The other day we saw Kendrick Lamar's Man of the Year GQ cover. The magazine has dubbed Kendrick Rapper of the Year, and along with the title came an interview with the West Coast MC.
When the cover surfaced on the web, we caught wind of a quote from Kendrick where he references Drake, saying that the two were "pretty cool" but he'd be perfectly alright if that wasn't the case, too. Now in GQ's full interview, we hear even more from Kendrick, who shares a personal story of the time he saw Tupac come to him in a dream, which directly impacted his approach to the music.
Kendrick tells the story, which occurred when he was 21-years old,
"I was coming from a late studio session, sleeping on Mom's couch. I'm 26 now—it wasn't that long ago. I remember being tired, tripping from the studio, lying down, and falling into a deep sleep and seeing a vision of Pac talking to me. Weirdest shit ever. I'm not huge on superstition and all that shit. That's what made it so crazy. It can make you go nuts. Hearing somebody that you looked up to for years saying, 'Don't let the music die.' Hearing it clear as day. Clear as day. Like he's right there. Just a silhouette."
Kendrick continued to explain how this affected him. "It wasn't just about money, hos, clothes, drinkin'," he says. "I mean, I come from that world, but at the same time, I started to realize that there's people out there that can't really connect to that lifestyle. They're in the struggle."
Read more of Kendrick's GQ interview here.
Today we got to see a look on the set of Kendrick's photo shoot, and he spit a very short freestyle for GQ cameras, which you can check out below.