Punch considers Kendrick Lamar’s departure from TDE as growth
As fans around the world anticipate Kendrick Lamar’s next studio album, they’re also to accept the fact that it’ll be his last release via Top Dawg Entertainment. TDE President Punch recently appeared in an interview with The Mic where he spoke about Kendrick leaving TDE.
“I don’t even know if I would describe it that way as ready to leave, as more so ready to build his own thing,” Punch said. “That’s a grown man right now. We watched him grow from a teenager up into an established grown man, a businessman, and one of the greatest artists of all time. So how long do you actually be signed up under somebody? It’s been almost 20 years. So it’s time to move on and try new things and venture out,” he added.
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The label executive also explained why an album from Black Hippy, a supergroup made up of Kendrick, Jay Rock, Ab-Soul, and Schoolboy Q, never materialized. “We definitely wanted to do a Black Hippy album. But it was such a learning experience for us, everything was new,” he explained.
“The timing never really panned out. When one guy would be recording his album, another guy would be on tour. Everybody was never in the same timeframe. So we didn’t want to hold back; we wanted to keep going and just push further into their individual careers. In hindsight, I wish I would’ve pushed the Black Hippy album more. That was always my goal, personally. You would have to ask everybody individually to see if that’s what their goal was.”
