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Grab Kendrick Lamar’s First Ever Mixtape ‘Hub City Threat’

kendrick lamar, 2003 debut

On Kendrick Lamar’s good kid, m.a.a.d. city cut “Backseat Freestyle,” the rapper takes a trip down memory lane by impersonating the childish rhymes he used to perform when he was a teenager in Compton. Now, we get to hear what Lamar really sounded like at the age of 16. In 2003, Kendrick, then known as K-Dot, recorded his debut mixtape, Hub City Threat, Minor of the Year, recently resurfaced over at The Masked Gorilla.

Even as an unknown on the L.A. hip-hop scene, Lamar still managed to secure guest spots from Joe Budden and Freeway for the tape, which also features verses over Snoop Dogg’s decade-old single “Drop It Like It’s Hot.” Although three of the mixtape’s 11 tracks are missing, we still get a sense of Lamar’s talents, from his hometown ode “Compton Life” to the boastful “Biggie.” The CD-R was promising enough to land Lamar a contract with Top Dawg Entertainment, which released Kendrick’s music up through his breakthrough good kid, m.a.a.d. city.

Check out the mixtape below before it disappears from the Internet again: