The handwriting font on the cover art of Kendrick Lamar’s second studio album good Kid, M.A.A.D City was done by his fellow TDE member Schoolboy Q. You can view a photo of Schoolboy Q designing the 2012 good Kid, M.A.A.D City font above.
The polaroid dates back from 1991 and the van on the cover was actually the van Kendrick Lamar talks about it throughout the entire album.
In April 2018, Kendrick Lamar‘s fourth studio album DAMN. became the first hip-hop album to win the Pulitzer Prize, making Kendrick Lamar the first rapper to win the Pulitzer Prize for music. In the almost 80 decades of the prestigious Pulitzer award, DAMN. wasn’t just the first hip-hop album to win the award, it was also the first non-classical or jazz album to do so.
The album featured the singles Humble, Royalty and Love (Humble was Kendrick Lamar’s first solo No. 1 single on the Billboard Hot 100). In addition to winning the Pulitzer Prize for music, DAMN. won five Grammys including a Grammy for Best Rap Album and the album received the NAACP Image Awards for outstanding album.
The Pulitzer board called DAMN. “a virtuosic song collection unified by its vernacular authenticity and rhythmic dynamism that offers affecting vignettes capturing the complexity of modern African-American life.”
“It’s an honor … I’ve been writing my whole life, so to get this type of recognition – it’s beautiful” Kendrick Lamar said on the night he accepted the award.
In an interview with Vanity Fair, Kendrick Lamar later says,
“It’s one of those things that should have happened with hip-hop a long time ago. It took a long time for people to embrace us—people outside of our community, our culture—to see this not just as vocal lyrics, but to see that this is really pain, this is really hurt, this is really true stories of our lives on wax,” he said. “And now, for it to get the recognition that it deserves as a true art form, that’s not only great for myself, but it makes me feel good about hip-hop in general. Writers like Tupac, Jay Z, Rakim, Eminem, Q-Tip, Big Daddy Kane, Snoop…It lets me know that people are actually listening further than I expected.”
The Internet’s Steve Lacy produced the PRIDE. beat for Kendrick Lamar, which was the seventh track on Kendrick Lamar’s 2017 album DAMN.. He made the beat on his iPhone 6 using Garageband and recorded background vocals on the song alongside Kendrick Lamar’s regular collaborator, Anna Wise.
Steve Lacy pulled up to a Kendrick Lamar studio session with his good friend and Kendrick Lamar’s house producers DJ Dahi.
“A month or so goes by, [Dahi and I] link up on Halloween and we pull an all-nighter, we’re making beats the whole time. He asks me, ‘yo, what you doing tomorrow?’ I’m like, ‘oh nothing, I’m chilling. Why, what’s up?’ He’s like, ‘oh Kendrick has a session tomorrow, you down to roll through?’ I’m playing it cool like, ‘yeah dude, for sure. What time yo? Okay cool.’“
During the session, Steve Lacy played a song he was working on with Anna Wise titled “Wasn’t There.” Kendrick loved it and the song ended up on the album.
“The song I did for him came from this acoustic session that was recorded on my iPhone,” Steve Lacy says. “I showed Anna Wise how to record her vocals and she recorded this whole idea over these acoustic guitar chords I came up with, a small little drum loop that I made and then I took her vocal stems and made a beat over it. This was the track where he [Kendrick Lamar] was like ‘Yo, put your number in my phone I need this.’ I went there a couple more times to work on some stuff and this song he was just sure about. He loved this one. Then I hit him up again and he said he’s just finishing up the album so I go ‘Tracklist?’ with the eyeball emojis and he said ‘LOL.’ It was called “Wasn’t There” at the time but it’s called “PRIDE” now. It’s still hitting me I still haven’t fully gripped what I just did but yeah it’s crazy to think I was in a classroom just 6 months ago.“
Steve Lacy also produced Foldin Clothes for J. Cole.
