Transcript: Kendrick Lamar's 2015 Clique Interview: To Pimp A Butterfly
Clique: How are you Kendrick?
Kendrick Lamar: How you doing?
Clique: Welcome to Paris.
Clique: Welcome back.
Kendrick Lamar: Thanks for having me.
Clique: And I respect so much the fact that you don't drink, smoke, and that you say it.
Kendrick Lamar: Yeah.
Clique: Because they always put this like it's cool to smoke or drink.
Kendrick Lamar: Yeah. I'm my own individual, man. Not smoking or not drinking doesn't put down my manhood or my coolness, you know. I've been cool since elementary, you know, and I never begged for the attention. That's the difference, and I think that's what makes up who I am today and how I'm able to deal with fame. I always had the attention in high school, in middle school. I could never say, I could never put in my lyrics the sentiments of back then they didn't like me, but now I got money. They like me. I could never say that.
Kendrick Lamar: You will never give your phone number on a song. Shout out to Mike Jones. That's not even a diss, but for any rappers that, you know, I hear them in rap, those type of lyrics all the time. You know, the person that wasn't liked or wasn't cool, but now they got money, it was cool. I could never say that because...
Kendrick Lamar: I always, you know, got attention, you know, whether it was from the homies or whether it was from girls or whatever. So I take, you know, that same attention and I apply it with my lifestyle now. And this is what keeps me level-headed, to know that it was always there. It's not something that's new and I'm overwhelmed by it where my head is blown up and I got a half a thousand chains on. It's been there. So for me personally, it helps me as an artist to stay on level ground, you know, because it's not something that's new. It's not something that, you know, excites me to the fullest.
Clique: K-Dawg from Top Dawg, Kendrick Lamar, Aftermath, Dr. Dre, Doesn't Drink, Doesn't Smoke. You are Detox.
Kendrick Lamar: Yeah.
Clique: This was the project.
Clique: You were Detox.
Kendrick Lamar: I am Detox. That's dope.
Clique: What's going on with that album?
Kendrick Lamar: Man, Dre working. Dre working. He's a scientist. When you're a scientist, I can't give away the X, Ys and the Zs.
Clique: Because you woke up Dr. Dre's floor on your album. He's not just working, you are working together. Is it true that you can spend two weeks just on the mix of the album?
Kendrick Lamar: I think it's been two weeks. Yeah, easy. Easy. Easy. He's a perfectionist. He's a scientist. I keep telling people the man is a scientist. When he's in the studio, it's not something that he went to school for and, you know, learned all the numbers. It's something that he was really gifted with doing. And over 30 years of work being behind the board, so it's a mastermind.
Clique: Because when you went to studio with him for the first time, you did like a lot of tracks in one day.
Kendrick Lamar: Yeah.
Clique: How was it? Like the pressure to be in front of Dr. Dre?
Kendrick Lamar: Yeah. Yeah, it was definitely pressure. It was definitely pressure. And that's a good question because the sessions that I had with Dr. Dre and the sessions that I had with him was confirmation that I've arrived. Not confirmation just by me being there, but confirmation that I got the job done. In that type of hostile environment, Dr. Dre in the studio, Eminem in the studio, I was still able to write raps at a high level without without so much nervousness where I couldn't do it, I was able to write it, I was able to get on the mic, recite it, and deliver it. And when we played it back, I knew that I was ready for anything that this music game was gonna bring to me because I accomplished displaying my talents in front of people that I always looked up to. And from that moment, it's nothing that I can't do. It's not a challenge that I can't conquer.
Clique: When you were a kid, you saw the shooting of a Tupac video.
Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, yeah.
Clique: Is that true?
Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, very true.
Clique: And you're talking, there is the Tupac voice in this album.
Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, yeah.
Clique: And I would like to talk a little bit about Tupac. Because there is one song of Tupac that I love and it makes me think about you, it's Temptation.
Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, yeah.
Clique: You don't know me, I've been stressing in the spotlight. I want the fame, but the industry's a lot like a crap game, ain't... Because I feel that all your career is fighting temptation. What is the temptation that you're fighting now?
