DJ Quik Admits He Cried During Kendrick Lamar's "Pop Out" Show

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Ice Cube Performs At Red Rocks Amphitheatre
MORRISON, COLORADO - APRIL 19: Dj Quik opens for Ice Cube at Red Rocks Amphitheatre on April 19, 2024 in Morrison, Colorado. (Photo by Thomas Cooper/Getty Images)
The rapper regrets not being there.

DJ Quik is a Hall of Fame artist. He's a G-funk pioneer and a production wizard. He's also a proud Los Angeles native. Quik was absolutely blown away by Kendrick Lamar's "Pop Out" concert on Juneteenth, despite not being present. He praised K. Dot during a recent interview with AllHipHop. He also admitted, though, that watching the "Pop Out" show was a bittersweet experience. So bittersweet, in fact, that he claims that he actually cried while it was happening.

DJ Quik's absence was not by design. The rapper would have attended, but he was on tour with fellow West Coast stars Problem and Snoop Dogg. The trio tried to chart a flight back to LA to attend, but Quik said that it proved to be a logistical nightmare. "Snoop tried to fly us back for the Pop Out," he told the outlet. "He tried to charter a jet and it didn’t work out logistically because we would have missed our show... But we sat there steaming. I was steaming." The reason Quick was steaming was two-fold. One, he was missing the "Pop Out" show. Two, and perhaps most ironically, he was stranded in Canada, the home of Kendrick's enemy: Drake.

DJ Quik Was Forced To Watch The Show In Canada

These two things in tandem proved to be too much for DJ Quik. He shed tears of happiness over what Lamar did, but also tears of sadness given his circumstances. "I was knee deep in Canada when all that unity happened," he noted. "I cried myself to sleep that night in the dumb-a*s Hilton hotel looking at you guys... started hating. What did I tell you?" Quik wasn't the only who regretted missing the show, though. Snoop Dogg, who appeared on Lamar's classic album To Pimp a Butterfly, raved about the concert on social media.

"Sending a big shout out to K. Dot and all the homies from the West that stood together unified," he told his followers. The IG video was recorded in the same Canada hotel that a bereft DJ Quik fell asleep in the day prior. Still, Snoop kept it positive. "That was beautiful," he asserted. "That was fun to watch. Beautiful to see all my peoples come together. And K. Dot – you are the King of the West." A sentiment that DJ Quik would likely agree with.

About The Author
Elias Andrews is a music and entertainment writer for HotNewHipHop. He joined HNHH in 2024 as the lead night shift contributor, which means he covers new music releases on a weekly basis. In the year since joining, Elias has covered some of the biggest and most turbulent stories in the world of music. He covered the Drake and Kendrick Lamar battle, and the release of the disses “Family Matters” and “Meet the Grahams,” in particular, in real time. He has also detailed the ongoing list of allegations and criminal charges made against Diddy. Elias’ favorite artists are Andre 3000, MF Doom, pre-808s Kanye West and Tyler, The Creator. He loves L.A. hip-hop but not L.A. sports teams. The first album he ever bought was Big Willie Style by Will Smith, which he maintains is still a pretty good listen.
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