Hip-Hop Lives Here
Hip-Hop Lives Here
Kendrick Lamar has broken down his definition of “not like us,” the dismissive refrain from his hit Drake diss song that has dominated most of 2024.
In his first interview since defeating Drizzy in their long-simmering feud that erupted this past summer, Kendrick spoke to friend and former TDE labelmate SZA for Harper’s Bazaar magazine, whose November issue he covers.
Although the conversation focused more on spirituality and vulnerability than rap beef, the SOS singer did ask the Compton native what “Not Like Us” means to him.
“[Laughing] Not like us? Not like us is the energy of who I am, the type of man I represent. Now, if you identify with the man that I represent,” Kendrick replied.
“This man has morals, he has values, he believes in something, he stands on something. He’s not pandering. He’s a man who can recognize his mistakes and not be afraid to share the mistakes and can dig deep down into fear-based ideologies or experiences to be able to express them without feeling like he’s less of a man.”
He added: “If I’m thinking of ‘Not Like Us,’ I’m thinking of me and whoever identifies with that.”
SZA then asked Kendrick how he makes such combative songs considering he is not an angry person.
“I don’t believe I’m an angry person. But I do believe in love and war, and I believe they both need to exist,” he explained.
“And my awareness of that allows me to react to things but not identify with them as who I am. Just allowing them to exist and allowing them to flow through me. That’s what I believe.”
The interview also found Kendrick Lamar talking about his relationship with God and passion for running.
“Ain’t no bullshit. Ain’t no cliché. But I literally talk to God,” he said. “Like, it’s to a point where I’ll be starting to think I’m going crazy. But then He has to remind me, ‘No, this is really me.’
“My early-morning practice is that I have to run. When I started running, that’s where I started to understand. There was this threshold of pain in the spirituality for me. I remember my shins was aching and I was like, I got one mile to go.
“Then I get whispers and downloads and start talking about shit that I want to know about. And next thing I’m three miles in, four miles in. I wake up and do that shit every day.”
The Pulitzer Prize-winner, who is currently filming his debut movie with the co-creators of South Park, also hinted at branching out into different creative fields.
“I feel my work in music is just the start. I don’t think it’s my end goal. I know it’s not my end goal. Music is just a vessel to get me there,” he teased.
He added: “I don’t [know what that looks like]. I’m curious, and that’s what keeps me energized […] I’m gonna let God shape it. I love the mystery of it. I have to have it. I have to. The chase of it all.”
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Eminem has long cited 2Pac as one of his favorite artists, but it turns out he shared a remarkable connection to the late rap legend long before he blew up — according to the Interscope A&R who discovered him.
Evan “Kidd” Bogart recently sat down with the Behind the Wall podcast and detailed his decorated career in the music industry, which began in Interscope’s mailroom in the 1990s.
Talking about his road to discovering the self-proclaimed Rap God, Bogart — a Grammy-winning songwriter who has worked with the likes of Beyoncé, Rihanna and Jennifer Lopez — explained that he was working as an A&R “float” on a posthumous 2Pac album that Interscope were putting together.
While working on the project, he got a call from a DJ friend to come check out an impressive young artist at the Rap Olympics.
“I was like, ‘Oh man, I’m gonna get fired. I’m supposed to not take my eyes off the reels [for the 2Pac album],'” Bogart recalled, explaining that there was a looming threat of Death Row Records trying to steal the music.
“But I played hooky because [my friend] Cassidy was dead serious. I went down to this freestyle contest in Inglewood, walked in and I proceeded to watch Eminem in this freestyle battle. It was 8 Mile-esque.”
Bogart was blown away by what he saw: “I called my friend who I was in a rap group with, this kid Aristotle, to come down there. I was like, ‘Yo, you gotta come down here and see this shit.’
“Then I called my other best friend, who I had just hired to replace me in the mailroom when I got promoted to A&R floater, this kid Dean Geislinger.”
He added: “They showed up a couple of hours later. It was the semifinals and Em was saying crazy things like, ‘Don’t make my facial tissue a racial issue,’ all this crazy shit that was mindblowing […] He ended up losing in the finals.”
Despite Eminem failing to win the contest, Bogart still introduced himself to the soon-to-be legendary rapper: “Em was pacing backstage, muttering under his breath, angry, teared up a little bit. I went up to him and I was like, ‘Hey, I work at Interscope, I do A&R.’
“He introduced me to his manager at the time, a guy named Marc Kempf. Paul [Rosenberg] was there, too, but Paul was Em’s lawyer; he wasn’t his manager.
“Marc Kempf gave me the Slim Shady EP sampler cassette. I drove home with Aristotle and Dean and popped the cassette into my car. We literally drove home with our fucking jaws on the ground. I had never heard anything like it in my whole life.”
Bogart went on to explain that he spent the next several months attempting to convince his seniors at Interscope to sign this unknown kid from Detroit, but was “largely ignored or ridiculed.”
It wasn’t until he slipped Eminem’s demo tape into Jimmy Iovine‘s possession, with the help of his friend Dean who was temping as the Interscope chief’s second assistant, that the powerhouse label finally took notice.
“Saturday morning, I get a page on my pager [from] Dean’s number. I call Dean and I’m like, ‘What’s up?’ He’s like, ‘[Dr.] Dre and Jimmy heard the tape. Is Eminem in town? […] They want to set up a meeting.’
“I was like, ‘Cool, I’ll make it happen.’ So I connected them with Em’s people, set up a meeting for Monday. Em came in and they struck a deal.”
The fact that Eminem was discovered by an A&R who was working on a 2Pac album at the time is made all the more special by his vocal admiration of the All Eyez On Me MC.
Slim Shady has previously said that ‘Pac “might be the greatest songwriter of all time” and even even went on to produce his own posthumous album for the late rapper, 2004’s Loyal to the Game.
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