99 Fun Facts About Kendrick Lamar

Kendrick Lamar performs under his first and middle names; what is his surname?

Duckworth is also a DAMN. track about his father, who kept an armed robber sweet with free chicken at the KFC where he worked: the robber later became Kendrick's label boss.

Under what stage name did a teenage Kendrick release his first mixtapes?

K.Dot was dropped because, he said, people heard a kid who could rap but had no idea who he was, so he started putting his real name on his records.

Which independent label signed Kendrick Lamar as a teenager and went on to release his first album?

Top Dawg Entertainment's founder told him to prove he was good, so he rapped in the booth for an hour or more; the co-president was sold, the boss took longer to get it.

Kendrick's 2017 album DAMN. won which honor, a first for any music outside classical and jazz?

The Pulitzer arrived three months after DAMN. had lost the Grammy for Album of the Year to Bruno Mars's 24K Magic.

Which politician named Kendrick Lamar's How Much a Dollar Cost his favourite song of 2015?

Barack Obama, asked on YouTube weeks later who would win a rap battle between Kendrick and Drake, answered: "Got to go with Kendrick."

Which singer joined Kendrick as the special guest at his Super Bowl LIX halftime show?

SZA then toured stadiums with him from April 2025, and within two months their Grand National Tour had out-grossed every earlier co-headlining tour on Billboard's books.

Which actor played the scolding master of ceremonies between songs at Kendrick's Super Bowl LIX halftime show?

Samuel L. Jackson appeared as a satirical Uncle Sam, telling Kendrick his set was "too loud, too reckless, too ghetto" and praising only the gentler duets.

Which tennis champion crip-walked on stage during Kendrick's Super Bowl LIX halftime show?

Serena Williams was repeating the dance she did after winning Olympic gold in London in 2012, when critics attacked her for it.

Kendrick's first Hot 100 number one came as a featured artist on which Taylor Swift remix?

Bad Blood got a second take in 2023, when Kendrick re-recorded his verses so that Swift could own the remix as part of her Taylor's Version project.

Which lead single from DAMN. became Kendrick's first Hot 100 number one as a lead artist?

Humble debuted at number two and took the top spot the week DAMN. arrived, unseating Ed Sheeran's Shape of You after 12 weeks at number one.

Which 2018 film soundtrack did Kendrick curate and executive produce?

Black Panther's director had asked for only a few songs to fit particular scenes; after watching the unfinished film, Kendrick's team decided that was not enough and made a whole album.

Which Kendrick Lamar duet spent 13 weeks at number one on the Hot 100 in 2025?

Luther takes its title from Luther Vandross, whose sampled voice from a 1982 recording opens the track.

Kendrick Lamar's 2024 album GNX shares its name with what?

A Buick car, the 1987 GNX: Kendrick was born that year, and his father drove him home from the hospital in a Buick of the same line.

Which DJ-producer made the beat for Kendrick Lamar's Not Like Us?

Mustard had been peppering Kendrick with batches of beats, hoping one would land, and the one that finally did took him about 30 minutes to make.

Which To Pimp a Butterfly track became a Black Lives Matter protest chant?

Alright was built on a beat Pharrell had made in 2014 for another rapper, Fabolous, and Pharrell ended up singing its hook himself.

What is the title of Kendrick's independently released 2011 debut studio album?

Section.80 went out through iTunes on his small label, and at a concert that same year Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre and the Game declared him the new king of the West Coast.

Kendrick's album good kid, m.A.A.d city carries which subtitle on its cover?

A short film by Kendrick Lamar fits because the album plays like one: its songs and spoken skits tell a single story drawn from his own teenage years.

Which single from good kid, m.A.A.d city was Kendrick's first top-20 hit on the Hot 100?

Swimming Pools (Drank) has a hook that goads a friend into another round, yet the verses are a warning: Kendrick grew up in a house of casual drinkers and drunks.

Kendrick and Dave Free's creative company, launched in March 2020, is called what?

PGLang was announced with the warning that it was not a record label, and it has since made a film for a Chanel couture show, with Kendrick writing the score.

Kendrick's cousin, his partner on the 2021 single Family Ties, records under what name?

Baby Keem's single brought Kendrick back after years largely away from rap, and Kendrick then turned up all over the younger rapper's debut album.

Which supergroup did Kendrick form with Jay Rock, Ab-Soul and ScHoolboy Q?

Black Hippy never released the group album fans kept asking for, and on a 2024 song Kendrick admitted his own part in the four drifting apart.

