Kendrick Lamar BigBoyTV DAMN Interview

BigBoyTV: BigBoy's Neighborhood, ladies and gentlemen. You can't even say he's home, isn't I? Right. Because he always come through, you know what I'm saying? Kendrick Lamar is in the neighborhood. Welcome back to the neighborhood. Go ahead and turn it up, man. You know what I love about us sitting down together, Kendrick? You were my first guest when I made the move, you know what I'm saying? You probably don't remember because it didn't mean nothing to... Kendrick Lamar: I remember that.BigBotTV: Oh, okay, you did.Kendrick Lamar: Don't play me like that, manBigBoyTV: Okay, I was just checking off. I don't know if you remember. You know what I mean? Because you're doing some... Can we get the man a pair of headphones that work? There we go. Good Lord have mercy, man. But welcome back to the neighborhood, man.Kendrick Lamar: Thank you for having me.BigBoyTV: I'm going to tell you, man, at one point when you were saying, oh, Big, I don't know if I'm going to blow up and I'm thinking about getting out the business. And I told you, I said, man, stay on the path. It's coming. You did that. And look at us now. Kendrick Lamar: Look at us now. BigBoyTV: You know what I'm saying?Kendrick Lamar: Right, right.BigBoyTV: You know our cats always try to be responsible for a piece of your success. Like, man, I told them, man.Kendrick Lamar: You're going to get that every day.BigBoyTV: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Hell yeah. But how is it now? Oh, man. You know what I'm saying? And not that there's no struggle or whatever. You know what I'm saying? But how is it now? Has there been a difference, a change from the last five years to today? Not just record success, but just life and everything.Kendrick Lamar: Oh, yeah, definitely. Me being able to support my family.BigBoyTV: Can you support mine, too?Kendrick Lamar: Yeah.BigBoyTV: Come on. Come on. At least just one. You know what I'm saying? But yeah, that's got to be great.Kendrick Lamar: That's great. Inspire, you know, my little brothers and sisters. Inspire my little cousins, my city. It also makes me more hungry, though.BigBoyTV: Really, though?Kendrick Lamar: Yeah.BigBoyTV: Why?Kendrick Lamar: Because it's a need to never be content or to be comfortable. You know, you always want to continue to grow. So whatever that challenge is, I'm always looking for it.BigBoyTV: Do you feel like you wrote your best verse yet?Kendrick Lamar: My best verse yet? Nope.BigBoyTV: Damn. Nope.BigBoyTV: Do you ever...Kendrick Lamar: I'm always searching for that.BigBoyTV: Really, though?Kendrick Lamar: Oh, I'm searching for that.BigBoyTV: When you write, Kendrick, do you write or are you in the head or are you on a device?Kendrick Lamar: Oh, three.BigBoyTV: Damn.Kendrick Lamar: However I can get to it. Might just jump on the mic. Might just have a pen. Might be that little tablet right there.BigBoyTV: Can you please take that tablet but turn it back to us? You know what I'm saying? Let us keep it. Like, good Lord, yeah. He wrote me a little note. I took the note. He don't even know I'm about to sell that in Japan. Right. You know, is it different now? Everybody know who Kendrick Lamar is? Is it different to kind of step out now, privacy and everything?Kendrick Lamar: Oh, yeah, definitely. I can't go nowhere.BigBoyTV: Really?Kendrick Lamar: I can't rock like that, but I got to. I can't be a prisoner at the same time, so you may see me in a little hole in the hall spot. You may see me in the city. You may see me at the corner store. I got to go.BigBoyTV: But you do have to plan your step up. You know you're going to be held up just a little bit more now. So you do have to give yourself some wiggle room to get to a seat. Because I see you at the games. I see you walking all the way down where your seats are at. You know what I'm saying? You know how you're right there.Kendrick Lamar: What seats is that, bitch?BigBoyTV: If you put your foot out a little bit more, you know what I'm saying? Or if you're like two inches taller. I don't know how tall you are. You would trip one of the clippers or a leg. Right, right. You know what I'm saying? I don't know what those seats cost. And I'm going to tell you, man, I will call you and I don't know what they cost I'm talking about. I will call you and Top. I will be looking right at y'all just so y'all can invite me down. I will call Top and I will see Top pull his phone out and go like this. Then put it back in his pocket. You know what I'm saying? Like Big ain't coming down there.Kendrick Lamar: They don't do Big like that.BigBoyTV: He right there on the floor with us somewhere. We just don't see him.Kendrick Lamar: Hilarious.BigBoyTV: We just don't see him.Kendrick Lamar: Hilarious.BigBoyTV: You'll see a picture. It'll be Kendrick, Top, Beyonce, Jay-Z, and whoever else is just sitting there. Now, if they want to go ahead and put one of them scope lenses on the camera, like one of them long ass lenses, then you will see Big Boy, Veronica, Jaden, and Jade. I'm fine with where we sit. You know what I'm saying? It's just that, you know, we got things to work towards. You know what I'm saying?Kendrick Lamar: Okay, we got to make some changes then, dog, since we said that. Dave, you right here?BigBoyTV: He ain't going to do nothing.Kendrick Lamar: Okay.BigBoyTV: He's like, yeah, okay. All that fake ass turning around. Watch your top listening. Watch this. Your team ain't supposed to do this. Watch this. I'm going to show you this, man. Hey, hey, Louie.Louie: What up?BigBoyTV: Hey, man, you know I'm the best man in the world, right?Louie: Oh, of course I know.BigBoyTV: There it is. You're supposed to do it.Kendrick Lamar: Easy.BigBoyTV: That's the team. You know, next time I go out, man, I'm going to have you at a basketball game sitting front row with me.Louie: Oh, front row.BigBoyTV: There it is right there. You're supposed to do that.Louie: Of course.BigBoyTV: Dave face was serious. When you turn around with that bullshit. You know what I'm saying? Damn the album.Kendrick Lamar: Yes, sir.BigBoyTV: Man, now let me tell you, that's one of those, man, I don't buy a lot through iTunes. You know what I'm saying? And I don't steal either. I'm going to tell you straight up. But when I buy something, as far as like an album, I got to be ready for it. And that album is amazing.Kendrick Lamar: Appreciate it.BigBoyTV: And you know what I love about it, man? At one point, and not with what's going on in hip hop or whatever, it's just that we don't get albums sometimes. You know what I'm saying? And it was a minute, Kendrick, that we weren't getting albums.Kendrick Lamar: Yeah.BigBoyTV: And cats are kind of coming back lyrically and all that stuff. But I enjoyed that I had an album that I could listen to and continue to listen to and drive and fly with it. You know what I'm saying? It wasn't just like every, like you can sit here now and ask someone what their favorite is. And everybody either, if you say one or everybody have a different one or you come with two, three, four, five different records, man. Did you know the impact of Damn when you were sitting down creating that?Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, because that was the whole thing. We wanted to make it for all arenas.BigBoyTV: Car.Kendrick Lamar: Yes, sir.BigBoyTV: We want you to be in the club.Kendrick Lamar: Yes, sir.BigBoyTV: We want you to, you say, fly and listen to it and just vibe into it.Kendrick Lamar: And that whole approach was from the jump. But at the same time, we want to have some lyrical content where it connects. Where it's just not just lyrics, but it's something that you can actually feel. The stories you can feel, emotions you can relate to, like pride and love and self-worth or doubt.BigBoyTV: You know what I mean? Why Damn?Kendrick Lamar: Damn.BigBoyTV: I mean, I mean, we know we can say like, damn, you know what I'm saying? But why did you title the album Damn?Kendrick Lamar: It was so many different ways you can put it in my head. It was like from the concept Damn if I do, Damn if I don't. The loudness of the record, it just screamed that in my face. When I think of DNA, when I think of Humble, when I think about these records, it just felt like that.BigBoyTV: Now, let me tell you, now my knee is getting bad. All righty. I was at a, who show were we just at, that you came out and did Damn? Where were we at? Was it BT?Kendrick Lamar: Was it BT? Yeah, BT.BigBoyTV: Yeah, man. My knee almost gave out that night. But it's crazy what that energy feel like when you come out on stage as well.Kendrick Lamar: Yeah.BigBoyTV: Can you still hear that?Kendrick Lamar: Yeah. All the time.BigBoyTV: Because I thought you just got like a little more conceited or something. So you can still hear those things.Kendrick Lamar: I can still hear.BigBoyTV: How do you pick and choose who do you come out on stage with or is it just availability?Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, it's really artists I respect and just have a love for their music. And off the record too, you know, it'd be some real cool individuals out there and it'd be some real assholes that I really don't rock with. You know what I'm saying? So a lot of people that I work with, they just have a mutual bond there.BigBoyTV: Because everybody want the Kendrick verse.Kendrick Lamar: Yes.BigBoyTV: You know what I'm saying? Like I don't even do music and I want it.Kendrick Lamar: Exactly.BigBoyTV: How do you pick and choose? Is it the same kind of thing where it's like, you know, I definitely got to rock with that person?Kendrick Lamar: It's really all in the music at that point.BigBoyTV: Yeah.Kendrick Lamar: Because you can rock with that person.BigBoyTV: Right, right, right.Kendrick Lamar: And they give you a trash song and you'll be like, I can't, I'm not inspired by it. So the record just has to be something that I can connect to.BigBoyTV: Why the just a single word for every song?Kendrick Lamar: And did it get hard when you start thinking like, damn.BigBoyTV: Oh, that's two songs. Yeah, you know what I'm saying?Kendrick Lamar: If you can see that list, that list was like Scrabble, man. Trying to figure out what emotion captured the actual lyrics. So I write a verse and do the whole song. And then I feel or look at words that I feel like capture that emotion. You know?BigBoyTV: So we was going through that back and forth all through the whole process. Did you ever have another album title for Damn?Kendrick Lamar: What Happened on Earth Stays on Earth.BigBoyTV: What Happens on Earth Stays on Earth. Why not that?Kendrick Lamar: That's a long ass title.BigBoyTV: That's a long ass title.Kendrick Lamar: There you go.BigBoyTV: You know what I'm saying? That's Kendrick Lamar and What Happens on Earth Stays on Earth. What is that?Kendrick Lamar: Yeah.BigBoyTV: Do you have that new Kendrick What Happens on Earth Stays on Earth? I think it's like What Happens on Earth Stays on Earth. Yeah, man. So we putting that together, man. So as you see, we got Joel in here. He's been shooting the album cover. And you didn't even know. Get this one, Joel. What Happens on Earth Stays on Earth. At what point during the album do you decide to add Kid Capri on there?Kendrick Lamar: Kid Capri. Kid Capri.BigBoyTV: That was one of the earliest ideas, actually. I just wanted to make it feel like something that was raw and organic. You know, something that just came from the underground. At the same time, still have these ear candy sounds. So it was just meshing two worlds together the best way I could and making it connect.BigBoyTV: When you reached out to him to let him know you wanted him a part of this project, what was his reaction?Kendrick Lamar: Man, he was excited. He was excited. You know, just off the simple fact that I respect the culture and I respect the legacy and the people that laid the foundation and just bringing him to, you know, the forefront of what's going on today. So he was all for it. And, you know, I gave him a rundown of how I wanted to feel and what I wanted to convey through the music. And he was rocking.BigBoyTV: I love that. I just love that, like, that sound and, like, that feeling that he brought back. I was like, what?Kendrick Lamar: Yeah.BigBoyTV: I want to tell you straight up. Some of us kind of low-key hated on that. You know what I'm saying? Man, I love Kid Capri, but I could have did that.Kendrick Lamar: Yes, he could have.BigBoyTV: Not like that.Kendrick Lamar: You know, not like Kid Capri, because that's legendary.BigBoyTV: Like Big Boy.Kendrick Lamar: Then he threw out the album.BigBoyTV: You couldn't have shared it with a couple of us, you know what I'm saying?Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, you know.BigBoyTV: But you got more albums in you, you know what I'm saying? So ours is coming, man.Kendrick Lamar: You'll be here, Big.BigBoyTV: It'll be greater later.Kendrick Lamar: Oh, yeah.BigBoyTV: Greater later, brother. We got the floor seats.Kendrick Lamar: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.BigBoyTV: Hey, man, you going to stop coming here. You be like, dude, he be in there begging for a whole lot of shit, dog. You know what I'm saying? He's doing that no more. He's asking for massages. Like, yeah, man, what's the number? I'm just going to call in.Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, I'm just going to call in.BigBoyTV: Got in the car. Big was sitting in my car talking about taking me to the crib. Kendrick Lamar in the neighborhood, man. Birthday just passed. What did you do for your birthday, fam?Kendrick Lamar: I actually shot a video, the Element's video.BigBoyTV: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We peeped that out.Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, yeah.BigBoyTV: So you did that on your birthday? That's a gift to yourself?Kendrick Lamar: No, you know what I'm saying?BigBoyTV: Like you could have did anything in the world that you wanted to do, but you chose to work.Kendrick Lamar: Well, we had that already locked in, so I had to get it done.BigBoyTV: Your birthday's already locked in every year, homie. You know where your birthday is. It's not like somebody going to tell you your birthday tomorrow. Oh, shit, I had a video. That happens every year on the same day. Why don't y'all sketch my stuff right, man?Kendrick Lamar: How did you do that?BigBoyTV: Look at this right here, man.Kendrick Lamar: Yep. Damn. You got a point, guys.BigBoyTV: All righty-wo. You got a real good point, right? We might have to get you to set. You know what I'm saying? We got to get you to set. Mama, look at this, man. This is crazy.Kendrick Lamar: Yeah.BigBoyTV: So you knew your birthday. You know what I'm saying? You're the 17th. You knew your birthday was that day, but you, you know.Kendrick Lamar: I had to work.BigBoyTV: You shot the video.Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, I had to work.BigBoyTV: I heard that, man. Get that done. Now, who's making you work like this?Kendrick Lamar: Myself, man.BigBoyTV: As you should. That's why you're the greatest at what you do, bro.Kendrick Lamar: I appreciate it.BigBoyTV: Do you ever listen to your music, and you listen and go, damn.Kendrick Lamar: I do.BigBoyTV: That's dope.Kendrick Lamar: I do. My older music.BigBoyTV: That's dope, Kendrick. Because I'm telling you, man, as much as we listen, I always find something else. And that's what I enjoy about it.Kendrick Lamar: That's dope.BigBoyTV: And there's times when I listen, and I'm like, I'm about to say, damn, which is so cliche. But there's times you listen, you'll be like, damn. So I'm wondering, do you have a favorite Kendrick? Let's say, damn, because you got 7,000 records, you know what I'm saying? But do you have one on, damn, that brings a certain emotion? Are you like, this is the one I could rock to the most?Kendrick Lamar: The last record, Duckworth.BigBoyTV: Oh, man.Kendrick Lamar: Yeah.BigBoyTV: And a story to tell on that. And see, that's another one that I continue to rewind. So you and Pops and Top, was it about to be not something crazy, but you explained the story so well. So that was Top going into the chicken spot.Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, true story.BigBoyTV: True story.Kendrick Lamar: Getting extra biscuits and tickets.BigBoyTV: Yeah, exactly.Kendrick Lamar: The moment I met Top, my pops came around, they just bumped heads, and they was like, this is crazy. And I'm like, what's going on? And sure enough, they knew each other back then. So I've been holding this story for a minute, because I just wanted to throw the right time to make it feel right.BigBoyTV: Get all successful first, you know what I'm saying? Did your dad or Top know that you were going to throw this in the album?Kendrick Lamar: No, they didn't.BigBoyTV: What was their reaction?Kendrick Lamar: They heard it at the end. They was blown away. They was blown away.BigBoyTV: So they heard it at the end process. That's a really, really dope song. I have this question for you. At the end of Duckworth, the entire album sounds like it's rewounded and reversed. You know, rewounded.Kendrick Lamar: Rewind it.BigBoyTV: Take that and put that in your next single. Rewind it. Take that and put that in your next single.Kendrick Lamar: You know what I meant.BigBoyTV: Rewind it. So like in the beginning with Blood, in the beginning with Blood, is that the beginning or the end of the album? Because the end of Duckworth confuses me.Kendrick Lamar: You know I can't tell you that.BigBoyTV: Why can't you tell me?Kendrick Lamar: Because it's for the listening.BigBoyTV: I need to know.Kendrick Lamar: I can't.BigBoyTV: I'll be giving away for the whole world.Kendrick Lamar: Get him out of here. Get him out.BigBoyTV: He don't want to tell us nothing. It's good, man.Kendrick Lamar: Aw.BigBoyTV: Two years ago, he would have told us. You know what I'm saying? Two years ago, he would have told us, man. Now, why you can't tell us? I mean, dude, it's like a damn project figuring out some of your stuff, man. And there ain't nothing you can just tell us? Like legit, it gave me a headache trying to figure it out.Kendrick Lamar: Well, it can mean multiple things. But for me, the initial thing was these stories never happen.BigBoyTV: That makes sense to you.Kendrick Lamar: Kind of.BigBoyTV: If it goes.Kendrick Lamar: Yeah. It never happened.BigBoyTV: None of it.Kendrick Lamar: None of it happened.BigBoyTV: So you get to reverse and.Kendrick Lamar: Start it all over again.BigBoyTV: Yeah. That's why.Kendrick Lamar: Yeah.BigBoyTV: So then blood is like starting all over again.Kendrick Lamar: No, I get it.BigBoyTV: You die in blood.Kendrick Lamar: I got chills right now.BigBoyTV: You get shot by a blind lady.Kendrick Lamar: That's a whole nother concept.BigBoyTV: So you got to break that down.Kendrick Lamar: Oh, my God. Oh, my God, dude. I'm not doing all this. I got kids to raise and all this, man.BigBoyTV: You just going to have to go bubble gum on us, man. All this intricate rap stuff, man. You got to go viciously in the place to be, homie. You got to.Kendrick Lamar: Yeah.BigBoyTV: You got to get off all these concepts and all this intricate stuff, man. Oh, we got us thinking and trying to elevate and educate our minds, man. Trying to look out for the kids. What's wrong with you?Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, right.BigBoyTV: Yeah, man. Got us thinking. You know, do you find yourself, Kendrick, being a little more conscious now, though, too?Kendrick Lamar: What do you mean as far as what?BigBoyTV: Just like I hear more of a message in the music or, yeah, is that somewhere you at? Life?Kendrick Lamar: It's more like my views rather than trying to throw it on a listener. And I think that's my biggest connection with my audience and why it connects the way it do because it's not necessarily preachy. It's just my own ups and downs and trying to figure myself out as well as going through these times of traveling the world and my own experiences and putting them all into one.BigBoyTV: And when you say own experiences, right, in Element, you say that you got stumped out in front of your mama. You really got stumped out in front of your mama?Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, Avalon Swap Me.BigBoyTV: Damn. Oh, Bob, when I heard that?Kendrick Lamar: Avalon Swap Me, yep.BigBoyTV: In front of your mama?Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, yeah. She was walking out. I'm already fading. Boop, boop, boop. About three, four dudes. And just looking at mom's tweet, though, that she had sent back, she came back and helped you out, though, too, right?Kendrick Lamar: Oh, yeah.BigBoyTV: Yeah, it seemed like mom bought it, too.Kendrick Lamar: She'd run up and be like, get out, my motherfuckers!BigBoyTV: So, damn, did she see it or she saw, like, the aftermath of it?Kendrick Lamar: She's seen it. Damn. She's seen it. She's seen it.BigBoyTV: But, you know, it's funny, out of the respect of them seeing her coming out.Kendrick Lamar: They could have killed you.BigBoyTV: Yeah, right.Kendrick Lamar: They could have, right.BigBoyTV: They just booked it out.Kendrick Lamar: Yeah.BigBoyTV: Damn. That's crazy. How old were you?Kendrick Lamar: I was probably about 15.BigBoyTV: Damn.Kendrick Lamar: Damn. 15.BigBoyTV: So somebody claimed to fame is that they stomped you out in the Avalon Swap Me.Kendrick Lamar: Oh, yeah.BigBoyTV: I stomped them out.Kendrick Lamar: You hear the story?BigBoyTV: Somebody got that.Kendrick Lamar: Damn.BigBoyTV: Yeah, they got that for sure.Kendrick Lamar: I heard that, man.BigBoyTV: Boy, see, somebody, I ain't writing about it.Kendrick Lamar: Cats would be like, man, we whooped on big at the Slauson Swap Me.BigBoyTV: I'm like, no, you didn't.Kendrick Lamar: Hell no.BigBoyTV: No, you didn't. On that tip of you saying that you're not trying to be preachy, but a lot of people have chosen you to be the voice of this generation.Kendrick Lamar: Oh, my gosh.BigBoyTV: Does that put, what kind of pressure does that put on you?Kendrick Lamar: It puts, I wouldn't necessarily say pressure. All I can do is continue to be an actual human being and to show them that I go through the same emotions and the same feelings that y'all go through. So, if they put that as being the leader of this generation, then so be it, because all I can do is express myself and hope you take something from it.BigBoyTV: Does it make you happy that you are, like, I want to say, like, you're so talented that you've become, like, not any, that doesn't happen to everyone. Right. Does it give you joy or does it, does it pain you to, like, what kind of emotions go through that, though?Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, it gave me joy that, you know, people are actually listening, you know. It's people, you know, they break my whole 16 bars down better than I can, you know what I'm saying, and pull something away from it different from, you know, what inspired me to write it. So, just that right there is the ultimate joy. Going out on those stages and seeing them kids rap these lyrics, that's the feeling.BigBoyTV: How many unreleased songs do you have in your head or that we haven't heard yet?Kendrick Lamar: Thousands.BigBoyTV: I done lost hard drives.Kendrick Lamar: Damn.BigBoyTV: Really?Kendrick Lamar: Hard drives from 05, 06, we never got back.BigBoyTV: Took it all the way to San Francisco to get it fixed.Kendrick Lamar: Never got fixed.BigBoyTV: Songs in votes.Kendrick Lamar: Do you still have the hard drive?BigBoyTV: Mm-hmm.Kendrick Lamar: We praying to God that it'll come back to life one day.BigBoyTV: Let me tell you, man, I probably have someone for real that can get it.Kendrick Lamar: You think so?BigBoyTV: You think so?Kendrick Lamar: Probably. But it's going to come with a price.BigBoyTV: Of course it is. How much material is in there?Kendrick Lamar: This is about 500 songs.BigBoyTV: 500 songs. Let's find it. If I can get that fixed for you.Kendrick Lamar: I hope Topical we listening to this, boy.BigBoyTV: If I can get that fixed for you, will you give me a free show?Kendrick Lamar: For sure.BigBoyTV: Easy. I'm not talking about no radio show, Doc. I'm talking about...Kendrick Lamar: Sorry, Doc.BigBoyTV: I'm talking about there's something I can make me a man off of.Kendrick Lamar: You know what I'm saying?BigBoyTV: You're going to make me a man.Kendrick Lamar: You know what I'm saying?BigBoyTV: You know, I love real and I love iHeart, bro. But I love Jade and, you know, Jade and Veronica a lot better.Kendrick Lamar: Man, I was just asking them all fair.BigBoyTV: How's the relationships with the beef with you at Schoolboy?Kendrick Lamar: Are you guys cool yet?BigBoyTV: Are y'all back to...Kendrick Lamar: You know how everybody needs the exclusive.BigBoyTV: Like, you got to create a story.Kendrick Lamar: Right.BigBoyTV: Now, on the real, was Schoolboy one of the cats that stomped you out in front of your mom?Kendrick Lamar: Nah.BigBoyTV: Imagine.Kendrick Lamar: It probably been for you, though, if you said it.BigBoyTV: It's from over there.Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, yeah.BigBoyTV: When I got caught up.Kendrick Lamar: Like, man, what the hell?BigBoyTV: Like, dude Wells wearing a fishing hat.Kendrick Lamar: Right, exactly.BigBoyTV: You know, but how's you in a relationship with Schoolboy? Everybody in TD. Schoolboy. Everybody cool? Because I know you had a problem with him.Kendrick Lamar: I don't know where this problem came from.BigBoyTV: I'm just making things up.Kendrick Lamar: You know what I'm saying?BigBoyTV: You don't know where it came from.Kendrick Lamar: Oh, so you're just as puzzled as we are.BigBoyTV: But do people try to create those kind of things? Or do you wake up and look at social media like, man, I didn't say that?Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, all the time. All the time.BigBoyTV: But, you know, it's crazy. But you're not hard on social media either.Kendrick Lamar: Nah, but I see it. You know, but what's crazy about us, when I look at other crews and I see that they have, like, problems within the crew, I can tell that they didn't really come up with each other.BigBoyTV: Yeah, like some real together together.Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, you know what I mean? Me and Q, we slept on the same couch. You know what I'm saying? Shared the same $5 to go get pieces of chicken.BigBoyTV: You know what I'm saying?Kendrick Lamar: Abso, all of them. So we kind of know the depths of where we come from and never to let it get in between us.BigBoyTV: At any moment, Kendrick, do y'all think, not that we not going to make it, but is there ever a win or, like, damn, man?Kendrick Lamar: Man, we had hundreds of them talks.BigBoyTV: Really, though?Kendrick Lamar: All the time. I remember us sitting on the couch saying, man, because at the time, we was looking at artists like Currency.BigBoyTV: Shout out to Currency.Kendrick Lamar: He was killing it. It was like, man, we got to, like, just get to that level and just do the Key Club.BigBoyTV: Right.Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.BigBoyTV: Just get to the Key Club.Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, this is conversational. I'll never forget it. Like, as long as we get to Key Club, we straight.BigBoyTV: We straight.Kendrick Lamar: We can just rock that and just rock that all around the world.BigBoyTV: Yeah, like, man, we get to the House of Blues, it's over.Kendrick Lamar: It's over.BigBoyTV: Yeah, it's over.BigBoyTV: So at any moment, do you think, like, man, like, was there the give up, too, though? Like, man, I'm just going to go in, you know, job or just, you know.Kendrick Lamar: For sure. You had them moments, too, because you be in positions and opportunities and they fall short, kind of like the situation when we was at Warner Brothers with J-Rock.BigBoyTV: Right, right, right.Kendrick Lamar: That's our closest moment being, you know, connected to the industry. And then when you feel like, damn, that don't work out, you know, it's like, what are we doing? You know what I'm saying? So that put discouragement in all of us.BigBoyTV: Is there anyone in TDE that you guys had to kind of, like, pull back that was really like, man, I'm done. I'm done.Kendrick Lamar: He was the toughest.BigBoyTV: Right.Kendrick Lamar: He was the toughest because he didn't have the, he wasn't fully in, you know, he was just doing music and trying to figure out, you know, where his next head going to be like, he didn't want to go back and do what he was doing. So we really had to bring him in and say, you know, this opportunity, Topgiver, this opportunity, we in the studio, this free, nobody get free studio sessions.BigBoyTV: Why did y'all trust Topgiver so much?Kendrick Lamar: Um, I think just off the genuine love he had for us, you know what I'm saying? I mean, we all in his refrigerator, man. He ain't got to, nobody does that. You know, you living in the same house where his family is at him, we going out his refrigerator. When you show that trust to some kids, you know, we was wise enough to know that's real trust.BigBoyTV: What did Topgiver have before that intrigued you guys? You know, usually somebody got to have a roster. Like now everybody would want to be on TDE.Kendrick Lamar: Yeah.BigBoyTV: What, what did he have? Was there an artist or, or was it just like, man, I see this and I feel like we can make this together.Kendrick Lamar: I think, you know, coming up in a, in a community, we knew his name in the streets and we just knew how he carried himself, you know, from streets to the business and nobody wasn't doing it like that on his level. You know, he didn't, he'd been successful in, in, in, in, in, in other ways that was even more dangerous.BigBoyTV: Yes, sir.Kendrick Lamar: So when you could be successful in these dangerous, you know, lifestyles, we're looking at the person that, you know, look at this music thing as a cakewalk. Y'all got to get in here and hustle and grind because it ain't as hard as when I was coming up.BigBoyTV: And, and, and I want to ask you something and I don't, and if this is disrespectful, don't don't answer. And it's not meant as disrespect, but being at you, I got to ask you with Top Dog, how many, how many hoodies and hats and Levi's do you think Top Dog have? Like how many, how many TDE hats do you think he has?Kendrick Lamar: You know, that's a whole, that's all connected.BigBoyTV: It's like a jumper.Kendrick Lamar: It's a onesie.BigBoyTV: My man, I really, and you know what I love about Top, Top would be down there in, in front row with a TDE hoodie on, you know, we had a heat wave. It was 107. I tried to throw some ice at him. And he was like, nah, man, I got to wear this hoodie, man. I'm telling you, white, uh, uh, white outfit parties, all that.Kendrick Lamar: He's wearing the hoodie.BigBoyTV: Yeah.Kendrick Lamar: Man, represent.BigBoyTV: I ain't, I ain't mad at him, man. Is your level of success that you've reached right now, anything like of what you imagined for yourself in the beginning?Kendrick Lamar: Um, I mean, we was talking about the key club.BigBoyTV: Right.Kendrick Lamar: I mean, of course we all had dreams, you know, being on that big main stage, but it all was in baby steps for us. You know, so my focus wasn't, uh, 30,000, you know, it was 500 and 3,000. So it was steps, you know?BigBoyTV: Right. What, what were those times when you thought the, we making noise or the, the, I made it, you know what I'm saying? Like, what were some of those like so-called like thresholds where you was like, uh, we making noise?Kendrick Lamar: Uh, probably my first show at, um, well, the first, first moment we was making noise when Rock had the song with Lil Wayne all my life.BigBoyTV: I was like, okay.Kendrick Lamar: Like we on up.BigBoyTV: Yeah.Kendrick Lamar: That was the Chuck Dill. You know, that's the moment. Like, yo, this really can happen.BigBoyTV: You know what I'm saying?Kendrick Lamar: This is biggest rapper at the moment.BigBoyTV: You know what I mean?Kendrick Lamar: Rocking with us and rock doing this thing on the record.BigBoyTV: That was a moment.Kendrick Lamar: Second moment for me was my first show downtown LA off my first mixtape, Kendrick Lamar EP.BigBoyTV: Yeah.Kendrick Lamar: How many people?BigBoyTV: How many people?Kendrick Lamar: About 300.BigBoyTV: Really though?Kendrick Lamar: Yeah.BigBoyTV: I was like, man.Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, this can happen.BigBoyTV: Like, man.Kendrick Lamar: What did it feel like when you first put the mic out in a crowd, finish your verse?Kendrick Lamar: I'm addicted.BigBoyTV: I was high.Kendrick Lamar: That was it.BigBoyTV: That was it for me.Kendrick Lamar: Because now I know I wrote these raps in my mama's kitchen and I done went around the world and y'all singing these raps that I wrote in the kitchen.BigBoyTV: That's crazy, man.Kendrick Lamar: Blew my mind away.BigBoyTV: What about your first trip overseas?Kendrick Lamar: First trip overseas.BigBoyTV: Where did you go?Kendrick Lamar: Where I went? I went to London.BigBoyTV: And that was crazy.Kendrick Lamar: And they knew.BigBoyTV: It's crazy that they just know music.Kendrick Lamar: And they love it, though.BigBoyTV: Yeah.Kendrick Lamar: They're like diehards. Almost to the point where they feel like they don't get it enough. So when we come out there, it's appreciated.BigBoyTV: What's the largest crowd you rocked in front of, Kendrick?Kendrick Lamar: 95,000, 100,000.BigBoyTV: Yep.Kendrick Lamar: Yep.BigBoyTV: This nigga big.Kendrick Lamar: No, no.BigBoyTV: I thought you were going to say like 103,000. Man, do you like smaller venues where you get that energy? Or is there, does the energy compare? Like, is there one way like, oh, okay, I feel this. But also like, you know, if I could do a thousand seater, you know?Kendrick Lamar: I love the small venues. After being on festivals so long, I mean, it's great energy. The crowd, you see 30,000, 40,000 jumping.BigBoyTV: Love that.Kendrick Lamar: But it's nothing like going to them small holes in the walls and people were just hanging on the ceiling. And they, you know, they want to rap your early raps.BigBoyTV: Yeah, we got to book that.Kendrick Lamar: Do it right here.BigBoyTV: That's a small venue right here.Kendrick Lamar: We got to book that, man.BigBoyTV: I'm glad you answered that because that was one of the things I was going to do.Kendrick Lamar: Next on the list.BigBoyTV: Yeah, promoting the show. A lot of people like to scream out, goat, goat this, goat that. You're Mr. 1 through 5. Would you consider yourself goat at this point in your career?Kendrick Lamar: Not at all.BigBoyTV: Oh, my bad.Kendrick Lamar: So what was on?BigBoyTV: No.Kendrick Lamar: What was on?BigBoyTV: Check, check, check.Kendrick Lamar: I got to.BigBoyTV: Hell yeah.Kendrick Lamar: I got to. I mean, because what's the point of doing it if you don't want to be the best at what you're doing, you know? So I can't take that for granted at all.BigBoyTV: When you hear people say the verse, if they say, you know, the control verse, the verse, the verse, is it crazy that, like, we know exactly what cats are talking about? Like, there's moments in time where we just like, okay, we know this, we know that, or we kind of throw something back at you.Kendrick Lamar: Right.BigBoyTV: Like, that's got to be crazy that you created this.Kendrick Lamar: Yeah.BigBoyTV: And how many people around the world are on top of that?Kendrick Lamar: Definitely.BigBoyTV: Hanging on to lyrics.Kendrick Lamar: All the time. There's people, I go overseas and there's people screaming at that verse.BigBoyTV: Right.Kendrick Lamar: You know what I mean? And it's been what? What's that? Two thousand.BigBoyTV: And I'm not even just talking that verse. It's just verses. Verses.Kendrick Lamar: Verses, yeah. Yeah, definitely. It's a trip. You know, they can hang on to these lyrics and know I'm verbatim.BigBoyTV: Yeah, man.Kendrick Lamar: I done forgot about them, done moved on, and they remind me, like, no, this is how it goes.BigBoyTV: Do you take that into the booth or into perspective when you're writing also that you're in competition with yourself?Kendrick Lamar: Yeah. All the time. I got to challenge myself. Like I said, for me, it's always searching for that next thing that, you know, inspired me within writing. It could be another word. It could be another concept, another song, another album, but it's just a challenge. It's just a search to write that perfect verse or that perfect song. I probably will never get it, but I know one thing is going to keep me driven to keep going hard.BigBoyTV: You know what I love about it also, Kendrick, is that, not usually, but sometimes cats create such a fan base and a buzz that they get to a point where they kind of start mailing it in.Kendrick Lamar: Yeah.BigBoyTV: Because, you know, like we know it, then you can always kind of depend on your catalog to get you through, you know, a concert, but you do say that you continue to one-up yourself.Kendrick Lamar: All the time. All the time. I got to. I got to. I got to go back to that place when we was in the garage and writing raps, you know, in Top House writing raps and doing verses.BigBoyTV: Where that moment is at? Did you go buy the garage?Kendrick Lamar: Yep. I would go buy. No, I would go B-U-Y the garage.BigBoyTV: I'm talking about go buy the garage.Kendrick Lamar: We still got it.BigBoyTV: That's dope. Do you ever go back there for motivation?Kendrick Lamar: I go back in there, look in it. Vibe, studio's still there, mic's still there, couch's still there.BigBoyTV: What other things inspired you when you were creating Dam?Kendrick Lamar: What other things inspired me? People in general, just how people felt. And, you know, it was one of my favorite words in that record, and that was perspective. Everybody had their own perspectives on certain things. So my whole thing was to put all them perspectives into one album, whether it was mine, whether it was hers, whether it was the homies, all that.BigBoyTV: Kendrick, you're not a hella social media guy. But on social media, you had gifted your sister a Toyota, right?Kendrick Lamar: Right, right.BigBoyTV: That's a brand new car, Jack. You know what I'm saying?Kendrick Lamar: Yeah. It was nice.BigBoyTV: And your sister was happy about a Toyota, correct?Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, definitely.BigBoyTV: All righty. Now, and it was new. It wasn't like a 2007, right?Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, yeah.BigBoyTV: Or what's the one that you and J-Rock and everybody rode to the studio?Kendrick Lamar: Okay.BigBoyTV: You and the homies. So she graduated from high school.Kendrick Lamar: High school.BigBoyTV: And she got a brand new 2017 Toyota.Kendrick Lamar: Yeah.BigBoyTV: And that wasn't good enough for the public.Kendrick Lamar: I mean, I guess, I don't know if it was the public or it was kids on the internet that's 12 years old and 13 and figured, you know, she's supposed to have a Lamborghini.BigBoyTV: Yeah. Right, right.Kendrick Lamar: By Kendrick Lamar.BigBoyTV: Right. Yeah, it's a trip. But your sister, she didn't come back and be like, ugh, Cameron, I can't believe you. You know what I'm saying?Kendrick Lamar: She was, and I told you, man, like, my niece, both of my nieces just graduated. One from college, one from high school.BigBoyTV: I saw that and I was like, hey, don't follow Kendrick Lamar on social media. You know what I'm saying? Don't follow him. I was like, do you follow? I was like, I'm following him. I said all kinds of stuff. He don't like black women. I said anything to get through to not.Kendrick Lamar: That's even too much.BigBoyTV: Yeah, I was like, man, I was like, damn. Don't follow him. Don't look for no Toyota coming your way.Kendrick Lamar: Oh, no.BigBoyTV: No, not at all, brother. Not at all. I'm going to tell you, I got some tickets to BET weekend.Kendrick Lamar: Right.BigBoyTV: That was their graduation present.Kendrick Lamar: And that was free tickets from the station.BigBoyTV: But when you look at stuff like that, man, do you trip off of just all the trolling that goes on in that?Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, it is a trip. It is a trip. Like I said, perspective. You know, pure perspective of me and the money that I have and the stages and the places I've gone to, you know, they probably expect me to not have, you know, the same morals and values that I have. I want to carry over to my family, you know, to my little sister or whatnot, you know, because, you know, she's younger than me. So she didn't have to go through the same struggle that me and moms had to go through. So I want to continue that thing to appreciate something and be able to take baby steps.BigBoyTV: Isn't the thing with like most of those people that were making the comments like we're going hard on humble, but then you're mad because you got a Corolla? Like that makes no sense. Like you understand what you're saying. Like you love humble, but I can't keep my sister humble.Kendrick Lamar: Man, most of them people probably don't even got a car.BigBoyTV: Yeah.Kendrick Lamar: To be real with you, you know, so you can't.BigBoyTV: And then I'm like, man, well, when your brother, sister, whoever graduate, then you gift them something beautiful. You know what I'm saying? Go get him that Lambo you want his sister to have.Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, man.BigBoyTV: Out of height, give her something. You know what I'm saying? Let her buy her own at a certain point. Or, you know, I'm pretty sure she's going to graduate from college.Kendrick Lamar: Yeah. Yeah.BigBoyTV: If you got her a Lamborghini from graduating from high school, you got to get her like a spaceship when she's become a doctor.Kendrick Lamar: Alrighty.BigBoyTV: Alrighty now. DNA. Alrighty now. The song DNA. The creation of that. And we pretty much know, oh, when we think about DNA, we think about DNA. Alrighty. What was your, where is your mind at? What does DNA mean to you as far as when you're writing that?Kendrick Lamar: It was just the attitude. The attitude of being confident and putting that in lyrics and putting that over record. That's all it is.BigBoyTV: And where does that confidence and that DNA, where does that come from?Kendrick Lamar: I think that that part of me was definitely the side of my father for sure. You know, he coming here, he's, he's loud.BigBoyTV: I heard that.Kendrick Lamar: He's extra. He's the, he's, he's the start of the party, the end of the party. And, you know, he's confident about where he come from. And of course, that father's DNA runs through you.BigBoyTV: Definitely. This is what I want to do with you, Kendrick. I have a DNA test right here.Kendrick Lamar: All right.BigBoyTV: Let's see. This is one of those real DNA tests. Now, this is now, now we don't know exactly where you come from. Maybe you got some Cambodian in you. We don't know.Kendrick Lamar: That's the last thing I thought he was going to pull out.BigBoyTV: We're going to find out. Seems there's loyalty inside that DNA. Now, what we're going to do, man, this is health and ancestry, all right?Kendrick Lamar: Okay.BigBoyTV: This is a saliva collection kit. We're going to collect your saliva. First, we got to register the kit. Then you have to take one of the tubes, spit down in the tube. Fill it up. And then we're going to discover what the DNA is for Kendrick Lamar, for real. Let's see what you really got. We're not questioning if that's your dad, but we want to just see where things come from. Where do they all come from? You know, did you walk amongst real, like, you know, royalty.Kendrick Lamar: Loyalty.BigBoyTV: Loyalty. No, we're going to see if you walked against real royalty and if you're loyal to the DNA. All righty. So, we're going to have you. You don't have to do it right now because I don't know what your saliva look like. If you need some water or anything, if you cut them out, we got water. But I really want to register you. I want you to take this DNA test. We're going to send it in and then we're going to get in touch with you and we're going to let you know, like, you know, I mean, Mexicans rock with you. Maybe you got a lot of Mexicans.Kendrick Lamar: I've been dodging that DNA test myself.BigBoyTV: Yeah, you know what I'm saying? Maybe Puerto Rican. You know what I'm saying? There it is. There's only one way to find out. Yeah, so will you take the DNA test?Kendrick Lamar: I'm going to take, this is it, yeah.BigBoyTV: All right. Yes. All right, cool in the game. So, we're going to go ahead, man. We're going to administer. That's what they say. You know, we're going to administer the test in a little bit, ladies and gentlemen. We're going to find out. Then we're going to come back in a couple weeks once the results come in.Kendrick Lamar: That's the real thing, too.BigBoyTV: Yeah, yeah, please. Yeah, chill out. Please, man. Go ahead now. That's the real one right there, man. You know what I'm saying? I got an extra one of you if you want to do top. Do you want to do top or J-Rock or somebody or anybody?Kendrick Lamar: Everybody.BigBoyTV: You know what I'm saying? And we also got one to see. We're going to have TDE all spit in there to see if y'all really get along. If y'all really family, let's see. We got the animosity kit.Kendrick Lamar: The animosity kit. Hell yeah. Like, man, I didn't know you was talking to me like that.BigBoyTV: All righty now, man. Now, your albums.Kendrick Lamar: Mm-hmm.BigBoyTV: All righty. Now, there's some people, there's always the barbershop talk. You know what I'm saying? Which one is their best album? Which one is their favorite? So on and so forth. And we all got albums. Not as artists, but we all got albums that we like of yours.Kendrick Lamar: Okay.BigBoyTV: We want you to rate your album.Kendrick Lamar: Okay.BigBoyTV: All righty. Which one is your favorite album?Kendrick Lamar: All right.BigBoyTV: Show it to them and call it out by name, are they?Kendrick Lamar: Section 80.BigBoyTV: All righty. Section 80. Oh, this should be lost. Sorry.Kendrick Lamar: To Pimp a Butterfly.BigBoyTV: Ooh.Kendrick Lamar: This is tough, bro.BigBoyTV: Ooh, you shouldn't write good material.Kendrick Lamar: Good Kid, Mad City.BigBoyTV: Both sides.Kendrick Lamar: Ooh.BigBoyTV: And last but not least, Damn.Kendrick Lamar: All righty.BigBoyTV: Lay him out in front of him because he make a lot of songs. He probably don't even remember what songs were on the album.Kendrick Lamar: Yeah.BigBoyTV: All righty.Kendrick Lamar: I know I'm going to do y'all, though.BigBoyTV: Mm.Kendrick Lamar: Uh-oh.BigBoyTV: Y'all going to be mad at me, too. You have to give us a straight answer, too. Don't try to give us no.Kendrick Lamar: I'm going to give you a straight answer.BigBoyTV: Yeah, man. Don't be a politician.Kendrick Lamar: You want to number him? One, two.BigBoyTV: He could just tell us in case he wants to number him.Kendrick Lamar: Uh-oh. Uh-oh. There you go.BigBoyTV: That's the order right there?Kendrick Lamar: Yes.BigBoyTV: From which way to which way, though?Kendrick Lamar: This way to that thing.BigBoyTV: From Section 80 on?Kendrick Lamar: Section 80 on.BigBoyTV: This is being the best.Kendrick Lamar: Damn is the best?BigBoyTV: Yeah.Kendrick Lamar: So you agree with your mama? Matter of fact, this is a tweet from your mother, right?BigBoyTV: Love it.Kendrick Lamar: Text message.BigBoyTV: It says, oh, my God. This is a text message to you, right?Kendrick Lamar: I love that text message.BigBoyTV: Oh, my God. This CD is bomb. A lot of emojis in your mom's phone. You know what I'm saying?Kendrick Lamar: She wants them.BigBoyTV: You should have put me and your daddy on this one, too. Joke. All righty. This your best one to me. No bullshit.Kendrick Lamar: 100.BigBoyTV: Your daddy said you look stressed out on the cover, LOL. I said, nigga, that's the point. We always stressing him out. Smiley, crying face. Hey, hey, hey, hey. Since the little boy, you've been an overthinker, though. Another emoji. And a prayer hand. All righty. But what you say, a nigga make it look, okay.Kendrick Lamar: It says, but what you say, a nigga make it look sexy.BigBoyTV: All righty. Question mark. All righty. Boy, you can make a dog laugh. Can you make a dog laugh for real?Kendrick Lamar: All righty. That's what she said.BigBoyTV: Lil' Ken Ken nearly rocking to it. He was so weak, LOL, OL. Album is bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb. 100, 100, 100. I missed the Coachella stream. I don't know what that emoji is right there. They say you was floating on air. Your fans are some diehards. I love them. And then you came back.Kendrick Lamar: You say you're going emoji brazy.BigBoyTV: Who taught you? 100, question mark, LOL. That's beautiful. I love that you share that text. That is beautiful, man. That was awesome. That's awesome. That's beautiful. Does your mom work security detail, too? You know, because mom, they be like, man, that's my baby over there.Kendrick Lamar: Right. Exactly.BigBoyTV: What's the one thing that you're so proud of that you did for your mom?Kendrick Lamar: One thing I'm so proud of, got her off Section 8.BigBoyTV: I heard that.Kendrick Lamar: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Definitely.BigBoyTV: Because that was beautiful. Being confident, you got to move around different spots and all that. You got to worry about the landlord selling the house and renting.Kendrick Lamar: Don't I know it, brother. Like, man, we live, and I tell people like, hey, man, where did you grow up? I'm like, here, here, here. They're like, oh, man, you travel a lot. No, we was evicted a lot.BigBoyTV: Yeah, exactly. The other thing was eviction.Kendrick Lamar: Exactly.BigBoyTV: So did you, your mom, she got the house now.Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, she good.BigBoyTV: Is it in your name?Kendrick Lamar: She straight. It's her name.BigBoyTV: Okay, cool. You know what I'm saying? Like, yeah, you can live here, mama.Kendrick Lamar: Right. You know what I'm saying?BigBoyTV: Exactly. Man, so when you give her the keys to the crib as a son, what does that feel like?Kendrick Lamar: That's the ultimate feeling. Because, you know, one thing about my mom, she say this, and she told me this yesterday. She always reminded me of this, you know. No, she say, nigga, this motherfucking shit. No, I'm just kidding. I mean, she said, the thing, only thing I have to do for her is continue to love her. Simple as that. She said she brought me in this world, you know. It was my reason to bring you here anyway. Anything you do for me is just a plus.BigBoyTV: Wow.Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, simple as that. So when I look at that, and I look at that type of wisdom, it makes me appreciate it even more. It makes me want to do more.BigBoyTV: She never felt, you never felt like you owed her that? Like, she never said it?Kendrick Lamar: She never said it.BigBoyTV: Oh, see, that's dope. Okay. She never said it. Because, see, with my kids, I'm like, hey, you know, daddy got them shoes. You know what I'm saying? I'm tallying up everything, Kendrick.Kendrick Lamar: I'm like, you know.BigBoyTV: Exactly.Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, you owe me this.BigBoyTV: Exactly. You know what I'm saying? Like, look at this house.Kendrick Lamar: You know what I'm saying? Like, look at this house.BigBoyTV: Daddy want one bigger from you. You know what I'm saying? Like, yeah, you know, I need you to do better than me because I need to relax. You know what I'm saying?Kendrick Lamar: Exactly.BigBoyTV: You know, I get up at like 3.30, 4 o'clock every morning, man, so I need my kids to pop. You know what I'm saying? Going back to these album ratings here, why is Dam top spot for you?Kendrick Lamar: Because I think Dam is a hybrid of all these projects. It was me finally being able to take elements from Good Kid, Pimper Butterfly, the message behind the Pimper Butterfly, the Sonics, and the beats slapping on Good Kid, and the rawness of just being able to do what I want like I did on Section 80. I didn't have no rules doing this. I was just in there creating that and fun. When I take all three of these, it makes a hybrid of Dam for me.BigBoyTV: Yeah. That's awesome. Hey, you're going to catch me so prolific.Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, right. Whoa.BigBoyTV: Do you feel like people over-listen to you now, too? No, Ken, you're like, everybody's like, oh.Kendrick Lamar: Man, I done heard all type of theories.BigBoyTV: Theories? Oh, my gosh, man. What are some of the craziest theories you've heard?Kendrick Lamar: Craziest theories? That I'm dropping three more albums right after Dam, like, every week.BigBoyTV: I really thought you were going to drop a second one. We were hoping for it. Because of Spotify, though. Because on Spotify, we got the picture of you behind a blue wall.Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, yeah.BigBoyTV: So I was like, okay, but he often uses, like, both of these colors, red, you know, and blue. So I really thought you were going to drop that. But I'm going to tell you something.Kendrick Lamar: And it's a lot of things in that same theory that I don't know how these fans get, but they're on point in some of them.BigBoyTV: Yeah, they know about certain songs that may or may not be released.Kendrick Lamar: Okay.BigBoyTV: And they put things together crazy. Did you have the two and three albums for real?Kendrick Lamar: Then once we cracked it, you were like, I can't even bring it out now.BigBoyTV: Now they're going to have to wait. Yeah, I'm going to.Kendrick Lamar: Oh, man, they done figured me out. I had a selection of songs that I like. I wouldn't call it an album, but that definitely made sense for them, for sure.BigBoyTV: What's your wacky song?Kendrick Lamar: My wacky song. My wacky song. Y'all probably can look it up on YouTube, too.BigBoyTV: Oh, really? Oh.Kendrick Lamar: Oh, my God. It's called Bitch, I'm in the Club.BigBoyTV: What?Kendrick Lamar: You know what you mean? I know. What?BigBoyTV: Say what?Kendrick Lamar: Bitch, I'm in the Club.BigBoyTV: Yeah.Kendrick Lamar: That was our shit, though, back then. But if I listen to it now, I'm like.BigBoyTV: Man, can you go put it on?Kendrick Lamar: No.BigBoyTV: Do you remember the lyrics?Kendrick Lamar: If I hear it, I'm going to remember the lyrics.BigBoyTV: Oh, my God. That was probably the shrimp of the wind.Kendrick Lamar: With the homies.BigBoyTV: With the homies.Kendrick Lamar: What'd you do, Bitch, I'm in the Club? Would you record something like that now?BigBoyTV: Probably not.Kendrick Lamar: Like, if it was ever, man? I was like, no.BigBoyTV: Hold on, man. That was a reach. All right.Kendrick Lamar: Y'all need to play that on the record.BigBoyTV: Yeah, on the station.Kendrick Lamar: They're going to do that? Oh, man.BigBoyTV: Put that out.Kendrick Lamar: Bitch, I'm in the Club.BigBoyTV: With the homies.Kendrick Lamar: Tell me what's good.BigBoyTV: I'm trying to get these hoes sing out.Kendrick Lamar: And this is my singer.BigBoyTV: Okay, what these niggas hollin' bout. Tantastrophic hate that. May I bring them dollars out.Kendrick Lamar: Talk that shit.BigBoyTV: Hide him out.Kendrick Lamar: Walk that shit.BigBoyTV: Big act like he don't like it, though. He's like, yeah.Kendrick Lamar: No, for real, though.BigBoyTV: He was stopping.Kendrick Lamar: Who stopped?BigBoyTV: No, for real.Kendrick Lamar: It wasn't terrible.BigBoyTV: It's not terrible.Kendrick Lamar: No, no.BigBoyTV: Jesus Christ, you trying to blow our ears off? No, let me tell you. I can hear Kendrick on there, right?Kendrick Lamar: Right.BigBoyTV: Now, when you did Bitch, I'm in the Club, you didn't take that to anybody out there and say, man, listen to this, man. This shit is horrible. This shit is whack.Kendrick Lamar: We was loving it.BigBoyTV: You were loving it.Kendrick Lamar: Hit that.BigBoyTV: So why I can't hear it and be like, man, no, I'm loving that.Kendrick Lamar: You're just looking at all the bodies of music now. He's coming through Kenny now. I just know the level of reach that I was doing when I wrote the record. From what was playing on the radio to what was on TV.BigBoyTV: You blew it. It's like, man.Kendrick Lamar: Was Lil Wayne running radio around that time?BigBoyTV: Definitely running radio around that time.Kendrick Lamar: I can hear it.BigBoyTV: I can hear it. With so many albums or so many songs, now you're about to head out on the Damn. tour. Now, going out with damn the tour, how do you pick what you're going to perform now that there's so many records?Kendrick Lamar: That's why I'm looking at this. It's like, I'm really just going off the favorites. You know, like how you say no makeup, right? No makeup on. So I think about what records they used to love from Section 80. What records they used to love from Good Kid. What made them go crazy? Damn, I'm sure of that. The Pimble Butterfly. And I just, you know, make my list from there and make it feel cohesive and make it feel like a big party.BigBoyTV: You know what I'm saying? Hey, man. With so many dates in L.A., right? And we get a chance to see you at the Staples Center. We get a chance to see you at the Honda Center. Those are spots that you drove past in your lifetime.Kendrick Lamar: Yeah.BigBoyTV: And you know what I'm saying? And I don't even know if you ever bought a ticket to go see somebody else performing in one of those buildings.Kendrick Lamar: Right.BigBoyTV: You know what I'm saying? But for you to come from the crib and go straight to the Staples Center and know that you're going to sell out every night that you're there. What does that feel like?Kendrick Lamar: Man, that's a trip. We was, I was watching Q on stage at the.BigBoyTV: BET weekend?Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, weekend. Man, I'm looking around like, man, all these people that's here for this, this, this event, it's going to be right here in the same venue come the show, you know? And it blew me away.BigBoyTV: That's like 15, how many people? Like 15,000 up in there, right?Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, bro. So I'm looking at that like, man, we came a long way, man. I'm talking to Q about it backstage. Like, bro, this is crazy. Talking about the Key Club, 500.BigBoyTV: Yeah. I sit in, when I go to shows, Kendrick, I sit in the audience because I like to really just kind of look at the crowd. Yeah, and I sit far back or I sit up at the top and get a chance to see how everybody's kind of rocking. And I remember with Q on and you guys coming out and just what L.A., what that look like. You know what I'm saying? Just every, every shade in there. You know what I'm saying? Like, and I know the world loves you, but what does that L.A. love feel like?Kendrick Lamar: Man, that's homegrown. You know what I mean? Seeing faces like that now in the crowd, these people that I actually recognize. You know, I can look in the crowd and see sections of family, friends, people I went to school with, elementary people, you know what I mean? And to see that support, it gives me the drive to go out there and represent for them when I go to the next city.BigBoyTV: Is it harder to do shows in L.A.?Kendrick Lamar: In L.A., what you mean?BigBoyTV: Because, you know what, like, because you can go, let's say you go do a show in Detroit. You probably, you have people in Detroit that mess with you, but you don't have, like, a cousin or an aunt possibly in Detroit. Where, when you're at the crib, everybody want free tickets.Kendrick Lamar: Hey, everybody wants some tickets.BigBoyTV: Yeah, you know what I'm saying? Everybody. So, it's got to be a little more difficult at the house.Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, definitely.BigBoyTV: How many tickets do you think, total, you're going to have to give out?Kendrick Lamar: At least 300.BigBoyTV: Seriously?Kendrick Lamar: Yeah.BigBoyTV: So, you almost about to do what you aspired to back in the days.Kendrick Lamar: Right, that's 300 I was talking about.BigBoyTV: Yeah, you about to do that in family and friends giveaway.Kendrick Lamar: Exactly, giveaway.BigBoyTV: Now, do you place them all over the place because, or are they on the floor with the best seats? Because I think that's kind of messed up if they, right there, with the best seats. And you're not right there.Kendrick Lamar: You saw right through that. You know what I'm saying? Like, yeah.BigBoyTV: Place them around.Kendrick Lamar: Place them around.BigBoyTV: Yeah, we're going to try to make it work, man.Kendrick Lamar: Okay.BigBoyTV: I want to make everybody comfortable and feel good.Kendrick Lamar: Do you finally get mad at you? Like, oh, this is where you got us at?BigBoyTV: You better not. You better not let me know that.Kendrick Lamar: There it is.BigBoyTV: Your sister's going to roll in her new Toyota.Kendrick Lamar: Right.BigBoyTV: People will be taking me like, man, that's a Toyota.Kendrick Lamar: Yeah, yeah, yeah.BigBoyTV: Is there anything else that you see yourself doing besides rapping or that you want to do in addition to it?Kendrick Lamar: That's a good question. All I see is music right now. You know.BigBoyTV: I see you acting.Kendrick Lamar: Yeah. Yeah. I hear that a few times. But really.BigBoyTV: Do you know how to act, though?Kendrick Lamar: No.BigBoyTV: Okay, well, there it is. Well, let's stop. Let's not do that. You know what I'm saying? We don't want to take away from the whole franchise that you're building up.Kendrick Lamar: Exactly. You know?BigBoyTV: Just looking from his music videos, though, if you, like, see his expressions and, like, everything, like, really comes through life. So I just really can see him acting.Kendrick Lamar: For sure.BigBoyTV: But you know what, though? You get that money, too. If he can't act, I day, then it's not forcing him.Kendrick Lamar: I never tried it, so.BigBoyTV: I think he can.Kendrick Lamar: Hopefully.BigBoyTV: It's in there.Kendrick Lamar: Hopefully.BigBoyTV: What about ballet? You ever did any ballet?Kendrick Lamar: I ain't do yoga.BigBoyTV: Do you do yoga?Kendrick Lamar: I ain't done no ballet. I did yoga before.BigBoyTV: Right.Kendrick Lamar: Yeah.BigBoyTV: That was intense.Kendrick Lamar: A lot of core and shit.BigBoyTV: A lot of core. Do you work out, Kendrick?Kendrick Lamar: Yeah.BigBoyTV: You don't look like him. No, I'm just kidding.Kendrick Lamar: It ain't showing.BigBoyTV: He's talking about his trip. But you got to have your wind right for the way that y'all get on the stage. You got to be ready. What's the best thing about being Kendrick Lamar?Kendrick Lamar: Best thing about being Kendrick Lamar? Being able to travel. Being able to connect with people in a different way. I watch certain people that have an upper echelon type of celebrity, but still missing their way to connect with people. They can't have a conversation. They can't speak different languages. Go to the hood. Speak this language. Be in these offices. Speak this language. And still connect and where people can feel you and understand you. So I look at that as a gift, and that's a personal gift from God for me.BigBoyTV: Hey, man, how crazy is it that we grow up knowing, oh, this is the president. This is the president. And then for the president of the United States, the best president we've had, not the one we have.Kendrick Lamar: What does that feel like, man, when you get invited to the White House numerous times and they know exactly who you are?BigBoyTV: That's a trip.Kendrick Lamar: Shout you out. You look at these places as, you know, they're not real to us coming up in the neighborhood. Like, the White House, you know, we think that's just something on TV.BigBoyTV: Right, yeah.Kendrick Lamar: Anything else. So to actually be in it and see how, you know, they navigate and how they move, I'm paying attention to everything. Like, okay, this is a trip. And then I get to bring my mother and my family, and they get to see it.BigBoyTV: That's it. Did Obama offer you, like, any type of advice, like, at all?Kendrick Lamar: Yeah.BigBoyTV: Yeah, like, we got some clown coming in there. Watch out. Be careful.Kendrick Lamar: Sit down.BigBoyTV: Be careful.Kendrick Lamar: Right, exactly.BigBoyTV: Loyalty. Loyalty. No, we're going to see if you walked against real royalty and if you're loyal to the DNA.Kendrick Lamar: He really just told me to continue to stay rooted, you know, with my own backyard. That's where it starts, you know. So anything that I want to do further than that, it starts from home first. So as long as I take care of my community, it'll be able to branch out.BigBoyTV: Did you take anything from the White House?Kendrick Lamar: No.BigBoyTV: What did you steal?Kendrick Lamar: Right, I wanted to. They had vases, you know.BigBoyTV: Oh, no, you can't walk out with a vase.Kendrick Lamar: A vase?BigBoyTV: It's something smaller.Kendrick Lamar: Right, right, that vase might have been something crazy.BigBoyTV: Man, that's what I want to got George Washington in it.Kendrick Lamar: I think you just came and stole the George Washington urn, man.BigBoyTV: It wasn't even a vase.Kendrick Lamar: Right.BigBoyTV: My man walked out with it.Kendrick Lamar: But, Kendrick, man, we thank you for coming into the neighborhood.BigBoyTV: Thank you.Kendrick Lamar: Hanging out with us, man. It's always a pleasure to have you in the neighborhood, man. And I do want to ask you, man, why do you still come to the neighborhood? Why do you still do radio?BigBoyTV: This is home, man.Kendrick Lamar: I heard that, man. This is, I mean, we grew up off of you. I grew up off of you, the whole L.A., so I'm still a part, no matter how big I get. I still remember the early moments of listening to you, so just always have a special heart. Part of my heart is listening to you and ready to come up here, you know?BigBoyTV: I appreciate that, man. You said it just like I wrote it down. You know what I'm saying? You know, sometimes you got to fix the compliment for yourself. But, no, you know, what's the trick, though? The reason why I asked why you still do radio, it wasn't about Big Boy in the Neighborhood, but I appreciate that. But, you know, you get a lot of cats that feel like radio is an important medium.Kendrick Lamar: Right.BigBoyTV: You know what I'm saying? When we reach so many people, you know? And I thank you for being one of the world's biggest artists.Kendrick Lamar: Right.BigBoyTV: And for still coming and sitting down in the neighborhood.Kendrick Lamar: Definitely.BigBoyTV: So I thank you for that, man. Kendrick Lamar in the Neighborhood, Big Boy in the Neighborhood.Kendrick Lamar: All right.*There may be errors on this page.