9 Things We Learned From Kendrick Lamar in Vanity Fair

Source: Annie Leibovitz / Courtesy of Vanity Fair

Kendrick Lamar’s been enjoying one hell of a 2018. In a year that’s seen Kendrick Lamar’s 2017 album DAMN. not only get Rolling Stone’s Album of The Year honors and also net him a Pulitzer Prize, Kung Fu Kenny’s found himself kickin’ down doors like he’s the law. Throw your hands in the air, fools!

Vanity Fair recently caught up with the transcendent Hip-Hop MC while he was making the rounds and got an in-depth interview in which the Compton representative opened up about his upbringing, how being on welfare helped him bond with his parents, and why he doesn’t like talking politics with people in the age of Trump.

Here are the 9 things we learned from Kendrick Lamar in Vanity Fair.

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1. Kendrick

Kendrick Lamar was indeed named after The Temptations lead singer, Eddie Kendrick. Guess Papoose was right about Kendrick having two last names for a full name.

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2. Two-Parent Household

Kendrick credits having both parents at home with him remaining grounded in life as a lot of his classmates and friends were on Caine status and lived with their grandparents. “It shows you loyalty. When I look around at my classmates and my friends, they all lived with their grandparents. To have a mother and a father in your household—this showed me immediately that anything is possible.” Interestingly enough his parents seem to hail from Chicago and moved to Compton with just $500 in their pockets. Who says love isn’t enough to get by?

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3. Early Signs

While in third grade Kendrick astounded his elementary school teacher by properly using the word “audacity” and while any other parent would’ve celebrated that alone, his father challenged him to continue to expand his vocabulary. This is kind of reminiscent of how Afeni Shakur used to have Tupac read the New York Times as a form of punishment, but also education.

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4. The N-Word

Earlier this year Kendrick stopped a show when a white woman he invited on stage sang along with his track and said the N-word. Asked about his thoughts on white folks possibly getting a pass for using the appropriated version of the word, K. Dot simply states I’ve been on this earth for 30 years, and there’s been so many things a Caucasian person said I couldn’t do. Get good credit. Buy a house in an urban city. So many things—’you can’t do that’—whether it’s from afar or close up. So if I say this is my word, let me have this one word, please let me have that word.”

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5. Slim Influence

K. Dot credits Eminem for helping him craft his complicated rhyme style saying that “The Marshall Mathers LP changed my life.”

Source: Annie Leibovitz / Courtesy of Vanity Fair

6. Rolling Dolo

Like most true to life geniuses, Kendrick Lamar likes “to be alone a lot” and describes himself as “introverted.” “I need that. It’s that duality: I can go in front of a crowd of 100,000 people and express myself, then go back, be alone, and collect my thoughts all over again.”

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7. Family Bonds

Kendrick admits that though his family went through the struggle with food stamps and welfare, the silver lining in that was that the walk to the County Building it helped him build a deeper bond with his old man and old earth. “It wasn’t about the County building; it was about the walk to the building. Because if we didn’t have that County building to walk to, I wouldn’t have built that bond with my mother, or my father, to see that this is a family.”

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8. Colin Kaepernick

Speaking on the current state of the NFL and the political issues that have risen from Colin Kaepernick’s righteous protest, Kendrick says he’s gone from a fan of the game to “less enthused.” Calling it “enraging,” K. Dot felt Kap was only being “honest” and telling “our truth” when he took that knee against police brutality.

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9. Kanye West

That being said, King Kenny admits that he doesn’t like talking politics because he gets “too frustrated” but if he wanted to he’d have a long heart-to-heart with Kanye “MAGA” West about his newfound opinion on slavery and sudden support of Trumpism.