Transcript: Kendrick Says To Pimp A Butterfly Isn't Yet A Classic

March 31, 2015
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Hot97: Hopefully you're enjoying your commute. We're trying to bring you those positive vibes at Summer Jam 2015. Major announcement just happened. Omarion, Ty Dolla $ign, Fabin, French Childish, Gambino, Big Sean, Meek Mill, Trey Songz, Chris Brown. And our guest right now, Kendrick Lamar. Give it up for Kendrick. Yo, man, I appreciate you making the trip to New York for one day for this announcement. Because I know you got to get on like a 1 o'clock and bounce out.
Kendrick Lamar: Hey, I'm back home with it, but summer jam, man. What's happening, man? Come on.
Hot97: Now, Kendrick was just telling me off the air, y'all, that the love that he gets in New York City and the reason he comes here so much just for one day to do an in-store in Brooklyn, whatever it is, Just the respect and the love that this market shows you.
Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, all the time. Since day one, I realized it was a different type of energy because me doing music in the city and I never thought in a million years that my music would be appreciated. And to be like, okay, we rock with you, but here it's like, it's a little bit different, you know, when you're speaking the truth and you stand for something like you said.
Hot97: Yeah, well, you know, here in New York, even if they don't like you, But they'll respect you if you stand your ground. If you spit bars. If they disagree with you, they actually prefer to see you in the street and be like, yo, you know what? I don't really like what you have to say half the time, but I respect what you do. That's a New York thing. But it's been happening for you here for a long time, even since the mixtapes you've been selling at SOBs and doing venues out here.
Kendrick Lamar: That's the first thing that tripped me out, the SOBs thing.
Hot97: Based on Tequila Mockingbird, was that the inspiration for it?
Kendrick Lamar: It wasn't, trip off deck.
Hot97: Really?
Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, I caught wind of that after the joint came out and somebody brought it to my attention.
Hot97: Really?
Kendrick Lamar: Which I thought was ill.
Hot97: Which is crazy though, because... I didn't think about it that way at all either. And then of course I'm like, oh, well you had to do that because it's the exact same syllables and it's kind of a random thing, but it's totally coincidental.
Kendrick Lamar: That's wild.
Hot97: Do you, um, can you explain to everyone, because I've heard speculation, speculation, speculation, what you're saying with the album titled To Pimp A Butterfly. What are you exactly saying?
Kendrick Lamar: There's several meanings, actually. The first one that I can think of off top. Taking something, taking something, taking my celebrity and doing good with it. Middle fingers up to everybody back where I come from and go live on top of the hill or I can do something productive with it. That's one meaning. Now we can go a little bit deeper.
Hot97: At what point when you were making this record did you realize this was a thing? Like you were going to be making this album that followed this? You know what I'm saying? Because sometimes people get in the lab and they start making records and they're making songs and the album comes together. This album is so thematic all the way through. At what point did you realize, okay, this is the project I'm doing?
Kendrick Lamar: Me actually going there with the live instrumentation and seeing how much freestyle and improv it was for me. He's one of the records where we go in the studio and we spend about 10, 15 hours in the studio just vibing out, almost a jam session. And I write my little skeletons down, whether it's some hooks, whether it's bridges, verses.
Hot97: Yo, Cass, you got that all right ready off To Pimp A Butterfly. That's our joint. Run that for us. We play King Kunta. King Kunta's your official single. There's going to be a video for that. Coming soon, right?
Kendrick Lamar: Coming soon. Very soon.
Hot97: Anything we should look for in that video.
Kendrick Lamar: A lot of energy, a lot of fun, me going back home, going back with my homies. Majority of the homies you see on the album cover and a little bit more than that. Me spending time and always contributing.
Hot97: You're doing shows there. Y'all do a lot there.
Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, we was on the Compton Swap Meet Fashion Center. You dig what I'm saying? And then basically gave a live performance. And that's good energy for them to see that because they don't know that they can make it from out of there.
Kendrick Lamar: I'm not quick to give out the classic title. They did it with the first album. I thought I told them, let it live a little bit. So I wanted to come back the second time around and make it even more intricate. Let it live a little bit. Let it rotate and let it vibe out and let you truly understand what I'm talking about here before you put the stamp on it. Because it not only waters down what I'm doing, but it waters down everybody else.
Hot97: What do you, explain that, what do you mean water's a damn?
Kendrick Lamar: Because what happens is, when you throw that word out, you can throw it out for anybody. That's how I feel. Because they got nothing but time to listen to it.