Kendrick's feud with Drake traces back to his 2013 verse on which Big Sean song?

Control had Kendrick naming Drake and a string of other rappers as rivals he was out to bury, among them Jay Electronica, who raps on the very same track.

Kendrick's surprise 2024 verse on which Future and Metro Boomin song reignited the Drake feud?

Like That drew a diss track back from J. Cole, who days later apologised to Kendrick from a festival stage and took the song back.

Which Drake and J. Cole track, with its talk of a 'big three', provoked Kendrick's 2024 verse attacking both?

First Person Shooter had J. Cole ranking himself, Drake and Kendrick as rap's top trio, and Kendrick's answer was that there was no trio at all, only him.

Drake's answer record to Not Like Us, released the very next day, was titled what?

The Heart Part 6 stole the next number in Kendrick's own long-running The Heart series, but six months later Kendrick put a Heart Pt. 6 of his own on GNX anyway.

Kendrick's 2024 concert The Pop Out: Ken & Friends was held at which venue in Inglewood, California?

Kia Forum tickets sold out, and demand was high enough that Amazon Music stepped in to stream the whole show live.

What is the title of Kendrick's 2016 compilation of eight date-labelled leftovers from To Pimp a Butterfly?

Untitled Unmastered was a surprise release, and though Kendrick called its tracks unfinished demos, it entered the Billboard 200 at number one.

Which basketball star's public request led Kendrick to release his 2016 compilation of leftover demos?

LeBron James tweeted at Kendrick and his label boss that they had to put out the songs he had been playing on TV; the boss replied that he would think about it, then did.

Kendrick Lamar raps a guest verse on which song from Beyoncé's 2016 album Lemonade?

Freedom found a second life in 2024, when Kamala Harris walked out to it and Beyoncé cleared it as the official song of her presidential campaign.

Which Kendrick Lamar hit from GNX is built on Debbie Deb's 1980s freestyle track When I Hear Music?

Squabble Up was first heard as an untitled teaser at the start of the Not Like Us video in July 2024, more than four months before the album arrived with the full song.

Kendrick first heard GNX's mariachi singer, Deyra Barrera, singing at which team's 2024 World Series home game?

Los Angeles Dodgers: she was singing a tribute to their late star Fernando Valenzuela before Game One, and weeks later her voice opened and closed Kendrick's album.

Which pop producer, known for his Taylor Swift records, co-produced nearly every track on Kendrick Lamar's GNX?

Jack Antonoff is credited on all but one of its tracks, after years in which the team recorded somewhere between 80 and 100 songs to find the final twelve.

Not Like Us is built around Monk Higgins's cover of a song by which soul legend?

Ray Charles wrote I Believe to My Soul, so he shares the writing credit on Kendrick's hit; the rumour that the beat samples Nas's Ether is one its producer has denied.

Kendrick's Euphoria opens with a reversed line that which comedian speaks in the film The Wiz?

Richard Pryor plays the wizard, exposed as a fraud, and the hidden line has him admitting everything said about him is true: the charge Kendrick goes on to level at Drake.

The Meet the Grahams cover shows prescriptions made out in Drake's real name, one of them for which drug?

Ozempic came in a box beside sleeping pills, and days later an anonymous account posted a video panning across the same items, as if to prove they were real.

In one 2017 music video, Kendrick Lamar plays the central figure in a restaging of which Renaissance painting?

The Last Supper has Kendrick in the middle seat, telling off a disciple who is acting the fool, and the same video opens with him dressed as the pope.

Besides Rihanna and Zacari, which rock band guests on DAMN.?

U2 looked like a sample credit until listeners pressed play: halfway through XXX the band's drums roll in and Bono himself sings the hook.

The DAMN. tracks Blood and DNA sample which cable channel's pundits attacking one of Kendrick's televised performances?

Fox News host Geraldo Rivera is heard claiming hip-hop has done more damage to young African Americans than racism, and Kendrick answers the network and Rivera by name.

The opening track of To Pimp a Butterfly is named after which Hollywood actor?

Wesley Snipes went to jail for tax evasion, and the song's point is that nobody teaches poor Black men to handle money or fame, so success can be taken straight back.

Mortal Man, closing To Pimp a Butterfly, ends with a staged 'interview' using 1994 audio of whom?

Tupac Shakur gave those answers to a Swedish radio host weeks before he was shot in a New York studio lobby; two decades on, Kendrick recorded himself asking the questions.

Kendrick's 2011 debut album names which US president in a track title?

