Section.80

Lamar began work on Section.80 around January 2011 at Top Dawg Studios in Carson and wrote much of it in his mother's kitchen and on his tour bus. Production came mainly from the in-house Digi+Phonics team, with additional work from THC, Tommy Black, Wyldfyer, Terrace Martin and J. Cole. The album is a concept record that deals with the 1980s crack epidemic, racism and the medication tolerance of millennials, and it has guests including Schoolboy Q, Ab-Soul and BJ the Chicago Kid.

It debuted at number 113 on the Billboard 200 with about 5,000 copies sold in the first week and was certified platinum on 20 January 2026. Metacritic scores it 80 from 11 reviews. Pitchfork's Tom Breihan called it a powerful document of a tremendously promising young guy figuring out his voice. In August 2019 the track The Spiteful Chant was removed from streaming services.