Credit: Spotify

The way Kendrick Lamar ended up meeting Dr. Dre was highly unusual but not surprising. It involved several individuals, one of whom was Kansas City emcee Tech N9ne.

Before he blew up and became the superstar he is today, Kendrick Lamar was an underappreciated artist. Furthermore, he wasn’t even the top artist on his label, Top Dawg Entertainment (TDE), but, in fact, spent a lot of time in the shadow of Jay Rock, who was seen as the most promising talent of TDE.

In 2010, a year before the release of Kendrick’s first album, Section.80, Jay Rock finally got his big break and signed a multi-album deal with Tech N9ne’s Strange Music. Although the emcee was still on Top Dwag, the joint venture to launch him as an artist looked promising and was set to see big returns.

As such, shortly after signing Rock, Tech N9ne took him on tour, and as usual, Lamar was there alongside his labelmate to be his ever-loyal hypeman. However, while on the road, Kendrick used the opportunity to present Tech N9ne with his upcoming debut album Section.80.

The Kansas City lyricist was so impressed with the body of work after the 2010 tour that he put him on his project, All 6’s And 7’s, on which he appeared as a guest on the track, ’I Love Music.’ After the album was released, the trio went on tour again. However, this time, Tech N9ne invited an industry friend to come and watch their performance at the House Of Blues in Los Angeles — the friend was none other than Dr Dre.

During an appearance on The Juan Epstein Show, Tech N9ne explained to Peter Rosenberg and Cypha Sounds how he first came across Lamar, detailing, “We signed Jay Rock some years ago. That’s how I met Kendrick because I took them both on tour with me. Like a year or two ago. Something [like that], Kendrick came as his hype man. So, I met Kendrick on that first tour I put him on, and he gave me the Section.80 CD.”

Recalling his instant reaction upon listening to Lamar’s debut project, Tech continued, “After I listened to it, I said, ‘We gotta get you on something.’ So, my All 6’s And 7’s album, which was probably another year and something ago, he was on there, and nobody knew who he was. We did a song called ‘I Love Music.’ He met Dre on my tour. When we did the House of Blues and then after that he blew up.”

The rest was history and, shortly after the release of Section.80, Lamar penned a multi-million dollar deal with Aftermath Entertainment that saw his career skyrocket to heights not even he expected which resulted in the creation of a classic, Good Kid, m.A.A.d City.

Following the release of his 2017 project DAMN, Kendrick spoke with Revolt magazine about the moment he was put in touch with Dr Dre. Recounting the initial exchange, Lamar detailed, “Me and my boy Ali, we was eating at Chili’s, I’ll never forget, and we got a call, like, ‘Yo, Dr Dre likes your music.’ And we’re like, who the fuck is this on the phone? Fuck outta here, boy. We hung up. We might’ve blown it. But another call came in from somebody else, then another call came from somebody else like, ‘Yo, they tryna reach out and figure who you with.’”

K. Dot’s initial disbelief is understandable as the Compton native had no clue that Dr Dre was at the House Of Blues and, at the time, was still a TDE artist who had been lucky enough to appear on All 6’s And 7’s. However, it was no prank call and since then Lamar and Dre have released music of an extraordinary calibre.