Hot97: And study.
Kendrick Lamar: And study. And you know, to pick their own message from it. And I want my fans to do the same thing. And yeah, I've been preaching that for a minute.
Hot97: Yep, so.
Kendrick Lamar: The classic thing is love, but I want you to really sit and see how much work we put behind it, because it's a process. It's almost a two-year process making this album.
Hot97: You are in a different category now though as far as artists who when you drop an album, people are going to look at it with the eyes of like... This is going to be in that stratosphere. You know what I'm saying? Do you see yourself as that? You are in that category now as an artist where people are thinking, where does this match up? Every time you release now, it'll be where does this match up against the greatest albums?
Kendrick Lamar: Of course, you gotta think like that, or else what you doing in the studio? You feel what I'm saying?
Hot97: Getting high and drinking Ciroc. Kendrick, Mortal Man is such a great record. And can you talk about the creative process behind that and how you guys took those POC interviews and manipulated them and made them your own?
Kendrick Lamar: I actually wrote the lyrics for Mortar Man on the Kanye tour, my homeboy Soundwave that made the beat. He came with the skeleton of the drums and the pattern was so ill, so I wrote the music. To make a long story short, I had these old POC interviews that was unreleased by this cat in Germany that shot them to me. And I was listening to him. I was living with him. And I basically came up with the idea saying, let me make this my own interview. Let me put it on the back of this song because the lyrics are profound.
Hot97: What does it feel like when people don't understand what you're trying to accomplish with To Pimp A Butterfly and they send that hate your way?
Kendrick Lamar: Oh man, it don't bother me. If my music was made to grab you immediately, I would have thousands of hit singles on the radio, you feel what I'm saying? I've decided I'm not that type of artist and I'm not knocking anybody else. Everybody have their own initial thing, but for me, I make albums where I want you to go back and listen to 100 times. If you listen to one time, cool.
Hot97: I felt like your fan base hated on this song from the rip because it was acoustic, it sounded different, it wasn't your traditional hip-hop song, and because it was positive. I feel like you caught a lot of hate because of this.
Kendrick Lamar: That's the best song I ever wrote.
Hot97: So Dot, why did you decide to make the version of I different on the album than the single version?
Kendrick Lamar: But that was planned for sure, to go with the theme of the album. Actually, as soon as I made this version, I already knew what I wanted to do.
Hot97: And also, there's all, you know, this has been rumored for a very long time, but is there going to be a Kendrick Lamar J. Cole album?
Kendrick Lamar: Man, definitely, definitely. I still would love to do it, for sure. I talked to the bro, I don't know, probably a little bit over a month, and he's on a tour rocking, so we're going to try to make something happen.
Hot97: Are you trying more actively than before? Is there an active effort? How impressed were you with J. Cole's release? That was a pretty crazy thing that happened for him.
Kendrick Lamar: Crazy how they went about it and popping up at fans' house. Come on, man. You don't get the marketing resources from a record label. That's them.
Hot97: Doesn't it make you, do you ever get proud about the fact that, like, you know, people always ask us about the state of hip-hop, you know, and hip-hop used to be blah, blah, blah. But then when you turn around and look... Two of the biggest artists in hip-hop are Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole. I don't know if there's ever been a time in history where two of the three or four biggest artists in the game were that lyrical and that committed to hip-hop. You have to feel pretty good about where things are at.
Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, definitely, definitely. You know what's crazy about music for me? I like all energies.
Hot97: Kendrick Lamar's here. What's your favorite song on this To Pimp A Butterfly if you had to pick one?
Kendrick Lamar: Man, it changed throughout the week.
Hot97: Right now?
Kendrick Lamar: Right now, Wesley's doing the intro. I love that record.
Hot97: Yeah. What made you involve so much live music in this album? Why go live music? Why all these soul sounds and things like that and spoken word poetry? Because I know some of the backlash that you get that I've seen from keep it real hip hop fans. They don't love the poetry.
Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, man.
Hot97: Why that direction?
Kendrick Lamar: That's delusional. For me, it's just sophisticated gangster shit. Period.
Hot97: Yeah.
Kendrick Lamar: And this is my background. This is what I was raised off of. This is what mom and dad was listening to.
Hot97: Yeah, exactly.
Kendrick Lamar: And this is the album that I always wanted to make. You know? Good kid, Mad City, I maneuver through the cracks. I know what the people want to hear. And I also know how to get my message across in between that. You feel what I'm saying?
