Kendrick Lamar Digital Biography

GOVERNMENT NAME: KENDRICK LAMAR

SUN SIGN: GEMINI

BIRTHDAY: JUNE 17

HOMETOWN: COMPTON, CA

Kendrick Lamar (born June 17, 1987) formerly known as K. Dot, is an American rapper from Compton, California. His music is influenced by Tupac Shakur, Nas, Jay-Z, Kanye West and DMX. He is a member of Black Hippy along with Jay Rock, Ab-Soul and Schoolboy Q. In 2009 he released an EP titled The Kendrick Lamar EP, a highly acclaimed mixtape in 2010 titled O(verly) D(edicated) and released his third solo project Section.80 on July 2, 2011.

In August 2011, Lamar was onstage with Snoop Dogg, Kurupt and The Game, the three of them crowned him the “New King of the West Coast”

Drawing on the harsh environment he was forced to survive and rise above the influence in, Kendrick Lamar’s music has drawn rave reviews from today’s old school hip-hop veterans.

Dr. Dre, arguably hip-hop’s most influential and respected producer, has even gone so far as to take the young rapper under his wing as a mentor. Dre signed Lamar to his Aftermath Entertainment label, which includes established stars like Eminem and 50 Cent. Aside from growing up in the same city, Lamar caught Dre’s attention with his soulful lyrics and true rhythm.

Kendrick, formerly known as K Dot, has already released the 2010 mixtape Overly Dedicated and the 2011 album, Section.80. Both were greeted with impressive reviews, but that didn’t result in much radio recognition. This hasn’t deterred Lamar, as Kendrick is adamant that the possibility of becoming a superstar is not important enough to him to dumb down his raps as many other have.

In 2012, Kendrick Lamar broke into the mainstream music industry with his popular songs, Poetic Justice and Swimming Pools, and is now taking the country by storm.

**FROM LA WEEKLY Article**

Kendrick Lamar likes to compare himself to Tupac Shakur. But Tupac wasn't from Los Angeles and didn't know his father growing up. By the time Tupac was 23, he had already been shot multiple times and begun serving a prison sentence. Lamar, on the other hand, was born and raised in Compton. His parents are still married. He's 23, and so far he has dodged the almost inescapable bullets that dart through what he calls his "mad city."

Even so, Lamar seems to share Tupac's soul; better still, he seems an evolution of it. The line between "Pac the Playboy" and "Tupac the Tortured Poet" was drawn with an indelible marker, but the sides of Lamar's personality bleed into one another. The chorus of "P&P" (an ode to "Pussy and Patron" punctuated by a girl pouting, "Hey, what's up, daddy"), for example, is cookie-cutter braggadocio. Its first verse, however, stacks a precarious tower of thoughts almost tipped over into rage by an incident at a gas station — and leaves him searching through his phone for a comfort he admits is temporary.

Candid vulnerability and a voice that sounds as though he's just inhaled great mouthfuls of smoke (even though he abstains from weed) are why Lamar is on everybody's lips. Last November, Dr. Dre (who was led to Lamar by Eminem's manager) said out of the blue on Power 106's popular morning show Big Boy's Neighborhood that he wanted to work with the rapper.

By now, Lamar has not only worked with Snoop Dogg and Dre, he was snapped, paparazzi-style, sitting courtside at a Lakers game with the legendary producer. His buzz has ratcheted to such a roar that he's considered a shoo-in for XXL magazine's "Freshman 2011" cover.

But he doesn't want to hear that he's the next in line to wear hip-hop's crown. No wonder, considering that honor can be as sturdy as the ones you can get from a box at Burger King. Lamar says he still wants to be making albums when he's 45.

"The hardest thing for me to do is to get you to know me within 16 bars," the rapper says on a track from last fall's O(verly) D(edicated), "Average Joe," in which he relates a story of being shot at by a gang, even though he's not affiliated. The problem isn't that Kendrick Lamar can't reveal himself. It's that there's too much he wants to reveal. His thoughts tumble furiously; words swarm so frantically that in one song he eventually chokes on them.

"Goin' crazy in your head is wanting to say so much, but you can't. I think it comes from my struggling relationship with God — my whole life, I go to sleep every night and just think about God," he says, faltering for a moment. "Is that a trip? That's me trying to find myself in a relationship with Him. Righteous, but at the same time being so [caught up] in the vanities of the world ... it messes me up inside."

Lamar's parents moved from Chicago to Compton in 1984 with all of $500 in their pockets. "My mom's one of 13 siblings, and they all got six kids, and till I was 13 everybody was in Compton," he says. "I'm 6 years old, seein' my uncles playing with shotguns, sellin' dope in front of the apartment. My moms and pops never said nothing, 'cause they were young and living wild, too. I got about 15 stories like 'Average Joe.' "

In school, Lamar was a quiet, observant kid who made good grades. "This is always in my head: There was a math question that I knew the answer to, but I was so scared to say it. Then this little chick said the answer and it was the right answer, my answer. That bothers me still to this day, bein' scared of failure."

