Kendrick Lamar is a huge fan of his former labelmate SZA, praising her songs as “the most disruptive yet beautiful compositions this generation has ever heard.”
The New Jersey songstress covers British Vogue for their December 2024 issue, where K. Dot shared a few words about his “All The Stars” collaborator.
“There was always a question about something,” he said of the SZA he first met in the early 2010s. “[Today] I recognize a more expressive SZA. The shy shit is completely out the window – to a degree, at least. She has the answers to some of the things she was curious about and is willing to tell it all in the most disruptive yet beautiful compositions this generation has ever heard.”
In October, SZA interviewed Kendrick for his Harpers Bazaar cover story. During their chat, she asked about the last time the Compton native cried.
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“I would say the last time I cried was probably on Mr. Morale [& The Big Steppers] on the ‘Mother I Sober’ record. That shit was deep for me,” he revealed.
The intensely personal song finds Lamar detailing his trauma from his mother being sexually abused when he was a child and the deep guilt he struggles with for having cheated on his fiancée, Whitney Alford.
“Mother cried, put they hands on her, it was family ties,” he raps on the track. “I heard it all, I should’ve grabbed a gun, but I was only five/ I still feel it weighin’ on my heart, my first tough decision/ In the shadows clingin’ to my soul as my only critic.”
Kendrick also revealed that the first time he ever allowed himself to cry was on stage with Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg in 2011.
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“The first time I allowed it to happen is documented, actually, onstage [in 2011] when Dre and Snoop and the whole West Coast was out,” he said. “They was like, ‘This is the torch that we were handing off.’ Dre passed me the torch, and a burst of energy just came out and I had to let it flow.”
He continued: “My tears is all on the internet. And now I look back and I love that moment. I love that that happened. Because it showed me in real time expressing myself and seeing all the work that I put forth actually come to life in that moment.”