A$AP Ferg and MadeinTYO were featured on the original version of “New Freezer”
During an interview with DJ Whoo Kid, A$AP Ferg claimed Kendrick Lamar would only contribute to the song if the MC was the only guest. Ben [Jayne] [producer] came through, and we did that song together with me, Rich The Kid and a few other niggas … MadeinTYO,” the A$AP Mob member said. “This nigga wind up playing it for fucking, I think Jaden Smith, Kendrick Lamar, all these other niggas. And Kendrick was like, ‘Yo, I’ll get on it as long as everybody come off of it.’”
It appears the pre-existing recording featured both A$AP Ferg and MadeinTYO. Which version of the summer hit single do you deem best? Take a listen below.
Rick Rubin told Ed Sheeran a story from the recording of Eminem & Kendrick Lamar’s “Love Game.”
K. Dot had the honor of being the only rapper on Eminem’s 2013 album The Marshall Mathers LP 2, but he earned it by passing a test. To ensure Kendrick didn’t have a ghostwriter, Eminem only allowed Kendrick Lamar (who showed up with some friends) in the studio to write and record his feature for their song “Love Game” on the spot.
During an episode of theZach Sang Show, Ed Sheeran relayed an interesting story about Eminem and Kendrick Lamar, which was told to him by Rick Rubin, executive producer of MMLPII. When Eminem was told that Kendrick Lamar was one of the best rappers out, he had suspicions that Kendrick had a ghostwriter.
“Eminem heard that Kendrick Lamar was the best rapper and he invited him to the studio to get him on a song,” Sheeran says
“He arrived and Kendrick came with all his mates and Eminem said, ‘I just want you in the studio, just you on your own and then my engineer is gonna come in and then record you doing it, but your mates aren’t allowed in.’ And then, Kendrick did it and wrote a sick verse. And then everyone came in to listen to it and Eminem said that he did it to test Kendrick because he thought he had a ghostwriter.. And, he then realized that he didn’t, and then claimed he was the best, which is kinda cool I think.”
Watch from 8:00
While writing and recording his verse, Kendrick Lamar suspected what was happening. In 2014, he discussed the song’s recording process during a radio interview. “He brought me out to Detroit, I had a show, and he brought me to the studio to do a hook.. I go in, do the hook, and he’s like ‘I like the hook.’ Then I’m like, ‘Alright, cool, I’m finna dip,’ then he says ‘Think you could do a verse?’.. The thing with Em which was crazy to me is he kicks everybody out of the studio… I took it as him kicking everybody out to see if it’s really you writing them raps that you’re writing.”
Listen to Eminem and Kendrick Lamar’s collab “Love Game” below.
During a 2012 interview with WGCI’s “The Morning Riot”, Kendrick Lamar revealed seeing Tupac and Dr. Dre shoot the music video for ‘California Love’ in Compton inspired the then 7-year-old K. Dot to pursue a career in hip-hop.
The music video for Tupac and Dr Dre‘s collaboration ‘California Love’ was shot near Kendrick Lamar’s house.
“I was in Compton and they were shooting the first version of it,” he said. “They stopped right in front of the middle of the street. My pops had seen them and came back to the house and got me. My father went to the house to get me and put me on his shoulders to watch them shoot.” Kendrick Lamar said.
Kendrick also tells the story to the Recording Academy
“I was about eight years old, they was shooting a video in my neighborhood in compton. My father see them, went two blocks down and got me, by the time he got me everybody was out there it was pandemonium, he put me on his shoulders and there they was, Dr Dre and Tupac right there…”
“I think it was a white bentley… that moment right there, whether I knew it or not, branched me off to what i’m doing now, it was already designed in destiny. 15 years later i meet Dr Dre and i explained that story to him and he remembered that same exact moment and he remember them kids that was out there and i said Dre, I was one of them kids that was there, it’s a crazy feeling.” Kendrick Lamar says.
