--- description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. title: Kendrick Lamar by Alicia Garza: TIME 100 image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfd9d7646f45d5df8/69888fa03c1639210545ce80/time-100-2016-kendrick-lamar.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Apr 20, 2016 # Kendrick Lamar by Alicia Garza  Erik Madigan Heck for TIME The first time I heard _To Pimp a Butterfly_ was on a crowded plane heading to Jackson, Miss. With headphones on, there I was, bobbing my head and having audible conversations with myself because that album made me feel—moved and troubled, challenged, uplifted, angry, skeptical and raw. Far from creating “conscious rap,” Kendrick Lamar has evolved a new genre of movement music that asserts no answers but raises hard questions and brings us together to take them on. Thank God for his trip to South Africa, which he says made him want to put everything he was seeing and experiencing into an album that could translate that experience to someone in the ghettos of Compton, Calif. Kendrick should be applauded for inviting us to face things that are uncomfortable, for celebrating our will to survive and for being audacious enough to grapple with the questions that we all need to answer if we ever hope to get free. _Garza is an activist and a co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement_ Kendrick Lamar by Alicia Garza: TIME 100 ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/2016-time-100/4301242/kendrick-lamar-2016-time-100/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/2016-time-100/4301242/kendrick-lamar-2016-time-100/"},"headline":"Kendrick Lamar","datePublished":"2016-04-20T16:25:56.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-02T23:13:24.449Z","description":"He moves us","url":"https://time.com/collections/2016-time-100/4301242/kendrick-lamar-2016-time-100/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfd9d7646f45d5df8/69888fa03c1639210545ce80/time-100-2016-kendrick-lamar.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfd9d7646f45d5df8/69888fa03c1639210545ce80/time-100-2016-kendrick-lamar.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/2016-time-100/4301242/kendrick-lamar-2016-time-100/","name":"Kendrick Lamar"}}]}] ```