Kendrick Lamar: It's the confliction. I think my music is always conflicted. And I think that's why people relate to it. Like you say, I want to put positive vibes out there. I want to do something for the better. But in actuality, my life is... Who I am as a person? I don't know what I'm going to say in my life. Who I am as a person is not the song I. That's who I want to be. Now you, loving you is complicated. That's my world. That's the frustration of the gang violence. That's what I come from. Pac was a juvenile on my birthday. That's what makes up who I am. And in my album, the confliction of today is... How can I use my leadership, you know, knowing what to do with it or when to utilize it, you know, for better or for worse? That's the confliction, you know, because you come from this place of negativity and you come from this place of not having nothing or following the people you look up to. And now you're taking the lead from thousands of people around the world. That right there brings a whole lot of change. So that's the confliction. Do I utilize it in a negative way or in a positive way? And that's the core of this album.
Clique: And you say that the kids take very seriously what the rap artists do.
Kendrick Lamar: Yeah.
Clique: That's why you are careful with what you say. But when you were a kid, you were listening to NWA.
Kendrick Lamar: Yeah.
Clique: And it's okay for you.
Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, it's okay for me. It was okay for me because when I was listening to NWA, anything that I did in the streets, it wasn't from NWA. It was from because my cousins was doing it. You know, I had uncles. A song really didn't... The songs that they had was just an autobiography of what I seen anyway. You know, so... For me personally, knowing how kids react to music, that's why I tend to always have the reasoning behind it. It's still gangster rap. It's still harsh. And some parents may not want their kids to listen to some records. Not all records, but some records. But at the same time, when I do do these records, it's a sort of responsibility of giving, like I said, the happenings behind it. Yeah, you can go kill somebody. I'm going to talk about killing somebody, but I'm not going to talk about it with saying that you're risking your life for 25 years, times four, in a state correctional facility. It's not just doing it for fun with bottles and women around me. I'm talking about it with cuffs and chains. You know what I'm saying? Any kid that's listening to it, you're going to have a precaution. So that's the realities that be. I'm just going to continue to give people what I know, what I want to know, what they don't know, what we all can learn.
Clique: I wanted to talk to you about Compton, because in my imagination, Compton was the second city of rap and hip-hop. Just after New York, there were Compton, NWA, CMW, Central Cartel, all these bands, all these artists. And you are the new generation from there. And you grew up there, and there is something really amazing in your music. You grew up with the competitive MC, lyricist MCs in the aggressive mood of Los Angeles. But in your lyrics, it's all about positivity, energy, but the punchline and the competition.
Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, yeah, definitely. I grew up in it, so I know it well. So when I put in my music, it's where I want to be, where I hope to be. But reality is, I'm still a product of that environment, so it's really like a psychological thing for me to put positive vibes in between the frustration and the negativity sometimes, because it counterplays on my characteristics in everyday life, how I feel. The more and more I put it in the universe, the more and more I'll be in that place of great things. Not only for myself, but for people that's listening to music, listening to me in my city. Maybe it can change the way they think, change the way I think.
Clique: I come from the suburb of Paris, which is a kind of, not the same environment that you, but the same kind of mix with a lot of people from different origin and different countries. And there is something hard that I recognize in your career. It's like when you come from there and you go to exposition and light, it's really hard to go back and watch and do not forget. Because everybody say, keep it real, but they never stay where they were.
Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, I don't think not one individual that lives in the ghetto want to stay in the ghetto. You dig what I'm saying? You bring me a person that want to, you know, move back, you know, to the hood. They basically didn't live their life down. They fake it, you know, because if you ask anybody, any one of my friends, if I go back home today and ask them, do they want to be there? You know what they're going to tell me? No, you know. Now, with that being said, you don't want to not forget where you come from and you don't not want to, uh, keep giving that same motivation. My folks always told me the best thing for me to do is something I've already done already. Making it out. Giving inspiration to those, you know, that's still there. Saying that somebody from this neighborhood came from it. Meaning that you can do it too. Anything else I do besides that, you know, is extra credit. This is what, you know, OGs tell me. You know what I'm saying? But I do the extra credit anyway because I want to. Not because I have to. Not because I feel like I got to be connected with where I come from. It's already in me to do it. You know, nobody tells me to do it or anything like that. It's just my heart, period. And it'll be the same if I came from the suburbs. You know, it's just that homegrown sensation I have in me to always have the connection.
