Kendrick Lamar is opening up about his smash hit “Not Like Us” in a way he never has before.
Source: Quentin De Briey
Despite being one of the biggest stars in the music industry for quite some time now, Kendrick Lamar manages to maintain a pretty private personal life. He’s not one for interviews, but this week, he graced the cover of the Harper’s BAZAAR 2024 November Voices Issue, being interviewed by his friend and former TDE labelmate, SZA.
This conversation marks the Compton native’s first interview since dropping the undisputed song of the summer, “Not Like Us.” Though he didn’t mention Drake, directly, when asked by SZA what the phrase “not like us” means to him, Kendrick did throw a couple of strays while describing the type of person that does and doesn’t identify with the song.
“Not like us? Not like us is the energy of who I am, the type of man I represent,” Lamar began. “Now, if you identify with the man that I represent…This man has morals, he has values, he believes in something, he stands on something. He’s not pandering.”
He continued, “He’s a man who can recognize his mistakes and not be afraid to share the mistakes and can dig deep down into fear-based ideologies or experiences to be able to express them without feeling like he’s less of a man. If I’m thinking of ‘Not Like Us,’ I’m thinking of me and whoever identifies with that.”
Source: Quentin De Briey
SZA went on to ask, “So when you feel the surge of energy in records like that, where is that root? Is it anger?”
In response, Kendrick explained: “But I do believe in love and war, and I believe they both need to exist. And my awareness of that allows me to react to things but not identify with them as who I am. Just allowing them to exist and allowing them to flow through me. That’s what I believe.”
The “Love Galore” singer went on to ask Kendrick about the last time he cried, which hasn’t been for a few years.
“I would say the last time I cried was probably on Mr. Morale [2022’s Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers] on the “Mother I Sober” record,” he admitted. “That s**t was deep for me.”
As for the first time Lamar allowed himself to be that vulnerable, he cites the Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg’s Coachella performance in 2011, when they brought out a young Kendrick and ceremoniously passed him the torch for West Coast hip hop.
“The first time I allowed it to happen is documented, actually, onstage when Dre and Snoop and the whole West Coast was out, and they was like, ‘This is the torch that we were handing off,’” he explained. “Dre passed me the torch, and a burst of energy just came out and I had to let it flow.”
“My tears is all on the internet,” Kendrick recalls. “And now I look back and I love that moment. I love that that happened. Because it showed me in real time expressing myself and seeing all the work that I put forth actually come to life in that moment.”
Source: Quentin De Briey
You can read Kendrick Lamar’s full interview with SZA here.