To successfully build the kernel, you have to ensure that your build system has the documented bare minimum versions of the various software pieces of the toolchain (and other miscellaneous tools and utilities). This very information is clearly within the kernel documentation in the Minimal requirements to compile the kernel section, available at https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/Documentation/process/changes.rst#minimal-requirements-to-compile-the-kernel.
For example, as of the time of writing, the recommended minimum version of gcc is 4.9 and that of make is 3.81.
