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Kendrick Lamar Duckworth (born June 17, 1987) is an American rapper, singer, songwriter and record producer. Regarded as one of the greatest rappers of all time, he was awarded the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Music, becoming the first musician outside of the classical and jazz genres to receive the award.

Born in Compton, California, Lamar began releasing music under the stage name K.Dot while attending high school. He signed with Top Dawg Entertainment (TDE) in 2005 and co-founded the hip hop supergroup Black Hippy debut album '' Section.80'', Lamar secured a joint contract with Dr. Dre's Aftermath Entertainment and Interscope Records. He rose to prominence with his gangsta rap-influenced second album ''Good Kid, M.A.A.D City'' (2012), which became the longest-charting hip hop studio album in ''Billboard'' 200 history; ''Rolling Stone'' named it the greatest concept album of all time. In 2015, Lamar scored his first ''Billboard'' Hot 100 number-one single, after featuring on the remix of Taylor Swift's " Bad Blood", and released his third album, ''To Pimp a Butterfly'' (2015), which infused hip-hop with historical African-American music genres such as jazz, funk, and soul, and became his first of six consecutive number-one albums on the ''Billboard'' 200.

Lamar's critical and commercial success continued with his R&B and pop-leaning fourth album ''Damn'' (2017), yielding his second US number one single, " Humble". He curated original songs for the soundtrack of the 2018 film ''Black Panther'', earning a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Original Song for the US top ten single "All the Stars". His fifth album '' Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers'' (2022), delved into introspection and concluded his tenure with TDE and Aftermath. His 2024 feud with Drake and sixth album ''GNX'' (2024) spawned the US number-ones " Like That", "Not Like Us", "Squabble Up" and " Luther" with the second winning a joint-record five Grammy Awards, including Song of the Year and Record of the Year, and the lattermost becoming Lamar's longest-charting number one song on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100, spending 13 weeks on top of the chart.

Lamar has received various accolades, including 22 Grammy Awards ( the third-most won by a rapper), a Primetime Emmy Award, a Brit Award, 5 American Music Awards, 7 ''Billboard'' Music Awards, 11 MTV Video Music Awards (including 2 Video of the Year wins), and a record 37 BET Hip Hop Awards. ''Time'' listed him as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2016. Three of his works were included in ''Rolling Stone''s 2020 revision of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. His Super Bowl LIX halftime show in 2025 broke viewership records, with 133.5 million viewers domestically. Outside of music, Lamar co-founded the creative company PGLang and ventured into film with his longtime creative partner, Dave Free.

Early life

Kendrick Lamar Duckworth was born on June 17, 1987, in Compton, California. He is the first child of former gang hustler Kenneth "Kenny" Duckworth and hairdresser Paula Oliver. Both of his parents are African Americans from South Side, Chicago. When they were teenagers, they relocated to Compton in 1984, due to his father's affiliation with the Gangster Disciples. Lamar was named after singer-songwriter Eddie Kendricks of the Temptations. He was an only child until the age of seven and was described as a loner by his mother. Eventually, his parents had his two younger brothers and younger sister, businesswoman Kayla Sawyer (née Duckworth). His cousins include basketball player Nick Young and rapper Baby Keem.

Lamar and his family lived in Section 8 housing, were reliant on welfare and food stamps, and experienced homelessness. Although he is not a member of a particular gang, he grew up with close affiliates of the Westside Pirus. Despite suffering hardships, Lamar remembered having "good memories" of his childhood that sparked his interest in hip hop music, such as sneaking into his parents' house parties. He was raised secular, although he occasionally attended church services and was taught the Bible by his grandmother. He felt "spiritually unsatisfied" as a child due to the "empty" and "one-sided" nature of the sermons.

