming and track-sale equivalents of three million units in the US.Hot single ‘Swimming Pools (Drank)’ serves as a good taster to the album, alongside the previously released warm-up single ‘The Recipe’ ft. Billed as a “short film by Kendrick Lamar” on the album cover, the concept album follows the story of Lamar’s teenage experiences in the drug-infested streets and gang lifestyle of his native Compton. Eventually, it was confirmed that Lady Gaga would not be featured on the album due to timing issues and creative differences.