Hot97: But at the same time, you sure wasn't that eye contact with Erykah Badu that she gave you, got you writing all that spoken word poetry. He was writing like NWA and then Erykah cooked him a little food. He was like, hold on, you know what I was thinking. I look at the sky, my eyes be blinking.
Kendrick Lamar: I don't know if that's actually eye to eye. I didn't want to talk about Miss Badu's ass right now. She's a queen, man.
Hot97: You got that? You got that clean, man? All right, let's run it right now. It's the intro off To Pimp A Butterfly. This is your pick. This is your favorite joint this week.
Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, because simple fact is, you know what's crazy about this record? When I made it, it was, it's actually a real true inspiration because before I got signed, these are the things I said I wanted to do. I wanted to get this, I wanted to get that, I wanted to take the homies, show them around the world. But the schooling doesn't teach us how to manage it. It's not a course or a subject in class that taught me how to deal with taxes.
Hot97: Nope.
Kendrick Lamar: So I say, okay, you go this whole time without getting locked up.
Hot97: Because the only way to know how to do that is from generations of wealth. That's how people know how to manage money. Otherwise, you don't know what to do with it.
Kendrick Lamar: You don't know what to do with it. They don't teach you that in school. So I said it's up to me to put them energies and that type of light out there from my perspective.
Hot97: It's Dre. What up, Dre? The classic is Dre. It's Dre. Yo, this is Dr. Dre.
Kendrick Lamar: Hey, you know what's funny? I told him I needed that. I needed that classic, it's Dre, man.
Hot97: Yo, what up, it's Dre. It's like the intro to the song Keep Their Heads Ringin'. Yo, what up, it's Dr. Dre.
Kendrick Lamar: That's a true story, too, me walkin' in this crib the first time. I'm like, man, what is this? I said, nigga, anybody can get it. The hardest part is keeping it.
Hot97: Yeah.
Kendrick Lamar: Par changed my life. Anybody can get it. Homie from the block, get it, you, you. The hardest part is keeping it. Why? Because we don't know how to manage. And he knew that I wouldn't know how to manage. You gotta focus up, you feel me?
Hot97: Kendrick Lamar's on you, bro, in the morning. Laura Stiles Rosenberg. Well, just real quick, we just played that record with George Clinton, and I was just talking to Dot off the air, and you were saying George Clinton was around a lot making this album.
Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, everybody in the studio, George Clinton, Terrace Martin, Soundwave, and the wise Bilal. We all locked in.
Hot97: You know Bilal's amazing, right?
Kendrick Lamar: Crazy.
Hot97: But what's it like when George Clinton's hanging around for months while you're making an album?
Kendrick Lamar: I just need him for the conversation. I know he was getting worn out going back and forth in the booth. I said, you know what? I just want to talk, man. Just be around for the energy. And I tell you... We Nickelodeon. We PG-13 compared to the lifestyle they lived in.
Hot97: Oh, of course. That's true. Did you record Moses' album in L.A.?
Kendrick Lamar: Yeah.
Hot97: Nothing in New York?
Kendrick Lamar: I did. What'd I do in New York? I did her politics. I've been there once. It's day one. You want boo-boo. You're homeboy. You're black. Where you from? I did that all year. Boo-boo. Boo-boo.
Hot97: Yo, so the album doesn't feel coincidental based on what we've been living through with the situation starting with Trayvon and through everything that's happened since. It feels like an album that was necessary and timed perfectly in terms of what people need to hear. Was that not coincidental? Did that shape your mind when getting into this space?
Kendrick Lamar: When I first started, it was coincidental because Me writing was just coming from a standpoint of being pimped in the industry, you know what I'm saying? Which eventually went about in society too, you know, and all these situations started happening. So, uh... I was building a skeleton already, you know what I'm saying? So it just added more fuel to the fire, what I wanted to get off my chest, you know what I mean?
Hot97: To me, one of the things that I love about this album is that when we were growing up, old people like myself and Ebru, we were getting You're getting Public Enemy albums and NWA albums that shaped the way I view the world to this day. Like the reason I am who I am politically is because of those albums. You now have been able to do that for kids who they got in on Section 80 or whatever. And now you're giving them lessons that they never heard about. What are the albums for you that you think about that way that kind of are very important that shape, maybe shaped your mind or shape other people's minds?
Kendrick Lamar: Um, my pops played a lot of Death Certificate.