Ronald Reagan Era is the track: Kendrick, born in 1987, wrote the album about his own generation, children of the decade's crack epidemic, and the damage he saw it leave in them.

Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers features narration from Whitney Alford and which self-help author?

Eckhart Tolle is who Kendrick's partner sends him to on Father Time: she says he needs therapy, he scoffs that real men don't, and she tells him to talk to somebody and reach out to the author.

On the cover of Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers, what is Kendrick wearing on his head?

A crown of thorns was back on his head at Glastonbury weeks after the album came out, where he ended his set with fake blood running from it down his face, chanting for women's rights.

Kendrick was named after a member of which Motown group?

The Temptations' falsetto singer Eddie Kendricks supplied the name: soul records were always playing at home, and Kendrick's mother simply dropped the final s.

Kendrick startled his first-grade teacher by using which word, picked up from relatives' arguments?

Audacity, he says, came from hearing an aunt and uncles row over a drink someone had poured away, and when the teacher met him again in ninth grade she still remembered him for it.

As a teenager, Kendrick Lamar had a brief development deal with which major label, then run by Jay-Z?

Def Jam's boss looked in on the meeting to say hello, then went back to his office next door and played the teenager's music; studio time followed, but Kendrick says he simply wasn't ready.

Kendrick's 2009 mixtape C4 was a tribute to a blockbuster album by which rapper?

Lil Wayne's Tha Carter III supplied most of the beats, and Kendrick has since singled out one of the tape's songs, a stab at Wayne's club style, as the worst he ever made.

Which actor plays Kendrick's interrogator, then raps the song back at him, in the 2017 music video for DNA?

Don Cheadle had two days to learn the lyrics, and only later twigged that Kendrick's Kung Fu Kenny alter ego was borrowed from a character Cheadle himself had played in Rush Hour 2.

Which rock band joined Kendrick at the 2014 Grammys for a mash-up with one of its own hits?

Imagine Dragons hammered at giant drums while Kendrick rapped a furious new verse over their hit Radioactive, and the band's label rushed the remix out for sale.

Which artist beat Kendrick to Best Rap Album at the 2014 Grammys, then texted him an apology?

Macklemore told him 'You got robbed. I wanted you to win', adding that he had meant to say so on stage but froze when the music cut in, and then posted the message on Instagram.

Kendrick made his TV acting debut playing a drug addict named Laces in which crime drama?

Power's showrunner asked him what he had never done before and built the part around his answer; it all started when Kendrick told 50 Cent, the show's producer, that he wanted in.

Kendrick's 2025 Super Bowl halftime show drew 133.5 million viewers, a record as of 2026, edging past whose 1993 show?

Michael Jackson was booked because viewers had deserted the previous year's halftime show for a comedy special on a rival channel; his 1993 show is credited with 133.4 million viewers.

The stage for Kendrick's Super Bowl LIX halftime show was laid out to resemble part of what object?

A PlayStation controller: each of the four stages was shaped like one of its buttons, an idea that came from Kendrick, who wanted the show to play out his life as a video game.

Which music legend made his final album, released shortly before his death in 2016, while listening to a lot of Kendrick Lamar?

David Bowie's producer said they wound up with nothing like it, but loved that Kendrick hadn't made a straight hip-hop record and had thrown everything on there, which was the plan for Blackstar too.

Which longtime producer has worked with Kendrick since his self-titled 2009 EP?

Sounwave: at their first studio meeting the teenage Kendrick sat silent until Sounwave played a beat, then walked into the booth and rapped for about two minutes straight.

Which R&B singer joined Kendrick, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem and 50 Cent at the Super Bowl LVI halftime show?

Mary J. Blige: her tie to Dr. Dre was 'Family Affair', her only Hot 100 number one, which he produced and she sang in the show.

Whose 2013 arena tour did Kendrick open for, over the objections of his label and management?

Kanye West: Kendrick's label wanted him home recording, and gave way only after West's team supplied a studio bus so he could keep making music on the road.

Kendrick gave $50,000 in 2013 to the music department of which high school, his alma mater?

Centennial High: two years later the California Senate honoured him as a 'Generational Icon', citing the hundreds of thousands of dollars he had given to local music, sports and after-school programmes.

Which 2010 Kendrick mixtape was his first project sold through digital retailers?

Overly Dedicated: the tape reached Dr. Dre, who soon brought Kendrick into the studio to work on his long-delayed album Detox.

The deepfakes in a 2022 Kendrick Lamar video came from a studio founded by the creators of which cartoon?

