Hi, everyone. Twthony Legstano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for a review of this Kendrick Lamar mixtape, Overly Dedicated.

Yes, here we have a mixtape, an old mixtape from legendary game-changing Compton rapper and songwriter, Mr. Kendrick Lamar. One of the best artists modern hip hop has to offer, somebody who would be argued by many to be one of the best of all time. And that point seems more arguable than ever, especially given that recently, he just came out the winner in a very intense beef with one Aubrey Drake Graham. And since taking the W in that track for track rivalry, the guy has been just going on victory lap after victory lap after victory lap, from dropping numerous hits to doing a Super Bowl halftime show to racking up a whole bunch of Grammys. And I consider it a privilege to have been witnessed to the slow burn it took to get us to this point.

Now, I've been reviewing Kendrick's music on this channel for over a decade now. Part of the reason I am going back and reviewing this tape is that we recently hit 3 million subscribers. I was feeling quite nostalgic and thought it would be interesting to just turn the clock back a bit here on an artist who is responsible for the album that has given me my most watched review on this channel.

Now, I have covered every major release this man has put out into the world commercially since first becoming aware of him with his Section.80 project back in 2011, which is a project that itself is pretty crazy to go back and revisit these days, given just how much Kenny's style and artistry have evolved since then. Though key characteristics of them are still very much recognizable on classic highlights such as the anthemic "High Power", the jazzy, intense, and irreverent "Rigamortus", as well as with the empathetic cautionary storytelling that he engages in on tracks like "Keisha's Song" and "Tammy's Song".

But I remind you, as early as this project is, it's certainly not where Kendrick Lamar started. In fact, the guy has mixtapes going back to the mid 2000s, and I feel like in a lot of his recent success, his context and the progress it took to get to this point has been lost a little bit, even with Kendrick stopping to take the time to remind us of that very thing on "The Heart Part 6" from his recent GNX album, which is a track that narratively is all about a time in Kendrick's life where he was still figuring it out and needed the support and the perspective of his fellow label mates at TDE to help him get through.

Now, admittedly, even though this mixtape has seen a commercial release on streaming in recent years, it's been a long, long time since I've revisited and listened to it. And going back to it now and listening to it with the full knowledge of everything that's happened since its original release, it's the definition of whiplash. It's really hard to believe in some ways that we are talking about the same artist between this record and GNX.

And today, I think this tape stands as a very significant reminder that those who actually get to prove they're truly great at something, rarely start out that way. In fact, they usually get there through great practice and study. And honestly, I don't think Kendrick's music would actually be as good as it is if he did actually just have all the answers and all the revelations and all the information and talent he needed bestowed upon him at the very start. Some of his greatest songs and most emotional works have been borne out of the struggle and perseverance, the drive to be better, as we see him trying to wrestle questions about how to manage his fame, how to maintain his success and his morality at the same time, how to touch, motivate, move, and inform people with his music and his platform.

Yes, in addition to all of this, Kendrick is also known to have a bit of a savior complex. He is far from perfect. In fact, he points out that very fact on the opening track, "The Heart Part 2". And while he doesn't always seem to live up fully to his good guy branding, for the most part, his intentions seem positive.

His presence and his records year after year continue to serve as more of a net benefit than some of his competition out there in modern music, that's for sure. Or at least that's what he would like us to believe. After all, there were numerous tracks on GNX where he was either romanticizing his life story or telling us while staring us straight in the face that he deserves every single accolade he is getting and also not getting. And that did lead me to thinking, why don't I just go listen to that version of this guy rather than listening to this current version of the guy. Tell me a story about that guy – if you follow what the hell I'm saying.

And yes, at this point, I feel like that is the purpose that overly dedicated serves. Because if you listen to the numerous tracks on this tape, you are going to hear a young rap artist who, frankly, around the time that this tape came out, he was writing and spitting at a similar level of quality to a lot of his contemporaries, many of whom were also on the come up and making names for themselves on the hip hop blogosphere and platforms like Datpiff.

In fact, a lot of these names were listed in that infamous "Control" verse that hopefully most of you remember, where on a Big Sean single, Kendrick went on to call out a lot of different artists: Mac Miller, J. Cole, Wale, Big Crit, Tyler, The Creator, ASAP Rocky, Meek Mill, Drake.