Maybe the memory of that missed opportunity is what landed 16-year-old Lamar in front of the "dude to get your music to" in Compton, DudeDawg, chief financial officer of TopDawg Entertainment. "He threw me in the booth. I freestyled for, like, an hour. He said I got raw talent." He's been with the company, along with one of last year's XXL Freshmen, Jay Rock, ever since.

When Kendrick Lamar was growing up, his father used to cheat while playing basketball with him. A few days ago, standing in the middle of a court in a park not far from a sign welcoming you to Compton, Lamar looked up at a hoop and shrugged. "He wanted me to know that was what was gonna happen in life."

Lamar ends sentences with smiles. He's friendly and funny, offering to share the lunch he eventually lets go cold and teasing that he wants to switch interview roles. Yet there are a few instances when he retreats, suddenly looking harder, older.

At the park, he's laughing as he bounces onto the basketball court. He calls a friend who lives a couple of houses down to bring over a ball.

But shortly thereafter, sitting on the back of a bench, he stares up at a rare overcast sky. "I wish it was like this every day. Not raining, 'cause I hate the rain, but cloudy like this," he says. The slight gloom seems to have seeped into his mood; the shift is abrupt and barely perceptible, but definite.

When Tupac pleaded, "Peace," he sounded like he'd already lost hope. Lamar struggles, too. But when he interjects that same refrain between strings of gang names in "Compton State of Mind," he first sounds insistent, then imperative.

These Compton streets was built not to win ...

Standing just beyond the three-point line, Kendrick Lamar shoots the ball.

It arcs, then slips soundlessly through the hoop.

2014–2016: To Pimp a Butterfly and Untitled Unmastered

In an interview with Billboard in February 2014, Lamar stated he was planning to put out a new album the next September. During the same interview, which also included Schoolboy Q, Anthony "Top Dawg" Tiffith, and Dave Free, the possibility of a debut effort from the Black Hippy collective appearing in 2014 was announced. On July 31, 2014, it was announced that Lamar would premiere his short film m.A.A.d at Sundance's inaugural NEXT Fest in Los Angeles on August 9. The film is inspired by good kid, m.A.A.d city, and was directed by Kahlil Joseph, who had previously worked with Lamar on the Yeezus Tour. Lamar featured on the Alicia Keys song "It's On Again", which was written for the film The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014).

On September 23, 2014, Lamar released "i" as the first single from his third album. On November 15, 2014, Lamar once again appeared on Saturday Night Live as the musical guest, where he performed "i" and "Pay for It", appearing alongside Jay Rock. Through his appearance, with blackout contacts and his braids partly out, Lamar paid homage to New York-based rapper Method Man, whose debut album Tical celebrated its 20th anniversary that day. On December 17, 2014, Lamar debuted a new untitled song on one of the final episodes of The Colbert Report. In early 2015, Lamar won Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song for his song "i" at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards. On February 9, 2015, he released his third album's second single, titled "The Blacker the Berry". Originally expected to be released on March 23, 2015, his new album To Pimp a Butterfly was released a week early on March 16, 2015 to rave reviews. The album debuted atop the US Billboard 200 chart selling 324,000 copies in its first week, and established Spotify's global first-day streaming record (9.6 million). Lamar was later featured on the cover of Rolling Stone, with editor Josh Eells writing he's "arguably the most talented rapper of his generation."

On May 17, 2015, Lamar featured on the official remix of American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift's song "Bad Blood", as well as appearing in the music video. The original song is in Swift's fifth studio album 1989. The single reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and the music video won them a Grammy Award for Best Music Video and a MTV Video Music Award for Video of the Year. To Pimp a Butterfly produced other three singles with accompanying music videos, "King Kunta", "Alright" and "These Walls". The music video for "Alright" received four nominations at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards, including Video of the Year and Best Male Video. The song "For Free? (Interlude)" also featured a music video, as did "u" with "For Sale" as part of the short film "God Is Gangsta." In October 2015, Lamar announced the Kunta's Groove Sessions Tour, which included eight shows in eight cities. In early 2016, Kanye West released the track "No More Parties in L.A." on his official SoundCloud, a collaboration featuring Lamar and produced by West and Madlib. Lamar also performed a new song, "Untitled 2" on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in January.

