After winning all the Grammy who was nominated this year by “Not Like Us”, Kendrick Lamar has offered an exclusive interview for Apple Music About the show of the rest of the Super Bowl Lix From this weekend in New Orleans (United States).
Kendrick Lamar has chatted with the presenters of Apple Music Radio, Ebro Darden and Nadeska Alexisfor the official Apple Music press conference on the Super Bowl Lix rest show in New Orleans. In the talk, issues such as authenticity come to light, the treatment that dispens the rap or what we will discover in their show for the Super Bowl, which will last exactly thirteen minutes.
You can see the video interview or read a transcription under the video.
Kendrick Lamar speaks in Apple Music of Hip-Hop progression and being the first soloist to head the Super Bowl
Many people do not see history before glory, uncle. That shit is like getting your mixtapes and going to neighborhoods and parties and acting there in bad death sites. It reminds me of the essence and central response of rap and hip-hop, and how far it can come. For me, that’s everything. Because it puts the culture in the foreground, where it has to be, and not minimized to a simple song or catchy verse. It is a true art form. So represent it in this type of scenario is all for what I have worked and everything that I believe in culture. I live and die for her. This shit has changed my whole family life. I do not give anything for granted, in terms of this form of art.
Kendrick Lamar tells why he always focused on music and never thought about being the head of the Halftime Show of the Super Bowl….
I never thought about the Super Bowl, in any. We were thinking about the best verse, and how we were going to get those five dollars in Church’s Chickn or something. There was no super bowl. What I know is that the passion I have now remains the same as I had then. And I think that moved to prepare the Super Bowl. So it was about being present. While I was present in the study, or rapping or doing hooks, choirs or whatever, I was present at that time, I felt that passion. I think being present and not foresee everything, I kept me in a mental state with my feet on the ground to be in great scenarios like this.
Kendrick Lamar talks about the importance of “Not Like Us”, winner of the Grammy to recording of the year and song of the year …
As a writer, that’s what I can see the most. And be aware of how long I have dedicated over the years doing test and error. Writing from the most terrible shit to some of the best shit. You know, we all do it. Of the writer’s block to discover how to find inspiration in the less popular aspects that surround me. So knowing my thinking process and what is needed until I get there, I don’t see it as a small effort, because it is a successful album. Whether it connects with you at the spiritual level, as if it does it at the comic level, or if it does from a personal dynamic, it does so from the point of view of a writer.
Kendrick Lamar tells how “Not Like Us” has been a rewarded theme from his Beef with Drake and why he is glad to focus on rap as an art form …
I was thinking about culture, really. For me it is always the first. I’m not joking. When people talk about rap, uncle, they think it is only rap, and that it is not a real art form. So when you put albums like this in the foreground, you remind people that this is something else, something that emerged fifty years ago. They forget that it has been here for 50 years. As they despise. So I love seeing that this type of recognition is obtained for rap, from the prizes to advertising fences, all that. Because this is really as great as an art form and a genre like any other. That is what I think. I feel done to be able to do it. If someone else comes behind me and he does it again and quadruply, I would love to see him. If my purpose was to do this, then that is exactly what this particular time has come for.
Kendrick Lamar talks about the connection between black and New Orleans culture and always put the culture ahead …
It is crazy brother, all my friends, all our grandparents were from Louisiana, Texas or Chicago. And point. So our dialect and the way we talk, it is calibrated from the south and the area of the bay … that energy, doing that correlation means a lot to me. Culture and the fact of being black, I can’t help it, uncle. It is not something I think or try to say: “I am black!” I can’t sweeten it. I can’t add importance. I am at a point in my life where I can’t pretend funk as if nothing. I have always had that essence, but you have children and think that you have to be who you are authentically. And if the world cannot accept it, so it is. But I’m going to put everything out there. Either in private or on the main stage.
Kendrick Lamar talks about how to condense its catalog in a 13 -minute setlist …
It is crazy. Mr. Morale (an album of his) is a tour of one hour and thirty minutes, so you have to reduce this shit to 13 minutes! It is crazy and it is interesting, because it allows you to know what your perspective is, how you think about the catalog and music. I love being in the present. It is very difficult for me to live in the past. I respect the past, with all my heart, but be in the now, be locked in how I feel and the energy I have now, that is the energy of me. It is something that wanted to move to New Orleans and that the world saw. This is me, this is Kendrick Lamar, 37 years old and I still feel that I am rising, I’m still on the trip. I want that energy to reach televisions and the people who are in that building.
Kendrick Lamar talks about the importance of telling stories …
I think I have always been very open about the storytelling, throughout my catalog and my music history. I have always passionate to take that to any scenario in which you are, you know, whether it is a world tour as if there are 500 people in Key Club, I have always had a form of that, so that sense of making people listen , but also see and think a little.
Kendrick Lamar says that he and SZA have not yet assimilated the enormity of acting on Sunday …
We haven’t even had the opportunity to talk about it. Because everything has gone very fast in terms of production, essays and others. We talked, but we have not had the opportunity to settle at the time. For me, personally, seeing his career and where he comes from, it is incredible. Finally I can see how certain people see me emerge in the process, because I saw it the first day entering the studio and writing songs, discarding songs, writing another song, discarding more. And the songs are difficult! And I understood that process … I understood and I have seen it. So seeing it now, magnified, is as if I had always had it. I feel honored to be with his talent.
Kendrick Lamar on his advice to others about how to be oneself …
The first thing that people notice, above love and above fears, is authenticity. Be authentic. So to remain authentic, you have to believe in yourself, and you have to know that there is only one you. You are an incredible individual. Only. You are a miracle. I wake up every day and tell myself, this is crazy! Not madness from the point of view of being a celebrity. Crazy is just life in itself! When you really feel to think about it, it’s wild! Knowing that you are in this existence and in this world, and that you are only, you have to know that you have to carry that authentic nature of allowing yourself to say, this is what I am, that’s how people are going to see me. They will also respect me and they will also respect that people tell the truth. Because when everyone is authentic, what comes out of that is true love. There are no limits. We do not make any courtship or judgment. We have no perception of being able to ridicule anyone. Because you show yourself like your true self, and I show myself as my true self.
Kendrick Lamar talks about how he prepares for his performances …
I do some turns, some sprints … You may make a two -mile warm -up, or a mile. Maybe some flexions. Just for the body to move. Sometimes, when you are on stage, you need some oil on your knees to move and start. So physically, I just exercise the body, a little stretch, a little of all that. On a mental level, I usually put some of the Isley Brothers, to calm my nerves, but also my excitement, to balance things. That is my preparation before leaving.
