Kendrick Lamar and SZA have a couple of killer collabs together, although we honestly did not expect their latest to potentially become their biggest. For a fifth total and consecutive week, GNX's "luther" topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart, bolstered in party by a Super Bowl spectacle that landed K.Dot's sixth No. 1 and Solána's third. Not only that, but this extends their individual leads for their longest stay atop the chart. Other highlights from the top ten include two new Playboi Carti cuts from the long-awaited MUSIC ("EVIL J0RDAN" and "RATHER LIE" with The Weeknd) and Doechii's first top ten entry with "Anxiety."
Furthermore, this follows more commercial success for the album on which the SZA-assisted "luther" landed. Kendrick Lamar's GNX is the first hip-hop album to sell over 1 million units in the United States in 2025, leading to a lot of discourse around this continued dominance. Whether or not you agree with the more critical or blindly celebratory perspectives around the Compton lyricist these days is up to you, but it certainly isn't slowing down or speeding up his primary performance.
Kendrick Lamar SZA Tour
Back to "luther," though, SZA revealed Kendrick Lamar's performance advice recently ahead of their upcoming "Grand National" stadium tour. "I get to pick different tips and watch how he carries himself, how he emotes," she explained on The Jennifer Hudson Show. "To watch him perform is to witness something magical. One time he gave me the pointer of pretending to watch myself from above. He sees himself while he’s performing, and it actually changed a lot for me. It was weird, when I was watching myself from afar, I was like, ‘This not what I want to see, I want to see something different. I want to turn up.’ Then I just started, like, invoking a completely different energy and spirit within myself."
Meanwhile, Kendrick Lamar's year-old battle with his rival Drake continues to cause firestorms among fanatical zealots from both pgLang and OVO. It affects pretty much every aspect of each artist's public moves, especially when it comes to metrics and achievements concerning the likes of "luther" or $ome $exy $ongs 4 U. So there's a lot of hate flying this duo's way too, but hopefully folks start to separate those conversations in a more earnest manner that doesn't invalidate either one.
