The reason Kendrick Lamar quit drugs and alcohol
One of the most influential rappers in history, it wouldn’t be hyperbolic to call Kendrick Lamar one of the greatest musicians in history. I mean, Pulitzer essentially did that by awarding him the Pulitzer Prize for Music for his 2018 album DAMN., making him the first artist outside of classical or jazz music to ever win the award.
And then, obviously, there’s all his Grammys – 22, to be exact – his record-breaking 37 BET Hip Hop Awards, his five number one albums on the US Billboard 200, his six Billboard Hot 100 Number 1 singles, and his Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song. Kendrick Lamar is it.
Amidst all his career success and creative acclaim, do not expect the usual celebratory fun and extracurricular activities so long associated with musicians – especially those within the hip-hop scene. Instead of drinking, dancing and smoking to excess, Kendrick disclosed in a 2015 interview with Billboard that he gave up smoking and drinking when he was a mere teenager.
“Teenagers don’t get it – we selfish. Go drink, go smoke, go get fucked up,” he explained in the interview. “Why did I do these things? Because I was brought up around it? It damn sure was in the household.”
“I said, ‘I know what happens to my family and certain friends when they get drunk and they smoke,” he continued. “They get out of their minds, they get violent. And that’s in my blood.’ I have little sips on special occasions, but getting all the way out of my mind may not be a good idea.”
And it was around this time he started to swear off drinking and smoking that he started taking a career in music seriously. “Before finding music, I didn’t have too many aspirations,” he said. “I wanted to hang out, make a little money from whatever I had to do. Because that’s all you see in the four-block radius.”
He then indicated that as a teenager, after he started making music, he still wasn’t aware of his potential. “I wanted to go back to the neighborhood and say, ‘I got signed.’ Fuck putting an album out, fuck selling records, fuck being on TV. All I wanted to do is put my name on the dotted line.”
The rest, as is always so delicious to say, is history. Kendrick signed to Dr. Dre’s Aftermath label in 2011, and two years later, experienced something of a breakthrough with his guest verse on Big Sean’s “Control”, in which the Compton born and bred rapper listed eleven rappers including ASAP Rocky, Drake and Big Sean himself, then declaring: “I got love for you all, but I’m trying to murder you n*ggas.”
13 years on, Kendrick Lamar has indeed risen to the very top of the rap game. In regard to murder, it is perhaps only Drake who can claim to be a homicide victim at the hands of Kendrick, suffering both career, public, and personal blows upon their infamous rap feud in 2024. By all measures, Kendrick’s single “They Not Like Us” thrust him to the top of not just the feud, but the world that summer. A useful song to have in your arsenal as one of the only sober musicians in the field.