Now, the idea that I would make this comparison, the fact that Kendrick would even call these names out today, seems almost preposterous, considering the way all of their careers have changed shifted over the years and solidified. But around this time, believe it or not, there still were questions as to where any of these guys were going to go, personally and artistically. However, with each passing year and each new Kendrick album, it becomes clearer and clearer that the competitive spirit and hunger that drove him to write a verse like that was as tangible and as real as concrete.

You can certainly hear it on the opening track of this tape, "The Heart Part 2", where, yes, Kendrick's delivery on this track is a a little sloppy, but I do think his performance is a bit of a refreshing reminder of an era where you may, in fact, have listened to a rap tape and heard an actual raw verse with minimal punching in and no crazy vocal effects on it. Even though the performance is not perfect, there's still a lot of raw talent there, and Kendrick is using just merely that to suspend him in this high wire moment right at the start of this tape.

While clearly he is not at his highest power level yet, he is still rapping like he is fighting for his life and is even audibly coughing at the very end of the verse. Kendrick sounds fiery. He sounds manic. He sounds restless on this track. One bar that stands out in particular is "My art is all I have and victory tastes sweet," which... it's just funny to see him living out that very bar today.

And look, I'll say, generally, I feel like this song is pretty impressive by general Kendrick standards in 2025. But a lot of what's here still sounds like it lives in the shadow of not only Kendrick today, but even 2015 Kendrick. Because again, I think being great and growing into the artist or the person who you're meant to be requires work and effort, an imagined or intended destination that you overcome every obstacle in your way in order to reach.

Which is why I think the title of this mixtape is so predictive and fitting, as not only is it a reflection of the dedication that it took Kendrick to even get to this point to be doing numerous mixtapes and sound even this good in 2010, but also the dedication he would need to show for years in order to be doing a Super Bowl halftime show. And throughout Overly Dedicated, I do think we hear that drive and hunger. But also you can catch on this tape Kendrick struggling to showcase the skill, style, and language that it would eventually take for him to get to where he is now.

Because as we move past the intro track, while most of the rapping on this record isn't bad by any standard for sure, there are still numerous tracks here where Kendrick comes through with this sleepy, low-key, underwhelming with a noticeably dry vocal fry. It's like he's trying to sound like Lil Wayne rapping at half speed, who is clearly one of the biggest influences on this tape. But simultaneously, Kendrick doesn't really have the same lively energy or comedic timing in order to make the same one-liner lyricism that Wayne specializes in work well in his case. R

eally, it's Kendrick's attempt at trying to make more thoughtful pieces of work where I think this project comes across as more impressive, like on the atmospheric and jazzy "Growing Apart" where you can hear Kendrick basically trying to make an admirable effort to figure things out in the midst of some personal connections where people are growing apart, as he also portrays himself in this moment as being a victim of his own bad behaviors as well as vices, something that if you're a Kendrick fan, you know has been a pretty consistent theme throughout his career. And while it may not be engaged with as well here as it might be on later singles, such as "Swimming Pools", it's still interesting to hear it in an early stage.

On this next on the track, "Ignorance is Bliss", we have Kendrick rapping with a more persistent and impressive flow. But lyrically, we get a lot of empty posturing throughout this track that I could take or leave. There are some prophetic bars, though, that do stand out: "I'll make an album that'll put a smile on Malcolm / Make Martin Luther tell God / I'm the future for heaven's talent," which in this earlier stage definitely shows the, I guess, imagined standards for himself that he had in his head in terms of the music music he wanted to make, the messaging it needed to contain, and who he wanted to impress with it.

Simultaneously on the same track, we have bars where Kendrick is voicing concern about being merely categorized as a conscious rapper, which arguably he is, even if he does have a fear of being defined in some way. But I mean, I do agree to the extent that to merely compare him to Common or Talib Kweli wouldn't be telling you the whole story in terms of whether or not you should be listening to Kendrick or would enjoy him.

Moving on to "P&P 1. 5", which is a very jazzy and hooky number with a lot of allusions to the life that Kendrick was living at the time. We hear narrative elements of things in his life that he would dive further into on projects such as good kid, m.A.A.d. city, like with his uncle, as well as the van, his mom's van that he used to drive around. And again, even though the rapping and the lyrics and the production may not be at the level that fans would come to enjoy on later releases, it's still interesting and refreshing watching to hear and see that even early on, Kendrick was not afraid to expose himself as just being a regular guy.

