A new era for Kendrick Lamar

A new era for Kendrick Lamar

For the past 11 months, Kendrick Lamar has shown the world that he’s not an artist that will back down from a battle. He put rap first and has gone above and beyond to get his message across. Before we go into what happened at his spectacular Super Bowl halftime performance, we must go back in time and see how this all came to be.

K. Dot released his album Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers in 2022. It was his most personal project as he reached inside of himself and gave us a therapeutic album. The topics that he touched on were struggling with therapy, infidelity, generational trauma, sexual abuse, etc. He put his heart out on the mic and delivered an album that showed us his journey on the road towards self-reflection and healing.

A promotional still from an unrelated Kendrick Lamar music video.

Fast forward to March 2024, Future and Metro Boomin are releasing an album, and everyone is excited. They have the features hidden so that they can keep the element of surprise. When the album was released, it rang off in the streets. Kendrick was featured on the song “Like That.” The song sampled the song “Everlasting Bass” by Rodney O and Joe Cooley. This sample gave the song that edge that it needed to match Kendrick’s flow, voice, and bars. “Like That” sparked off a rap battle between Kendrick and Drake that had been brewing for over ten years.

These two had thrown shots at each other, but they never jumped off the porch and got down to it. This beef included colleague and frequent collaborator J. Cole. Kendrick had heard Drake and Cole’s single “First Person Shooter,” and he knew that they were throwing shots at him in response to Kendrick turning down their offer to all collaborate on one song. Sneak disses like, “Not the 3, not the two I’m the U-N-O.” and “Love it when they argue who the hardest MC, is it K. Dot, Aubrey, or Me? We’re like the big 3 we started the league, but right now I feel like Muhammad Ali.” are some bars from that song that must have set Kendrick to go on a journey to go toe-to-toe with his peers and “watch the party die” in the process.

A still from Kendrick Lamar’s Squabble Up music video.

The next three months gave the world a rap battle that we weren’t ready for. J. Cole bowed out of the beef after the poor response to his Kendrick diss record, “7 Minute Drill.” He went on the Dreamville Festival stage in April 2024 and apologized to the fans and to Kendrick. Cole didn’t want to continue to be in the beef, so that left Kendrick and Drake to go head-up with each other. The two rap legends engaged in a battle that was full of social media antics (Drake’s specialty), hard-hitting bars, and dope music videos from both artists. Honestly, Drake didn’t win the battle because he wasn’t solely focused on Kendrick as his competitor. He dissed everyone that was featured on Future and Metro’s album in both of his ‘real’ diss songs (Push Ups and Family Matters). Don’t get me wrong, Drake had some good bars on his diss records, but most of them weren’t aimed at Kenny. Kendrick’s diss records were better in a lot of ways, and most importantly, he kept everything on wax. He didn’t engage in the social media antics like his opponent.

Kendrick and Drake gave us some quality entertainment on wax. This battle featured a lot of commentary from journalists, online streamers, and huge fans of both artists. Kendrick dropped his final diss track on the morning of May 4th, and EVERYONE dropped whatever they were doing to listen to it. No one expected him to drop this smash hit after releasing the scathing and haunting song that was “Meet the Grahams” hours after Drake released “Family Matters.” “Not Like Us” is catchy, has a beat that you can dance to (produced by Mustard), and features more bars that were damaging to Drake’s untouchable ego. The song had children and adults dancing to a song in which another man called his opponent a “certified pedophile.” Have you ever heard the saying, “When they go low, we go lower”? Well, Kendrick didn’t go lower when Drake went low….he went to HELL.

The group photo from the The Pop Up concert. Brought to you by pglang and Prime Video.

