Kendrick Lamar opened up about his massive 2024 during a rare chat Thursday, right after his Grammy sweep with his Drake diss track “Not Like Us.”
The interview went down at Thursday’s Apple Music media event before Super Bowl LIX’s halftime show, where he’ll perform with SZA.
During the press talk, Nadeska Alexis and Ebro Darden dug into what drove Lamar this past year. Ebro noted how 2024 – marked by Kendrick and Drake’s epic beef – felt like Lamar drawing a battle line.
“My intent was to always keep, I think, from day one, the nature of it as a sport,” Lamar said. “I don’t care how motherfuckers look at it as far as a collaborative effort. That’s cool too. But I love when artists grit their teeth. I still watch battle raps.”
In K.Dot’s eyes, this isn’t about one specific year – it’s his whole approach to making music.
“It was always just the continuum,” he said. “What I will say about this year, it was more from a space of—I think a lot of people was putting rap to the back. And you didn’t see that grit. You didn’t see that bite anymore. So I always took that into consideration going into any time in my music.”
After crushing it at the Grammys, Lamar shared his first thought was “just thinking about the culture, really.”
He sees this as central to his bigger mission, hoping future artists will carry the torch and put their own spin on these ideas.
The beef between Lamar and Drake seems far from over. This week, Drake changed up his “Nonstop” lyrics about LeBron James after the Lakers icon showed up at Lamar’s The Pop Out event in June.
LeBron’s been spotted lately vibing to Lamar’s GNX cut “Man at the Garden.”
In other drama, Drake’s now taking Universal Music Group to court over “Not Like Us” in a defamation suit. Worth noting – Drake isn’t coming after Lamar, with his legal team making it clear this beef is “entirely about UMG.”
UMG fired back, with their rep dismissing the claims as “Illogical.”