Billboard critics commented at the end of the year, "twenty years ago, a conscious rap record wouldn't have penetrated the mainstream in the way Kendrick Lamar did with To Pimp A Butterfly. His sense of timing is impeccable. In the midst of rampant cases of police brutality and racial tension across America, he spews raw, aggressive bars while possibly cutting a rug," while Pitchfork editors noted it "forced critics to think deeply about music. It's an album by the greatest rapper of his generation." Producer Tony Visconti stated David Bowie's album Blackstar (2016) was influenced by Lamar's work, "we were listening to a lot of Kendrick Lamar [...] we loved the fact Kendrick was so open-minded and he didn't do a straight-up hip-hop record. He threw everything on there, and that's exactly what we wanted to do." Visconti also stated this about Lamar while talking about "rule-breakers" in music.

"His album To Pimp A Butterfly broke every rule in the book and he had a number one album glued to the top of the charts. You'd think certain labels would learn form that. But they take somebody who is out there and say, 'That's what people want.' No, people want that for one week. You don't want the same song every single day of your life."

Lamar won five Grammys at the 58th ceremony, including Best Rap Album for To Pimp a Butterfly. Other nominations included Album of the Year and Song of the Year. At the ceremony, Lamar performed a medley of "The Blacker the Berry" and "Alright". It was ranked by Rolling Stone and Billboard as the best moment of the night, with the latter writing "It was easily one of the best live TV performances in history."

On March 4, 2016, Lamar released a compilation album Untitled Unmastered, containing eight untitled tracks, each dated. Lamar later confirmed that the tracks were unfinished demos from the recording of To Pimp a Butterfly. The compilation album debuted atop the US Billboard 200.

2003–2009: Career beginnings

In 2003, at the age of 16, Lamar released his first full-length project, a mixtape titled Youngest Head Nigga in Charge (Hub City Threat: Minor of the Year), under the pseudonym K.Dot. The mixtape was released under Konkrete Jungle Muzik and garnered local recognition for Lamar. The mixtape led to Lamar securing a recording contract with Top Dawg Entertainment (TDE), a newly founded indie record label based in Carson, California. He began recording material with the label and subsequently released a 26-track mixtape two years later, titled Training Day (2005).

Throughout 2006 and 2007, Lamar would appear alongside other up-and-coming West Coast rappers, such as Jay Rock and Ya Boy, as opening acts for veteran West Coast rapper The Game. Under the moniker K.Dot, Lamar was also featured on The Game's songs "The Cypha" and "Cali Niggaz".

After receiving a co-sign from Lil Wayne, Lamar released his third mixtape in 2009, titled C4, which was heavily themed around Wayne's album Tha Carter III. Soon after, Lamar decided to no longer go by the stage name of K.Dot and opted to use his birth name. He subsequently released a self-titled extended play in late 2009. That same year, Lamar along with his TDE label-mates: Jay Rock, Ab-Soul and ScHoolboy Q formed Black Hippy, a hip hop supergroup.

2010–2011: Overly Dedicated and Section.80

Throughout 2010, Lamar toured with Tech N9ne and Jay Rock on The Independent Grind tour. On September 14, 2010, he released the visuals for "P&P 1.5", a song taken from his mixtape, Overly Dedicated, featuring his Black Hippy cohort Ab-Soul. On the same date, Lamar released Overly Dedicated to digital retailers under Top Dawg Entertainment, and later on September 23, released it for free online. The project fared well enough to enter the United States Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, where it peaked at number 72.

The mixtape includes a song titled "Ignorance Is Bliss", in which Lamar highlights gangsta rap and street crime, but ends each verse with "ignorance is bliss", giving the message "we know not what we do;" it was this song specifically that made hip hop producer Dr. Dre want to work with Lamar after seeing the music video on YouTube. This, and a conversation between Dre and J. Cole. J Cole helped introduce Lamar to Dre which led to Lamar working with Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg on Dre's often-delayed Detox album, as well as speculation of Lamar signing to Dr. Dre's record label, Aftermath Entertainment. In December 2010, Complex magazine spotlighted Lamar in an edition of their "Indie Intro" series.

In early 2011, Lamar was included in XXL's annual Top 10 Freshman Class, and was featured on the cover alongside fellow up-and-coming rappers Cyhi the Prynce, Meek Mill, Fred the Godson, Mac Miller, Yelawolf and Big K.R.I.T., Lil B, and Diggy Simmons. On April 11, 2011, Lamar announced the title of his next full-length project to be Section.80, and the following day the first single "HiiiPoWeR" was released, the concept of which was to further explain the HiiiPoWeR movement. The song was produced by fellow American rapper J. Cole, marking their first of several collaborations.

On the topic of whether his next project would be an album or a mixtape, Lamar answered: "I treat every project like it's an album anyway. It's not going to be nothing leftover. I never do nothing like that. These are my leftover songs you all can have them. I'm going to put my best out. My best effort. I'm trying to look for an album in 2012.” In June 2011, Lamar released "Ronald Reagan Era (His Evils)", a cut from Section.80, featuring Wu-Tang Clan leader RZA. On July 2, 2011, Lamar released Section.80, his first independent album. The album features guest appearances from GLC, Colin Munroe, Schoolboy Q, and Ab-Soul, while the production was handled by Top Dawg in-house production team Digi+Phonics as well as Wyldfyer, Terrace Martin and J. Cole. Section.80 went on to sell 5,300 digital copies in its first week, without any television or radio coverage, and received mostly positive reviews.