South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone run Deep Voodoo, the studio that turned Kendrick into Kobe Bryant, O.J. Simpson and Nipsey Hussle on screen.

Which pop star sang the original chorus of Kendrick Lamar's Bitch, Don't Kill My Vibe before being cut?

Lady Gaga's vocals were left off over timing issues and creative differences. She later put out her own version of the track, chorus and verse intact.

In the Not Like Us video, Kendrick Lamar batters a piñata shaped like which bird, a jab at Drake's label?

An owl piñata takes the beating while a disclaimer mocking Drake's label, OVO Sound, flashes on screen. The video's final shot is an owl in a cage.

Which Oscar-winning British actress voiced the therapist who narrated Kendrick Lamar's Big Steppers Tour?

Helen Mirren was the unseen therapist who introduced herself as a guide and steered Kendrick's Mr. Morale character out of his comfort zone during the show.

DAMN. closes on the true story of Kendrick Lamar's father meeting the rapper's future label boss at which chain?

Kentucky Fried Chicken was where his father slipped a feared regular free chicken and extra biscuits, a kindness the song credits with saving his life.

Which pop icon recorded with Kendrick Lamar for To Pimp a Butterfly, only for the pair to run out of studio time?

Prince and Kendrick were too pressed for time in their session to finish anything for the album, so one of the decade's great what-ifs never reached the record.

Which rap group, passed over in three earlier votes, did Kendrick Lamar induct into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

N.W.A finally got in with the class of 2016, and Kendrick gave the induction speech for Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Eazy-E, MC Ren and DJ Yella.

Which act swept the 2014 Grammys, beating Kendrick Lamar's good kid, m.A.A.d city to Album of the Year?

Daft Punk won Album of the Year for Random Access Memories and Record of the Year for Get Lucky on the same night.

On a trip that reshaped To Pimp a Butterfly, Kendrick Lamar toured the jail cell of which leader?

Nelson Mandela's cell on Robben Island was among the historic sites Kendrick toured in South Africa, a visit he said left him feeling that he belonged in Africa.

On the cover of Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly, a crowd poses over a toppled judge outside which building?

The White House looms behind the monochrome group shot, in which people wave cash and bottles above a judge lying on the ground with his eyes crossed out.

Which California city, Kendrick Lamar's birthplace, gave him its key and made him Christmas parade grand marshal?

Compton honoured him for representing the city's evolution. He was born there in June 1987, and its streets are the setting of his major-label debut.

Kendrick Lamar's 2025 Super Bowl halftime show, staged as the Eagles beat the Chiefs, took place in which city?

New Orleans hosted the show at the Caesars Superdome, where Kendrick became the first rapper to lead the halftime festivities more than once.

Days after releasing DAMN. in April 2017, Kendrick Lamar headlined which festival alongside Radiohead?

Coachella ran over two April weekends that year, and DAMN. came out on the opening day of the first, so the crowd heard its songs at their freshest.

Kendrick Lamar raps on Don't Wanna Know, a 2016 hit whose video spoofs Pokémon Go, by which pop band?

Maroon 5 reached number six in the US with the song, and the band closed that year's American Music Awards with Kendrick on stage.

Kendrick Lamar guests on Goosebumps, a hit from the 2016 album Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight by which rapper?

Travis Scott released Goosebumps as the third single from his second album, and its video ends with him turned into the half-man, half-bird creature from the album cover.

Kendrick Lamar adds a verse to the single version of The Greatest, a 2016 anthem by which singer?

Sia recorded it for the deluxe edition of This Is Acting, and its video was widely read as a tribute to the 49 victims of the Orlando nightclub shooting.

Which singer won all six of his 2018 Grammy nominations, denying Kendrick Lamar's DAMN. Album of the Year?

Bruno Mars took Album, Record and Song of the Year in a single night, all for his 24K Magic project.

The 2022 Super Bowl halftime show with Kendrick Lamar was the first named best live variety special at which awards?

The Emmys gave the show three trophies in all, adding wins for production design and music direction to the headline prize.

King Kunta, from Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly, is named after a defiant enslaved man in which saga?

Roots, the Alex Haley novel, follows Kunta Kinte, the archetypal rebellious slave. Kendrick's title flips that figure into royalty.

Kendrick Lamar's parents moved to California from which city before he was born?

Chicago's South Side was home until 1984, when the teenage couple left for the coast, a move prompted by his father's ties to the Gangster Disciples.

Rather than sue Kendrick Lamar himself over Not Like Us, Drake filed a defamation suit against which record company?