Weeks passed. Everyone continued to crack jokes, post memes, and dissect the beef from top to bottom. A lot of people had never seen a rap beef to this magnitude. The damage was done, people continued living their everyday lives, and moved on to the next thing. Again, out of nowhere, pglang (Kendrick Lamar and Dave Free’s creative services company) and Prime Video announced “The Pop Out.” “The Pop Out” was a concert that specifically celebrated Juneteenth and Black Music Month. Tickets sold out in a matter of hours on June 7th in anticipation to see what else Kendrick had up his sleeve. This concert featured local LA artists and mainstream LA artists performing on one stage. Lamar was the final act in the show and he performed a medley of his hits, brought out his TDE family, and performed “Not Like Us” FIVE TIMES. Yes, you read that right….FIVE TIMES. pglang put together a great show that showcased some of the best artists that LA has to offer and unified LA as a whole. A show like this could’ve been a multi-day event, but instead, they brought everyone together for a night that no one will ever forget.

Just when you thought that The Pop Out was Kendrick’s victory lap… you were dead wrong. Four months passed, and we didn’t hear anything from The Boogyman. The reaction videos from the content creators about “The Pop Out” were entertaining and hilarious. People continued to throw shots at Kendrick, pglang, and TDE, but a lot of us didn’t care about it. Bringing the beef to members of TDE was always pointless and petty to me because they didn’t have anything to do with what those two grown men had going on. A lot of the energy from the media and the stans went back to Kendrick in September after he was announced to be the 2025 NFL Super Bowl halftime performer. There were so many questions from people such as, “Why isn’t Lil Wayne performing? The game is in New Orleans!” and “What has Kendrick done for him to be able to get this gig as a headliner for the halftime show?” Congratulations weren’t really in order for Kendrick, as the responses to the announcement were full of questions and disapproval from music fans and critics all around the world.

Kendrick Lamar at the 2025 Grammy Awards

Two months later, Grammy nominations were announced. Kendrick was nominated for seven Grammys. They all ranged from Best Rap Song, Best Rap Performance, Best Music Video, Song of the Year, and Record of the Year. Seven award nominations for DISS SONGS was unheard of until then. Weeks later, the world received a new song snippet from Kendrick Lamar with a video attached. A lot of us thought that it was a one-off until the link for the ALBUM dropped. Yes, the album that we all had been waiting for finally came out. GNX was released on November 22nd, 2024. This album was a huge departure from Kendrick’s other albums. The production from Dahi, Sounwave, Mustard, Jack Antonoff, and others really honed in on that West Coast sound. Before Like That was released, I heard from reliable sources that Kendrick was recording new material in New York. My first listen of this album was definitely a fun ride. You could tell that this album is really important to Kendrick because it’s his first album solely under pglang and not TDE/Aftermath. Safe to say that this is a new era for him, and he’s not holding anything back from his lyrics, creative direction with his team, releasing whenever he wants to, and more.

Performing at the Super Bowl halftime show, nominated for seven Grammys, and an upcoming stadium tour are huge achievements for any music artist. It’s funny that Kendrick’s disdain for one of his peers turned into all of these accomplishments and opportunities. February came so quickly, and everyone wondered if Kendrick would rise to the occasion at the halftime show or go home empty-handed on Grammy night. Well, I’m happy to say that Kendrick did a clean sweep at the Grammys with all five wins in each category that he was nominated for. The crowd at the Grammys danced and sang to the hit song “Not Like Us” as Kendrick took the stage to accept his award for Song of the Year. In his speeches, he thanked his hometown, rappers that he came up with that inspired him throughout his career, and how important hip hop is still important to the world at large. After all of these years in the industry, it was pretty great to see an artist like Kendrick still give his all with his albums and performances. Speaking of performances, his Super Bowl halftime show performance was the most watched since Michael Jackson’s in 1993. The stage design was on point, the dancers didn’t miss a step, Sam Jackson appeared as the fictional character Uncle Sam, SZA did her thing, and of course… Kendrick rapped his ass off… without playback of his vocals.

Whether you like Kendrick or don’t like him because of his battle with Drake, you can’t deny that he showed up and showed out for the past eleven months. He’s reached heights in his career that most artists only dream of. In this new stage of his career, it would be great to see Kendrick become a full-time mogul. Bringing new talent to the forefront, providing opportunities to the overlooked/unappreciated, and staying true to his vision are things that I hope he continues to do.

Kendrick Lamar performing at the 2025 NFL Super Bowl Halftime Show