Kendrick Lamar is opening up about his smash hit “Not Like Us” in a method he by no means has earlier than.
Regardless of being one of many greatest stars within the music business for fairly a while now, Kendrick Lamar manages to keep up a fairly non-public private life. He’s not one for interviews, however this week, he graced the duvet of the Harper’s BAZAAR 2024 November Voices Situation, being interviewed by his good friend and former TDE labelmate, SZA.
This dialog marks the Compton native’s first interview since dropping the undisputed track of the summer season, “Not Like Us.” Although he didn’t point out Drake, immediately, when requested by SZA what the phrase “not like us” means to him, Kendrick did throw a few strays whereas describing the kind of person who does and doesn’t determine with the track.
“Not like us? Not like us is the vitality of who I’m, the kind of man I signify,” Lamar started. “Now, in the event you determine with the person that I signify…This man has morals, he has values, he believes in one thing, he stands on one thing. He’s not pandering.”
He continued, “He’s a person who can acknowledge his errors and never be afraid to share the errors and might dig deep down into fear-based ideologies or experiences to have the ability to categorical them with out feeling like he’s much less of a person. If I’m pondering of ‘Not Like Us,’ I’m pondering of me and whoever identifies with that.”
SZA went on to ask, “So while you really feel the surge of vitality in information like that, the place is that root? Is it anger?”
In response, Kendrick defined: “However I do consider in love and battle, and I consider they each must exist. And my consciousness of that permits me to react to issues however not determine with them as who I’m. Simply permitting them to exist and permitting them to circulation via me. That’s what I consider.”
The “Love Galore” singer went on to ask Kendrick in regards to the final time he cried, which hasn’t been for a number of years.
“I’d say the final time I cried was in all probability on Mr. Morale [2022’s Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers] on the “Mom I Sober” file,” he admitted. “That s**t was deep for me.”
As for the primary time Lamar allowed himself to be that weak, he cites the Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg’s Coachella efficiency in 2011, after they introduced out a younger Kendrick and ceremoniously handed him the torch for West Coast hip hop.
“The primary time I allowed it to occur is documented, really, onstage when Dre and Snoop and the entire West Coast was out, they usually was like, ‘That is the torch that we have been handing off,’” he defined. “Dre handed me the torch, and a burst of vitality simply got here out and I needed to let it circulation.”
“My tears is all on the web,” Kendrick remembers. “And now I look again and I really like that second. I really like that that occurred. As a result of it confirmed me in actual time expressing myself and seeing all of the work that I put forth really come to life in that second.”
You possibly can learn Kendrick Lamar’s full interview with SZA right here.