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Kendrick Lamar · S2 E3
Training Day
The second mixtape. Sharper, hungrier, and desperate to prove the first wasn't a fluke
Carson, 2005. K-Dot is back in the TDE house with a notebook full of verses and something to prove: the first tape got him signed, but this one has to prove it wasn't luck.
Kendrick Lamar, Rigamortus. A technical showcase from Section.80 that captures the relentless, prove-everything energy K-Dot was building during his mixtape years. The speed, the wordplay, the refusal to breathe. This is what Training Day was pointing toward.
Training Day
The mixtape is called Training Day, named after the Denzel Washington film about a corrupt cop navigating the streets of South Central LA. K-Dot drops it in 2005, just a year after his debut. The title is a statement: he is studying the game, learning its rules, and preparing to break every single one of them.
“The second mixtape is always harder than the first. The first one, you got nothing to lose. The second one, people are watching. That changes the pressure completely.”
— Kendrick Lamar, interview with Complex, 2012
TAP TO REVEAL: What did Kendrick study obsessively while making Training Day?
Rigamortus, Kendrick Lamar (2011)
Built on a flipped jazz sample from the Willie Jones III Sextet, Rigamortus is Kendrick rapping like his career depends on finishing every bar before anyone else can react. The beat swings hard, all upright bass and live drums, while Kendrick stacks multisyllabic rhymes at a pace that borders on absurd. The whole song is one continuous forward motion, a rapper proving he can outrun anyone in the room.
Training Day: The Details
What 2001 film gave Kendrick's second mixtape its title?
Sing About Me, I'm Dying of Thirst, Kendrick Lamar
From good kid, m.A.A.d city (2012). At over twelve minutes, this is the full realization of the storytelling Kendrick began developing on Training Day. Multiple narrators, shifting perspectives, a structure that works like a short film. The kid who was learning to build scenes in 2005 would eventually build this.
K-Dot has the work ethic and the pen, but he's still rapping alone while three other young artists sharpen their styles in the next room. Next: Jay Rock, Ab-Soul, ScHoolboy Q, and the crew that would become hip-hop's most dangerous roster.
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