In the beginning of the video for “HiiiPoWeR,” Kendrick Lamar shows a message that explains he “got a visit from Lesane Parish Crooks,” the birth name of Tupac Shakur. Speaking with Home Grown Radio, the West Coast spitter explained that saw a vision of the fallen rapper in his sleep and it encouraged him to carry on his name.

“It’s a crazy true story, actually. You know one of them things when you really delirious in your sleep? It’s a real situation where I was sleeping one night and a silhouette [came] and he said, ‘Keep doing what you doing, don’t let my music die,’” he said. “The shit scared the shit out of me! Just off the fact that prior to that, a day before, my mom bringing up, ‘You know, you and Tupac, y’all like days apart, y’all birthdays.’ I never knew that shit, that’s some wild shit. Once she said that shit – and I’m really big on shit like that – somebody comes in your dreams and relays a message, you gotta listen to it because I’ve got past family relatives that’s been coming to my dreams forever and been talking to me.”

The experience inspired the track, featured on his latest release #Section80. “I just really wanted to share that message and I felt like that was something I couldn’t keep to myself. I want to put it out to the world and let ‘em know this shit is real for me. I’m not doing it for myself anymore. I’m doing it for the people around me, my city of course and a bigger power, and that’s to continue the message that he tried to carry.”

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