Kendrick Lamar Covers New Billboard: Talks Grammys, To Pimp a Butterfly, Obama & More

Kendrick Lamar isn’t shy about what he wants and telling it how it’s. So it should come as no surprise in the newest issue of Billboard, which hits newsstands tomorrow with the Compton emcee on the cover, he told the magazine how he wants to win everyone of the record-setting 11 Grammy nominations he’s up for at this month’s upcoming ceremony.

The TDE rep said how him winning is not only for making history, but the importance to Hip-Hop culture.

“It’s bigger than me. When we think about the Grammys, only Lauryn Hill and Outkast have won Album of the Year. This would be big for hip-hop culture at large.”

Lamar who is also set to perform at the 58th annual awards on Feb. 15th, also speaks on the impact of To Pimp A Butterfly and how the nominations it received made that impact.
The 28-year-old emcee who is the voice of his generation the way that Aretha Franklin was in 1967, Marvin Gaye in 1971 and Chuck D in 1989 said, “The album just had a deeper impact than I expected, because it touched so many homes, and not just in my own community. I guess I’m speaking words that need to be heard in these times.”

The Top Dawg Entertainment emcee is very tight-lipped about the details of his White House visit with President Obama, but says how eye-opening it was for him and how it’s very similar to how people probably feel about him now.

“The way people look at me these days — that’s the same way I looked at President Obama before I met him,” Lamar says. “We tend to forget that people who have attained a certain position are human. When (the president) said to my face what his favorite record was — I understood that, no matter how high-ranking you get in this world, you’re human. No matter how high the pedestal you reach, we all still like a beat. Even the president has got to hear that snare drum.”

To read more of the cover story pick up the latest issue of Billboard Magazine, which is on newsstands now.