Was King Kendrick Crowned Too Soon?

In the time Kendrick Lamar has been in the game many have already dubbed him the G.O.A.T and he has dropped amazing bodies of work that's for sure but the question is has he done enough to be called one of the greats. When people talk about his discography they often leave out his mixtapes with Overly Dedicated being an exemption, his mixtapes in my opinion weren't that good now granted when most artist first starts out they aren't that good they are still working on their craft. When Kendrick dropped his debut album "Section 80" he showed just how much potential he has its had a few good songs such as "Keisha's Song" "Rigamortus" and "HiiiPower" but it still wasn't good enough project when you compare it to something like Drake's "Thank Me Later" or even Cole's "Sideline Story" both of the projects had songs that people are still listening too even today in the year 2020. 

Kendrick though did manage to turn the tide in his favor when he dropped his second album"G.O.O.D KID Maad City" now that when people started labeling him one of the greats which to me was a bit premature because it was he's first real good body of work,filled with classic after classic, now at this time Drake had already dropped his second album "Take Care" which was a masterpiece and Cole had dropped "Born Sinner" which were both classic albums but yet they weren't getting the same praise as Kendrick they were being called good and all that but they weren't being called the greats. Now when Kendrick dropped "To Pimp A Butterfly a Butterfly" that when people were like he's definitely a living legend again a bit premature in my opinion, it was a great album that many black people could resonate with and songs such as "Alright" were used as anthems for the Black Lives Matter movement and he got a lot of grammys for it fast forward a few years and people aren't really listening to it as much as they used too when it dropped in 2015, for me personally the album is a tough listen I do admit that some of the songs and his bars go way over my head.

Then he dropped DAMN which he won a Pulitzer Prize the first and only rapper to win such a prestigious award. DAMN was on another level a masterpiece and showed Kung Fu Kenny at his best but I still feel that Kendrick has still so much to prove for instance he hasn't really been tested battle wise the only times we've seen Kendrick beefing was when he name dropped a lot of rappers on a song which he was featured called "Control" and that wasn't really anything deep in terms of beef it was a friendly challenge by Kendrick some of the rappers responded and even others that weren't named dropped also responded but Kendrick really didn't respond to any of them on wax, he also has dropped subliminal disses on songs and freestyles and songs to artists like Big Sean and Drake but he's never really been a full scale beef unlike guys like Drake(Meek Mill, Common, Joe Budden and we can't forget Pusha T)and even J. Cole (Lil Pump even though that wasn't much of a beef just a big brother schooling his little brother). He also likes dropping projects after long periods of time and in the times we live in now people aren't looking to wait years for their favorite artist to drop music and the landscape of music especially hip-hop is changing. Kendrick Lamar is one of the best rappers we'll ever see but has he really earned the right to be named amongst legends like Pac, Jay Z, Lil Wayne, Rakim and Biggy just to name a few because if you think he should amongst those names then surely so should Drake and Cole should be there too and also be praised on the same level as Kendrick.