Clique: You know here in the French suburbs we had a very hard stuff that we had to live through in Montfermeil, Clichy-sur-Bois. We had two youngs who died ten years ago and we had some riots in France, in Paris for several weeks and the justice said that the policemen were not guilty. And when I see what's going on in the U.S., you are a part of the generation who were kids when there were the riots in L.A.
Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, I was there.
Clique: You are the generation who saw a black president, but you are the generation who saw many black people still killed by the policeman. How does it feel to live in that schizophrenia?
Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, man, it's frustrating because it leaves us where we don't know what to do. You know, it's always been going on in my neighborhood. But now, with all the media and all the technology that's around, we now get to see that it's not only happening in Compton, the young man in white is caught by a policeman. Thrown to the ground, he is beaten by two of them under the eyes of their colleagues. The IGS, the police of the police, saw these images. But it's happening all over the world, you know, and that makes us even more frustrated to see that it's bigger than just my hood. It's really everywhere. So it's disgusting, actually. You know, it frustrates me all the time because I still got little brothers, you know, that's going out to parties. They go out to their friend's house in Compton. So no matter how much I'm excluded from it, my heart is still there because my heart is my little brother. My heart is my little sister that's still in the process of being a teenager. So when I look at these kids being killed like this, it hits home for me, just as much as it hit home for the closest relatives to these kids. It's been 10 years since you've been in this trial and we're announcing a release. You know, there's no consideration. 10 years for nothing. Because I too have family and I'm fairly young myself just because I'm a celeriac and having anybody. So it's frustrating and I feel as though I can't really complain about it unless I'm building a solution.
Clique: I was listening to you since KDOT and all the tapes and I was saying that you were like one of the generation of lyricists. You were rapping for rapping and for love of rap. But you were telling the streets in the way that a guy really lived in the street. Because to me, a guy who really lives there never tells what's going on there. And when you grew up like this and you saw that the rap game now, it's more about game than rap, what do you think about it?
Kendrick Lamar: It's humorous, especially when you know the real. And you know they know the real, but for the amount of the dollar, you have some artists that's willing to go that route in order to uphold a type of image that's really not them. And I feel for him because it's only so long you can hold it up, you know, and I never want to be that type of artist. People around me want to let me be that type of artist, you know, trying to uphold it, some type of imagery, because the ones that are around me really, you know, have seen prison and death the same way I've seen it, so they have my best interest. And me personally, I just choose not to, you know, everything that I talk about, you know, from violence to the streets, it's not a glorification. It's always a consequence behind it. It's always a reasoning behind it. And I think that's what made me unique when you talk about Compton Gangsta Rap. It was just my own twist from my own...
Clique: Yeah.
Kendrick Lamar: Personal characteristics and how I grew up.
Clique: And that's why MC8 was on the last album.
Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, exactly. That's the contrast again. That's the confliction again. It goes down from the title and I think that's one of them titles that's going to live forever. It represents so many things. It represents taking the pureness out of something. It represents decision making on whatever your art is, how can you manipulate it for better or for worse? That's your decision. And these are the two things that I was juggling in making this record, or the record being about. How can I not be pimped in the system as far as my art and deteriorating it? How can I pimp my own celebrity for the better of my community or for the better of the world? Or how can I be selfish and take advantage of it and just say, you know what, fuck everything. It's all about me. I'm finna get these chains. I'm finna get this jewelry. I'm finna get these clothes, the women, the cars. And yeah, I'm pimping it like that. But it's a decision that I left hanging on the album. That's the real trick. You know, it has undertone of what I want to do, but it never says what I'm going to do because I may not feel the way I felt yesterday.
Clique: The show is called Clique. What's your definition of a clique?
Kendrick Lamar: Clique. Of a clique? I mean, take the K off the end, put a T, it might mean something else for the women. He cut that. clique, yeah. Don't nobody do it like my clique, clique. I think of clique, first thing come to my head, it's a crew. It's a crew of brotherhood, crew of fellowship, crew of unity. It can be two people or it can be 10 people. You know what I'm saying? Unity.
Clique: Welcome to the clique.
Kendrick Lamar: Thanks for not being part of the clique.
Event Date: June 11, 2015
