Kendrick Lamar releases 'HUMBLE.'

Why it matters

"HUMBLE." came out March 30, 2017, as the lead single from DAMN. Mike Will Made It produced. The beat is one of the most stripped-down Kendrick had ever released: a piano-and-bass line and almost nothing else underneath it for most of the song's run time. Kendrick raps in his more confrontational, less-vulnerable register, with several controversial lines about other rappers and about body politics that triggered substantial cultural debate. The song debuted at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and reached #1 the following week, becoming Kendrick's first solo #1. The Dave Meyers-directed music video, which features Kendrick in a series of art-historical tableaus (the Last Supper, a Solange Knowles-styled headshot, the visual of fish-eye lens distortion that became one of the most-memed visual templates of late-2010s internet culture), won the 2017 MTV Video of the Year. The song won the 2018 Grammy for Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song. You can put it on at almost any moment and the bass drop in the opening will reset the room. The song was made to do exactly that.