In August 2011, while performing at a West Los Angeles concert, Lamar was dubbed the "New King of the West Coast" by Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre and Game. On August 24, 2011, Lamar released the music video for the Section.80 track, "ADHD". The video was directed by Vashtie Kola who had this to say of the video: "Inspired by "A.D.H.D"'s dark beat and melancholy lyrics which explore a generation in conflict, we find Kendrick Lamar in a video that illustrates the songs universal and age-old theme of apathetic youth. (...) Shot in New York City during the sweltering July Summer heat". In October 2011, Lamar appeared alongside fellow American rappers B.o.B, Tech N9ne, MGK, and Big K.R.I.T., in a cypher at the BET Hip Hop Awards. Also in October, Lamar partnered with Windows Phone, and crafted an original song with producer Nosaj Thing entitled "Cloud 10", to promote Microsoft's new product. During 2011, Lamar appeared on several high-profile albums including Game's The R.E.D. Album, Tech N9ne's All 6's and 7's, 9th Wonder's The Wonder Years and Canadian recording artist Drake's Grammy Award-winning Take Care, which featured Lamar on a solo track.

2017–present: Damn and Black Panther soundtrack; hiatus and final Top Dawg Entertainment album

On March 23, 2017, Lamar released a promotional single "The Heart Part 4". A week later, Lamar released the lead single, titled "Humble", accompanied by its music video. On April 7, 2017, his fourth studio album was made available for pre-order and confirmed to be released on April 14, 2017. On April 11, Lamar announced the album title, Damn (stylized as DAMN.), as well as the track list, which confirmed guest appearances by Rihanna, Zacari, and U2. The album was released on April 14, 2017 to rave reviews, with a Rolling Stone writer describing it as a combination of "the old school and the next-level." It marked his third number one album on the Billboard 200 chart, and the single "Humble" became his first number one as a lead artist on the Billboard Hot 100. On May 4, 2017, Damn was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Lamar later released the DAMN. Collectors Edition in mid-December 2017, with the tracklist from the original album in reverse order.

Along with Top Dawg Entertainment founder Anthony Tiffith, Lamar produced and curated the film soundtrack for the Marvel Studios superhero film Black Panther (2018), titled Black Panther: The Album. A single from the soundtrack, "All the Stars", was released in January 2018 featuring singer SZA, and it earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song. Shortly thereafter, another track, titled "King's Dead", was released by Jay Rock featuring Lamar, Future and James Blake. The third single, "Pray For Me", by Lamar and The Weeknd, was released in February 2018, ahead of the album's release in that month. Black Panther: The Album was released on February 9, 2018 to universal acclaim.

In January 2018, Lamar's song publishing deal with Warner/Chappell Music began to expire. Top Dawg Entertainment, which represents Lamar, is seeking $20 to $40 million for the rapper's catalogue. Lamar opened the 60th Annual Grammy Awards with a medley of "XXX", "Lust", "DNA", "Humble", "King's Dead" and Rich the Kid's "New Freezer". He was also nominated for seven awards, including Album of the Year and Best Rap Album for Damn, and the Record of the Year, Best Rap Performance, Best Rap Song, and Best Music Video for "Humble", and Best Rap/Sung Performance for "Loyalty" with Rihanna. Lamar ultimately won five awards at the ceremony, for Best Rap Album, Best Rap Performance, Best Rap Song, Best Music Video, and Best Rap/Sung Performance.[155] After the Black Panther soundtrack, Lamar did not release music of his own for four years.

In July 2018, Lamar made his acting debut in the fifth season of the Starz drama series Power, portraying a Dominican drug addict named Laces. Lamar's casting stemmed from his friendship with rapper 50 Cent, who also executive produces and stars in the series. Series creator Courtney A. Kemp said that Lamar told 50 Cent that he wanted to be on the show and 50 Cent organized the appearance. Lamar wanted to portray a character that did not resemble his musical persona, and drew inspiration from various people he knew when growing up in Compton. He also compared his acting preparation to his songwriting, saying that he prefers to "always have that open space to evolve". Lamar's performance was praised by critics and viewers.

Following a four-year hiatus, Lamar teased his final album under the TDE label on his website oklama.com along with posts on his social media accounts. Lamar later re-emerged with the single, "Family Ties" alongside his cousin and labelmate Baby Keem.

(sources: laweekly.com, kendricklamarhq.com, infoplease.com, artistsofhiphop.com, Wikipedia)

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