Top 80 Kendrick Lamar Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “The worst part of success is, to me, adapting to it. It’s scary.”

— Kendrick Lamar

52. “I like to let things breathe.”

— Kendrick Lamar

53. “The best thing is to always keep honest people around, because when you have a bunch of yes men around that know that you’re making a mistake but let you go on with it, that’s when it ruins your mind state as an artist.”

— Kendrick Lamar

54. “I penetrate the hearts of good kids and criminals.”

— Kendrick Lamar

55. “I cut off my ears before i hear your advice and vice versa.”

— Kendrick Lamar

56. “Brother Kendrick Lamar: he’s not a rapper, he’s a writer, he’s an author. And if you read between the lines, we’ll learn how to love one another. But you can’t do that, I said you can’t do that, without loving yourself first.”

— Kendrick Lamar

57. “I’ve got an extra-specific story about Dr. Dre. I saw him when I was 9 years old in Compton – him and Tupac. They were shooting the second ‘California Love’ video. My pops had seen him and ran back to the house and got me, put me on his neck, and we stood there watching Dre and Pac in a Bentley.”

— Kendrick Lamar

58. “While you have people who are actually fronting for your needs and wants, sometimes your needs and wants may not be right for you. The people around you are just trying to keep their jobs.”

— Kendrick Lamar

59. “I can’t help the way you was born if you was gay.”

— Kendrick Lamar

60. “It’s a great, great experience to finally get the reception that you know you rightfully deserve.”

— Kendrick Lamar

61. “Hip-hop and being a pro athlete go hand in hand. When they come together, it’s a win, not just for your business brand but also for culture.”

— Kendrick Lamar

62. “Teenagers expressing this on a daily basis in the middle of the streets – you can’t help but believe we are in the mind state of taking our losses and changing people’s perceptions of us and our community. We are strong. Our families are tired of being hurt.”

— Kendrick Lamar

63. “I’m Machiavelli’s offspring, I’m the king of New York, king of the coast, one hand, I juggle them both.”

— Kendrick Lamar

64. “I always thought money was something just to make me happy. But I’ve learned that I feel better being able to help my folks, ’cause we never had nothing. So just to see them excited about my career is more of a blessing than me actually having it for myself.”

— Kendrick Lamar

65. “Being able to tell one from start to finish, and making that puzzle come together at the end. That’s the art for me.”

— Kendrick Lamar

66. “I always tell people that if I move anywhere it would be Toronto.”

— Kendrick Lamar

67. “I was raised inside the gang culture.”

— Kendrick Lamar

68. “My folks ain’t graduated from high school or nothing like that, so we always had to struggle in the family – and I come from a big family.”

— Kendrick Lamar

69. “I aint a drinker Im a thinker, call it what you want.”

— Kendrick Lamar

70. “People gonna be they own individuals and have they own worlds and I can’t knock it.”

— Kendrick Lamar

71. “My mom’s one of 13 siblings, and they all got six kids, and till I was 13 everybody was in Compton.”

— Kendrick Lamar

72. “A lot of incredible rap albums over the past couple of decades have deserved Album of the Year. To Pimp a Butterfly is an extension of those albums.”

— Kendrick Lamar

73. “When you go on your Twitter or look down your Timeline and it’s all great positivity – I love that. But at the same time, it can really divert you from what your purpose is or what you’re trying to do. And I’ve seen artists get caught up in that.”

— Kendrick Lamar

74. “My pops and my mom started playing Marvin Gaye and the Isley Brothers and all these people, but at the same time, they always had Snoop on right behind it in the same mix.”

— Kendrick Lamar

75. “I probably spent more time listening to albums than writing songs. But I think that gave me all the tricks in terms of wordplay, from how I pronounced my words to the actual delivery.”

— Kendrick Lamar

76. “I had to come from something, come from a place that was negative and positive but the majority of it is a negative place.”

— Kendrick Lamar

77. “The moment I made that decision to get in the studio and actually work and study the culture of hip-hop, then everything just started to open up and blossom for me.”

— Kendrick Lamar

78. “You can have the platinum album, but when you still feel like you haven’t quite found your place in the world – it kind of gives a crazy offset.”

— Kendrick Lamar

79. “There’s a lot of other artists doing things outside of that depth that I enjoy – that music that I can actually have fun to, and not be in depth and think about, then I appreciate that.”

— Kendrick Lamar

80. “I don’t really believe in the type of pressure that people are wanting to put on the type of music that I make.”

— Kendrick Lamar

81. “How am I influencing so many people on this stage rather than influencing the ones that I have back home?”

— Kendrick Lamar

82. “The thing about hip-hop is they always want to classify you as one particular artist, but hip-hop is about going outside the box and expressing yourself however you want to.”

— Kendrick Lamar

83. “The ultimate thing I want to do in making music is to be able to inspire somebody else.”

— Kendrick Lamar

84. “I always felt like there was a certain standard of music that I had to do from the beginning, even when I didn’t have the recognition that I have now.”

— Kendrick Lamar

85. “You’re judged by the companies you keep.”

— Kendrick Lamar

86. “Get God on the phone!”

— Kendrick Lamar

87. “Am I the only one who measures time using songs? “Oh it only took me 4 songs to get here! that’s not to long!”

— Kendrick Lamar

88. “It’s that find some inspiration, it’s that crack the installation, it’s that quantum jump and that fist pump and that bomb detonation...”

— Kendrick Lamar