Hot97: Ooh, Ice Cube.
Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, America's Most Wanted. I didn't know what he was kicking at the time, but as I progressed and got older, I realized he's talking about being a black man in society.
Hot97: Yo, man, stop being a bitch. And then your family, obviously, a lot of times when it comes to men, it's like, yo, if you're not bringing any money home or you can't contribute after a certain point, you ain't a man. That's how they look at you, all the time. Is that what inspired that song?
Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, definitely, definitely. What you were saying the first time is, A lot of men can't express themselves like that. Especially, you know, I'll give you an example. The folks I grew up...
Hot97: Do you Some take exception, you know, because since everything is going on socially, you were in a billboard interview, I think, where you said, you know, black people have to respect themselves if they don't get
Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, I forgive them. Period. Because when I speak, I speak for self first. When I say respect, I mean, I still deal with that. Just because I'm in the limelight, don't mean I still don't have animosity toward this gang over here. When they just killed two of my homeboys on tour, you feel me? And I gotta get a call and say, Yeah, that's who did it. I still feel that energy. I still feel that hatred. I still feel not respecting them because they got a different rag or a different flag on them. Don't, I demand this, don't ever take my words out of context, because I'm the only one, if not the only one, there's a few more out there that's really, really speaking from the streets.
Hot97: Dot, are you, um... Are you ever overwhelmed with celebrity? I've been out with you before and seen what it's like for you, at least after the last album, it's getting crazier now, but you're a regular guy who happens to be an amazingly talented dude. You are not the type who appears to be in any way craving celebrity, but you are now a monster celebrity. Is it ever overwhelming for you just being in that role?
Kendrick Lamar: Uh, yeah, yeah, for sure. Because at the end of the day, you know, Before I started doing music, I was always to myself. Everybody know that. My moms know that. My homeboys know that. When we was out in public before the music, I was the one in the cut, just observing. I wasn't allowed, homie. The loud homie, I love this. He'll love it all day. He love the energy. You feel what I'm saying? And that's him. That's his personality since elementary school. And that's just who I am. I can't change it.
Hot97: How do you deal though? Are you cool with taking photos and doing all the stuff? You can handle it?
Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, I appreciate that because I look at the standpoint.
Hot97: It's probably not a conversation I should have in public, but I hear from artists that this Summer Jam stage is a little stressful for them.
Kendrick Lamar: Yeah.
Hot97: They, you know, I've had artists tell me like, nah, I don't want to do it this year. I'm not prepared. Or I don't prefer how big it is, you know, because it's a big state. I don't know. I wanted to hear from you. Maybe you have some insight. You know, because cats tell me that they don't necessarily love being on that stage. They don't necessarily love how intense those fans are.
Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, I can see that. I can see it's the energy they're talking about.
Hot97: I don't know. I thought maybe you had some insight. Maybe, you know, you're an artist. I never had to perform at Summer Jam, so I don't understand.
Kendrick Lamar: For me personally, when I first started doing music, Top Dog, man, we used to go to the clubs, it'd be 30 people we'd perform in front of. You feel what I'm saying? Talking to the mic. 30 people, 15 people, I'm performing in front of, so... It's the same thing. These 50 people weren't vibing. So I could get 25 people that's me mugging and grilling so big because I still got to go back to them 50 people and remember where I was at and how much energy I still got off. Regardless of the energy that's, you know, you feel from the crowd. And you just got to know where you at, man. This is New York. Like you said, they might not be acting like they rocking with you, but they respect you. They feel you. If they making eye contact with you and they standing up, they with you.
Hot97: But that's experience too. Kendra's been performing here for years and years and years to know that the New York crowd, they might not jump up and down to every song.
Kendrick Lamar: LA like that too though. It's the crazy part. LA like that too. You know, we'll sit...
Hot97: I know plenty of times where you've been there and people become fans because of that performance that you put on.
Kendrick Lamar: Real talk, real talk. But I can definitely see artists saying they stress if they don't have that...
Hot97: Then that backstage guest list, everybody wanted to come.
Kendrick Lamar: Hey, that's the part I be looking forward to.
Hot97: Not me, that's the part I hate. That's the part, well, yeah, of course.
Kendrick Lamar: Hey, because I go back to me as a kid. When I used to hear about it, I was like, oh, Jay-Z is back there.
Hot97: Kendrick Lamar's list is going to be one of the worst lists ever. His list last time was horrible. Y'all get ready, man. Because he likes sneaking people in. He thinks it's funny. Ebro, do you know Papoose's government name?
