Kendrick Lamar’s highly anticipated headliner Super Bowl performance is coming, and we’re breaking down his journey on the Billboard 200 & Hot 100 from ‘Overly Dedicated’ to his latest project, ‘GNX.’
What’s your favorite Kendrick Lamar album? Let us know in the comments below!
What’s your favorite Kendrick Lamar album? Let us know in the comments below!
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MusicTranscript
00:00It's no secret everybody's excited to see Kendrick Lamar take the stage at the Super Bowl halftime show.
00:06But who is Kendrick? What's his story? And how did he land on the world's biggest stage?
00:11This is Billboard Explains How Kendrick Lamar Arrived at the Super Bowl.
00:16Kendrick Lamar Duckworth was born on June 17, 1987 in Compton, California.
00:21Growing up, he took an interest in poetry and creative writing and excelled academically.
00:25Having witnessed gang violence and police brutality at an early age,
00:29Kendrick processed his trauma through stories and poems before later turning them into lyrics.
00:35At 16, Kendrick made his first mixtape, 2003's YHNIC Hub City Thread Minor of the Year,
00:41under the name K-Dot. The project led him to signing with the independent label Top Dog
00:46Entertainment. He dropped more mixtapes until he decided to go by his real name, Kendrick Lamar,
00:51and dropped his fourth mixtape, Overly Dedicated, which was his Billboard chart debut.
00:56Kendrick then made his Billboard 200 debut with Section 80 in 2011, reaching No. 113.
01:02In 2012, Kendrick dropped Good Kid, Mad City, featuring singles like
01:06Poetic Justice and Swimming Pools, Drank, which was his Billboard Hot 100 debut.
01:16He followed that up with his next album, To Pimp a Butterfly, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard
01:21200. The album featured the track I, which won him his first Grammys for Best Rap Song and Best
01:26Rap Performance. Then came his third studio album, Damn, in 2017. The album earned him another No.
01:351 on the Billboard 200 and featured the track Humble, which peaked at No. 1 on the Hot 100.
01:45The album also made history by winning the Pulitzer Prize for music,
01:49making Kendrick the first artist to win the prize for a hip-hop album.
01:52Kendrick went on to curate and produce the soundtrack for 2018's Black Panther,
01:56featuring the SZA collab, All the Stars.
02:02Five years after Damn, Kendrick returned with Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers in 2022.
02:07Fast forward to the summer of 2024, during the Drake and Kendrick beef,
02:11and Kendrick dropped the hit, Not Like Us.
02:14The song spent 25 weeks at No. 1 on Hot Rap Songs,
02:21the longest run for any song in the chart's 35-year history.
02:25Then Kendrick surprised everyone with his latest album,
02:27GNX, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.
02:35With tracks from his GNX album, Kendrick occupied the entire top five of the Hot 100 in one week.
02:40He joined the Beatles, Drake, and Taylor Swift as the only acts to accomplish the feat.
02:44With the Super Bowl right around the corner, we can't wait to watch Kendrick take the stage.