Kendrick Lamar Interviewed By SZA In First In-Depth Q&A Since Drake Drama
Kendrick Lamar has mostly spoken through his music in 2024; until now. The 37-year-old rapper sat down with his former labelmate SZA for the upcoming November cover of Harper’s Bazaar.
Throughout the conversation, published on Monday (Oct. 21), they discussed spirituality, mental health, the honesty of their content, and more. The SOS singer opened the conversation by asking Lamar if he was “mentally ill,” and he responded: “I grew up with that term. I was hearing it when I was five, six years old […] My whole thing is, it’s all experience. I say some sh*t on a record and identify with a moment, and then I don’t identify with it anymore. That’s just growth for me. All that sh*t is subjective.”
K. Dot also described how running has become a daily activity for him and how it connects to his spirituality. “When I started running, that’s where I started to understand,” he said. “There was this threshold of pain in the spirituality for me. I remember my shins was aching and I was like, ‘I got one mile to go.’ Then I get whispers and downloads and start talking about sh*t that I want to know about. And next thing I’m three miles in, four miles in. I wake up and do that sh*t every day.”
Later in the conversation, Kendrick Lamar reveals the three things that have contributed to his self-transformation over the last few years. “The power of honesty and being honest with myself,” he began. “Perspective about the person sitting across from me, and learning that vulnerability is not a weakness. That last one probably been one I’m still developing.”
He also claimed that learning vulnerability isn’t a weakness was the hardest thing for him and brought it back to his childhood. “I hate going back to that,” he said. “It’s traumatizing. My pops, he was tough. He was militant, as far as every day you are expected to go to work, take care of your family, get back up to do it all over again. Being-a-man type sh*t, right? And he never showed no weakness. He never showed any emotion that could garner a one-up from the person sitting across from him.” Lamar stated that he learned that and wasn’t aware that he possessed the same characteristics.
“For what I do, there is certainly no growth without vulnerability,” he continued. “If I understood the power of vulnerability earlier, I could have had more depth and more reach to the guys that was around me in the neighborhood coming up. You know, our parents, they never had these outlets to express themselves the way they wanted to. I’ve always looked at us as somewhat of a beacon of hope [for them].”
SZA asked Kendrick Lamar to recall the last time and the first he cried. For the last time, he said it was when he was working on his 2022 album Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, specifically “Mother I Sober.” As for the first time, it was the 2011 moment he was crowned the “next up” in California by Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, and other major rappers in the state.
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