Kendrick Lamar: Hey, Pap, me there, too. I'm going to be there. Yeah.
Hot97: It seems like that's a sore issue for you.
Kendrick Lamar: Yeah.
Hot97: Does that happen? How frequently does this happen?
Kendrick Lamar: Well, it never really happened, but as a... Black community, that's definitely sore because you supposed to stand by somebody that's doing right regardless. You don't, you don't, you don't.
Hot97: Yeah, so be it. But I mean, do you feel that some of our behavior, you know, like you think of like issues between you and the police or... Issues that fights and things. I mean, hell, we just had an issue here in Brooklyn with girls fighting in a McDonald's and it was caught on video. And then them girls end up, you know, yeah, that was here. It was in Brooklyn. Girl, the girls end up going to jail and the little girls fighting with five different girls in a McDonald's while everybody's standing around watching.
Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, all the time.
Hot97: But it's what you're talking about with regard to respecting ourselves and respecting one another, that behavior that leads to some of the circumstances that we get into.
Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, all the time because it's tough. It's just... It's just a behavior. It's just a mentality. And I still work on it. I still got to deal with it through personal issues. I gotta snap back and practice the things that I talk about, you feel me? But it's a psyche thing for me, and that's why I do the music, that's why I say lines. When Game Bank can make me kill it, blacker than me. That's not just for everybody, that's really for me personally. I gotta record and rap these songs on stage every night. So it's a practice, it's therapy. Not only for the listener, but for me as well.
Hot97: Do you think that... Wait, hold on, Rosenberg. The respect combo was alley-ooping our guy, Shawnee Culture, with his program that he has at school. Shawnee? Shawnee? Jump in. Shawnee. Actually, yeah, you know, I'm going to be in Queens today. Yeah, but what's the name?
Kendrick Lamar: Yeah.
Hot97: So in order to get respect from your peers, I got to beat this kid up or let him know I'm badder than you. But when you get out here as an adult, that's not how you get respect.
Kendrick Lamar: Yeah.
Hot97: You know, you got to treat people with respect in order to get respect.
Kendrick Lamar: Man, hey, my mom's taught me that when I was a kid, you want respect, you got to get respect, period. So that's real talk.
Hot97: This is similar but different. Do you think that, all of us were very excited, of course, when President Obama was elected. Has overall for race relations in this country been more positive or more negative?
Kendrick Lamar: That's a good question. It rides the fine line, man. I didn't think he was able to do all he wanted to do.
Hot97: Yeah, it didn't teeter over, period, on a positive note. It didn't. And the powers that be, I think it... Made racists come screaming out of places that you was like, oh word? That's how you feel still? So I think long term, It made us deal with some things that we were trying to brush under the rug that I think may end up being healthy.
Kendrick Lamar: I saw a stat the other day that said, like... Teenagers, they're not stupid, 16, 17, 18 that are going to be voting.
Hot97: What's going on in Indiana is crazy right now.
Kendrick Lamar: That's crazy.
Hot97: No, it's happening right now in 2015.
Kendrick Lamar: That's great.
Hot97: There was a man hanging from a tree in Mississippi in 2015.
Kendrick Lamar: Right.
Hot97: That's, I mean, I know everybody likes to just talk about bars and rhymes and rap all the time and they don't like talking about racism, but man, it's a real conversation and there's a lot of things that we got to deal with. But isn't that what makes the To Pimp A Butterfly album so special? But that's also why people hate on your album.
Kendrick Lamar: Too serious, you're saying?
Hot97: It's too serious.
Kendrick Lamar: Everything ain't fun and hunky-dory all the time. Yeah, you fear what you can't understand or what you don't want to understand or looking in the mirror, period.
Hot97: Well, I think you're going to hear from a lot of kids who reach out to you and say, honestly, in addition to all the black people who are affected by it, people like me who are going to reach out to you and go, young kids, the 15-year-old me's out there who are like, yo, I never saw the world this way until now. I want to know, like, the game has changed. Do you feel like record release dates are gone? Traditional singles are gone? All of this sort of things that you were locked into pressure wise, industry wise is gone?
