K-Dot was offered the role but turned it down
Kendrick Lamar was asked to make a cameo in Don Cheadle’s biopic Miles Ahead about musician Miles Davis and he rejected the offer. Don Cheadle spoke on the television show Way Up With Angela Yee on Tuesday (October 1) and talked about how he appeared in K.Dot’s 2017 music video titled ‘DNA’ and noted that some years back, he had previously asked Kendrick Lamar to play the character Junior in Miles Ahead.
“To talk about acting, when we shot [the ‘D.N.A.’] video, Kendrick was so with it. […] He stayed in character the whole video. […] He was really committed,” Cheadle recalled. “He was someone that I had thought about casting in my movie I did, Miles Ahead, and have him play the role of Junior.
“We talked about it for a long time and ultimately he said, ‘I don’t think I’m ready to do that. I’m kind of working on a project right now and I have to see that through and I also don’t wanna come in here halfway,’ and I was like, ‘No, I get it.’ And it was [his 2015 album] To Pimp A Butterfly and I’m like, ‘I think you made the right choice on that one!’”