While there are moments on this album that deal in some dark themes and violence and the gritty world that he was raised in, it's not doing it to the point where he's trying to convince you that he's tougher than the next guy or had it harder than anybody else. And simultaneously, he's not trying to glamorize his life either.

In fact, he digs into these themes deeper on the track "Average Joe" on the back end of the tape, where he clearly has this idea in his head that if I work my relatability factor, that'll be better for me artistically than trying to give a fan some fantasy of my life instead. He is Kendrick. He is not anything else but him, especially when you look at lines like, "I don't do black music, I don't do white music / I do everyday life music," which is a point that I think he would put much better today were he made to rewrite it, but you see where he's coming from.

The song "Opposites Attract" is a relationship number with a lot of lines that I think could read like very basic platitudes such as, "We hurt people that love us / Love people that hurt us / hurt people that love us / love people" ... etc. Which, yeah, I'm not so crazy about. But I do like the fact that the track, rapped by Kendrick, is written from two different perspectives, because I do think it is the mark of a good and talented storyteller that they try to write from points of view that are not their own and do it in a way that is convincing. Regardless of what you think of the music or the performance on this track, Kendrick is meeting at least that standard here.

There are other tracks where Kendrick tries to, I think, come through with a bit more swagger and charisma, but the energy isn't quite there yet, like on "Michael Jordan", as well as on "Night of the Living Junkies". But yeah, that "I'm too much for these dudes / three much for these hoes" line, I just don't think is all that flattering. And to be completely real, Schoolboy Q sounds more comfortable and convincing on the mic at this point than even Kendrick does.

Up to now, the ride of this tape is a bit bumpy, but I do think it closes a lot stronger than it starts. The rapping on "Barbed Wire", in my opinion, is fantastic and on par with some of the best moments from Section.80. There's "Average Joe" that I mentioned earlier. And "H.O.C.", while I do think this is one of the more underwhelming cuts musically and vocally, I do like that, again, Kendrick is building up his ethos on a track like this, where he's making it pretty clear that he's not a big smoker. He's not a guy who likes to indulge too much. While partaking, generally, is not an awful or a bad thing, he sees the potential for substance abuse there and envisions it as a slippery slip that could bring him to somewhere terrible, which I would hate to see. I mean, this track already is bringing him to a place where he's dropping lines like, "Especially when Drop dropped the beat / I dropped jewels like my nuts dropped out of my briefs."

"Cut You Off" is another thoughtful moment on the record where Kendrick is essentially really talking about trying to keep his inner circle tight and make sure that when he does allow somebody into his life or his friend circle, they're contributing positively.

In terms of flows and lyrical content, I do feel like "Heaven and Hell" is a great glimpse into some of the highest highs off of the forthcoming Section.80. The hopeful tone of the instrumental and fade-away of the vocals on the track lead to the song feeling like a bit of a credits roll moment. Like he knew this mixtape was going to be a cliffhanger for something later down the road.

It's just pretty cool now to go back listening to this with full knowledge that promise that he was making, essentially in terms of his progress and his future achievements and his aspirations, would essentially be fulfilled in future projects and experiences.

But yeah, Overly Dedicated. Do I love most of the tracks on this tape? No, not really. I think it's pretty agreeable to say that Kendrick has released much, much, much better music since this project and has truly and genuinely improved on all fronts. But while I don't think Overly Dedicated has necessarily aged the greatest or anything like that, one thing I really did love about going back and listening to this is the refreshing revelation that there is truly nothing about who you could call old Kendrick that I feel like is missing now or superior to the Kendrick that we're dealing with today. Obviously, I don't know the guy personally, but in terms of how he portrays himself in his music and the types of topics and experiences and feelings and emotions and perspectives he tends to represent for.

While that has changed and shifted over the course of his growing discography, I can say at least right now, currently, he still represents much of the same ideas and concepts and feelings that he did back in 2010. It's just really cool to hear consistency on that front, even with all the massive changes Kendrick has undergone personally and artistically over the course of his career.

Those are my thoughts on Overly Dedicated. I'm not going to score it. I don't care what anybody thinks. Why don't you guys overly dedicate yourselves to tell me what the hell the score is in the comments? You do that, and then we can leave it there, shall we? Yeah, we shall.

Anthony Fantano, Kendrick Lamar, Overly Dedicated, forever.