After hearing a recording of his voice for the first time, Lamar became interested in rapping. He was introduced to police brutality after experiencing the first day of the 1992 Los Angeles riots. When he was five years old, Lamar witnessed a murder for the first time while sitting outside of his apartment unit, as a teenage drug dealer was killed in a drive-by shooting. "It done something to me right then and there," Lamar later admitted to NPR Music. "It let me know that this is not only something that I'm looking at, but it's something that maybe I have to get used to." His parents nicknamed him "Man-Man" due to his precocious behavior, although he confessed it "put a stigma on the idea of me reacting as a kid sometimes—I would hurt myself and they would expect me not to cry."

In school, Lamar was a quiet and observant student who excelled academically and had a noticeable stutter. His first grade teacher at Robert E. McNair Elementary School encouraged him to become a writer after she heard him correctly use the word "audacity". As a seventh grade student at Vanguard Learning Center, Lamar was introduced to poetry by his English teacher, Regis Inge. Inge integrated the literary form into his curriculum as a response to the growing racial tensions amongst his students. Through its connection to hip hop, Lamar studied rhymes, metaphors and double entendres, which made him fall in love with songwriting: "You can put all your feelings down on a sheet of paper, and they'd make sense to you. I liked that." Instead of completing assignments for other classes, Lamar would scribe lyrics in his notebooks. His initial writing was entirely profane, but it helped him manage his psychological trauma and depression, which he struggled with during his adolescence. Inge played a vital role in his intellectual growth, often criticizing his lexicon and suggesting prompts to strengthen his prose.

Lamar later attended Centennial High School. He was enrolled in summer school during the tenth grade, which he dreaded because it forced him to be embroiled in a gang war. Despite his efforts to avoid them, Lamar soon became heavily involved with Compton's hedonistic gang culture, which led to numerous health scares and encounters with the police. He distanced himself from the lifestyle following an intervention staged by his father. When he was 16, Lamar was baptized and converted to Christianity following the death of a friend. He graduated from high school in 2005 as a straight-A student. He considered studying psychology and astronomy in college, but suspended his academic pursuits to focus on his music career.

Career

2003–2008: Beginnings

During high school, Lamar adopted the stage name K.Dot and began freestyling and battle rapping at school. His performances caught the attention of fellow student Dave Free, who traveled from Inglewood to watch him rap. They quickly formed a friendship over their love of hip-hop and the television sitcom ''Martin''. They recorded music together at Free's makeshift garage studio and at his older brother's Hyde Park apartment. Lamar's earliest performances were held at a "super hood" comedy club and behind a tattoo parlor. Free was his hype man during that time, while his older brother was his manager and disc jockey. Lamar recorded five mixtapes throughout the 2000s; his first, ''Youngest Head Nigga in Charge (Hub City Threat: Minor of the Year)'', was released on April 15, 2003, through Konkrete Jungle Musik. The mixtapes primarily consisted of freestyles over the production of popular hip-hop songs.

In a series of retrospective reviews for ''Rolling Stone'', Mosi Reeves complimented Lamar's "unerring" sense of rhythm and timing found in ''Hub City Threat: Minor of the Year'', but criticized his "clumsy" lyricism and that his flow was "overly beholden to ... Jay-Z and Lil Wayne". Free, who was working as a computer technician, introduced the mixtape to record producer Anthony "Top Dawg" Tiffith while attempting to repair his computer. Tiffith was impressed with Lamar's burgeoning abilities and invited him to partake in an audition process for entry into his newly established independent record label, Top Dawg Entertainment (TDE). During his audition, Lamar freestyled for Tiffith and record executive Terrence "Punch" Henderson for two hours, a strategy that impressed Henderson but bewildered Tiffith. He was offered a recording contract by TDE in 2005, joining Jay Rock as the label's first signings. Upon signing, he purchased a minority stake in the label for an undisclosed amount.

Lamar had a brief stint as a security guard when he started working on music with Jay Rock at TDE's in-house recording studio. The bond he formed with him, Ab-Soul and Schoolboy Q led to the formation of the hip-hop supergroup, Black Hippy

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