Kendrick Lamar: In some form or matter, I think now it's in the tradition where kids either like it or they don't. No matter how many billboards you put it on, no matter how many TV screens, radio shows, they're going to get it or they're not going to get it. Yeah, I think artists like myself, we've been feeling like that for a long time, just off the simple fact we can put our music out on the internet and go overseas and tour in front of 3,000, 5,000 to 10,000 kids. You know, it's always been an independent game. When you look at Cats, like what Wiz Khalifa done, or Mac Miller, you know, them going on the road and actually performing,
Hot97: What are you thinking, Ms. Simple? I think it's going to be very interesting to see, especially like I was referring to the Jay-Z music streaming service. Did they approach you?
Kendrick Lamar: Jay, yeah, me and Jay had a conversation about it, and I think it's a great idea. Just out of simple fact,
Hot97: That's good, you caught that. I do think that watching artists take control of their creativity I think is awesome. And distribution, I think, is awesome, too. I think what's going to end up happening, because people are already consuming music this way. The fees that are involved at the publishers, the people who own pieces of the words that you write, because they gave you some money in advance, like, yo, we like how you write.
Kendrick Lamar: Exactly.
Hot97: You know, the consumer is getting hit not only for the monthly rights to have this membership for whatever streaming service, but you're also getting hit for streaming costs from the cell company. So you're getting hit, the user's getting hit two times, right? The artist is getting hit two or three times, the publisher, the label, so there's a lot of people eating off of the relationship between the artist and the fans. And the fan, there's a lot of people eating off that. And I love to see how artists are working hard to take control of that. On the other side are the business... The business side of how many artists are going to be able to not take that advance money from a publishing company, not take that record label advancement, right? Because they want to get on these platforms and get promoted and see if they still want to do that direct route like some artists can do.
Kendrick Lamar: Right. It takes that much more hard work for him now. It ain't like the 90s where you just show up to a record label and get a fat check for putting out an album. That's gone.
Hot97: Show up to a record label with three songs. I got my demo. You got your demo and you got your deal.
Kendrick Lamar: Right. It's different.
Hot97: Do you appreciate, like I have an appreciation for the fact that hip hop is back to the fact that you have to go do shows.
Kendrick Lamar: Of course.
Hot97: If you don't have merch or shows, you don't have a career almost.
Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, exactly. I love that. I love it because. To be 100% real, your shows is what shows longevity. Period. You can have a
Hot97: Wait a minute, it just dawned on me. So Jay reached out to you, but Dre is your mentor.
Kendrick Lamar: Right.
Hot97: And Dre's with Beats, and they have Beats Music. So are you going to put your music on title too?
Kendrick Lamar: I wouldn't know. I wouldn't. I had to sit down with my folks. And figure out what that. You feel what I'm saying? I just think it's just a great idea. For artists to take control.
Hot97: Yeah, just the idea of that.
Kendrick Lamar: And Jay-Z always been about that. He's been preaching that through his music forever. You know what I'm saying? Even getting his masters back with his first album. You feel me? So to see him execute that, that's inspiring, man. Period.
Hot97: Anything we left out, guys? Anything we left out, Miss Info? Hmm. Before we let King Kendrick out the room. One thing we talked about off air is just that just the same way that you kind of bridged a lot of different generations with the Tupac interviews and George Clinton was dropping gems. Was there anything on the album, any voice from beyond that you wanted on there but couldn't get?
Kendrick Lamar: It was Prince. Yeah, I actually did. I went out to his headquarters and we did that show, I think, on the internet. Did it pop up? More than that, I didn't trip off getting the song done. I really appreciate the actual game he was giving me about the same thing that we're talking about. Because he took control of his music. He took control. And that was the first.
Hot97: Changed his name and everything, man. Wrote slave on his face.
Kendrick Lamar: He was really, really, really progressive with it, yeah. And he was breaking down some things, man, that I need to consider in my career. What Jay is doing is just confirmation from what Prince was telling me.
Hot97: Yeah, I know. During all my conversations with Prince and Jay-Z, they're always saying the same thing. It's like, oh, I get it. Hey, you guys, give it up for Kendrick Lamar. Kendrick! Every time you come by, man, we end up having some real knowledge talk.
Kendrick Lamar: We kicking knowledge over here? I love it here, man, because y'all talk about a lot of the important things that don't necessarily get put out there. For real, along with great music and along with, you know, good times.
Hot97: And Summer Jam 2015.
Kendrick Lamar: That's right.
Hot97: Well, listen, enjoy the rest of your day going to talk about gossip and other crap that people ask you about. Oh, shots.
Kendrick Lamar:. Hey, y'all, go shots, shots, shots.