Universal Music Group, parent of Kendrick's label Interscope, saw the suit thrown out in October 2025 by a judge who ruled that diss tracks are heard as opinion, not fact.

Kendrick Lamar debuted an unreleased song on which Comedy Central satire show during its final month, December 2014?

The Colbert Report aired its final episode on December 18, 2014, and the song Kendrick played there stayed off record until a 2016 release.

Kendrick Lamar performed at a Louis Vuitton show at Paris Fashion Week in 2022 honouring which late designer?

Virgil Abloh, the label's artistic director, had died the previous November. Kendrick performed four songs from Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers in his memory.

Which former Lakers guard is a cousin of Kendrick Lamar?

Nick Young, known as Swaggy P, spent four seasons with the Lakers and later won an NBA championship with the Golden State Warriors in 2018.

Which bassist and producer won a Grammy for These Walls after playing across Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly?

Thundercat took his stage name from the 1985 cartoon series, and Rolling Stone has ranked him among the greatest bass players of all time.

Which funk pioneer, whose band Kendrick Lamar played constantly while making To Pimp a Butterfly, sings on its opener?

George Clinton, mastermind of Parliament-Funkadelic, sings on the album's first song, the only one to make the record from a batch of beats played to Kendrick on tour.

Kendrick Lamar travelled to meet which soul group and win its blessing to sample That Lady for his single i?

The Isley Brothers said yes, and their lead vocalist went on to appear on the parent album. The single won Grammys for Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song.

Kendrick Lamar's 2012 major-label deal was a joint venture between Interscope and which imprint?

Aftermath, Dr. Dre's label, shared the deal with Interscope from March 2012, and Kendrick stayed with it for a decade, through Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers.

Which producer built the beat of Kendrick Lamar's DNA around a second verse the rapper first delivered a cappella?

Mike Will Made It had a beat ready for the first verse only. Kendrick rapped the second with no music at all and asked him to build the track around the vocal.

Which producer made the eerie piano beat of Kendrick Lamar's Meet the Grahams, released during the Drake feud?

The Alchemist made the unsettling beat, and the song came out within an hour of Drake's Family Matters, a diss track aimed mainly at Kendrick.

Which actress, star of the 2020 comedy Zola, trades insults with Kendrick Lamar on the track We Cry Together?

Taylour Paige and Kendrick recorded the couple's furious argument almost in one take in February 2020, and the song was later adapted for the screen.

Beth Gibbons, who sings on Kendrick Lamar's Mother I Sober, is the lead vocalist of which British trip-hop group?

Portishead's singer appears on the album's most vulnerable song: three confessional verses about trauma passed between generations, set to a sparse piano.

Which Wu-Tang Clan member joins Summer Walker on Purple Hearts, from Kendrick Lamar's Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers?

Ghostface Killah, whose solo career began with 1996's Ironman, is one of eleven guest voices credited across the double album.

Under which pseudonym, also the name of his website, did Kendrick Lamar executive produce his 2022 double album?

Oklama is the name on the executive-producer credit, and after the album was announced the rapper's website gained a page holding 399 empty computer folders.

Which singer's 5-year-old son, Egypt, earned a producer credit on a 2016 Kendrick Lamar release?

Alicia Keys had Kendrick as a guest on her 2014 song It's On Again. Her husband, producer Swizz Beatz, broke the news, and their son's work is the second half of one track's beat.

Kendrick Lamar's Money Trees is built on a reversed sample of the 2010 song Silver Soul by which indie band?

Beach House's song runs backwards under the beat, and Money Trees also interpolates Big Ballin' With My Homies by the rapper E-40.

Which rapper, the voice of Ryder in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, guests on Kendrick Lamar's song m.A.A.d city?

MC Eiht, who also played A-Wax in the 1993 crime drama Menace II Society, delivers a guest spot on the track that Spin singled out as show-stealing.

Which Mercury Prize winner is the featured voice on Father Time, from Kendrick Lamar's Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers?

Sampha sings on the only song to survive a week-long brainstorming session that Kendrick and his longtime producer held in London in early 2019.

Kendrick Lamar was the first hip-hop artist to close out which festival, where Paul McCartney also headlined in 2022?

Glastonbury handed him its closing set on June 26, on a bill where Billie Eilish, then 20, was the youngest headliner the festival had ever booked.

Kendrick Lamar designed Ventilator and Classic Leather sneakers themed on gang unity for which brand?

Reebok began the partnership in December 2014, and several versions of the shoes followed, each built around unity between rival gangs in his hometown.