XXL Oct/Nov 2013 Cover StoryXXL

There's a new crew taking over hip-hop, and everybody's trying to be down.

I try to stay in my own little bubble and not think about how people view me, 'cause if you do that, it's very quick that you can go crazy.Kendrick Lamar: That’s crazy.

XXL: What?

KL: TMZ.

XXL: How did you break into that world? You’re like a little backpack rapper, and then all of a sudden TMZ cares about what you’re doing.

KL: That world is The Matrix. I don’t understand that world—that’s The Matrix.

XXL: Is it really like they say, that it happens fast? Even though you’re moving real slow and then—

KL: Yeah, that’s very true. That’s very true. It definitely happens fast, but not fast in the sense, saying you didn’t put in the work—I’ve been doing this for ten years—but when that light beams on you, it happens fast from an aspect where you’re doing so much every day [that] you’re not really aware of the attention that you’re getting, ’cause you’re doing interviews, you do a show, then you do a studio, it’s just a constant, daily plan, so you can’t look at yourself. You can’t be in the crowd looking at yourself on stage, you know. I can only look in the mirror and know I’m Kendrick, and see that same little boy I seen seven years [ago], but I can’t see what everyone else sees. So more and more, I’m really unfazed by it as more and more success is hitting me and I’m not really sure [about it all]. It’s a tricky thing, for sure.

XXL: What’s your day-to-day been like for the past few months? Has it been mostly touring and interviews? Have you back in the studio? Do you write often? Where are you at, as an artist?

KL: I’ve been on the road for the most part. But at the same time I gotta stay creative, I gotta stay writing—I’m usually writing every day. I can’t miss a day without writing, whether it’s a line, a verse, or an idea. I always have to have that creative flow going.

XXL: When you say you write, what’s your writing process like? Are you writing or are you just thinking shit in your mind?

KL: The process for my first album, my debut album, and even music prior to that, it’s always been like 50/50. I have some songs where I just went in the booth and just got the thoughts off and I didn’t want to feel like I was confined with a sheet of paper. Some records, I may sit with it and have scraps of napkins everywhere, and papers everywhere scattered, then [I'm] piecing up them ideas together and putting them to songs. It really depends on what I’m feeling at the time.