Kendrick Lamar breaks his silence to finally reveal the meaning behind that culture-shifting blockbuster bonanza of a hit song “Not Like Us.”
The diss track landed like a heat-seeking missile, destroying its target, Lamar’s archenemy Drake, in one of the greatest rap battles in hip-hop history.
Not only did the track blow up Drake’s spot, but the sizzling, searing single shot up the charts like a bullet, landing at the top of the Billboard Hot 100, broke streaming records on Spotify, and went on to earn trophies at the MTV Video Music and BET Hip Hop awards programs.
The Compton, Calif. native sat down with singer SZA for an interview for Harper’s Bazaar ahead of their November cover story.
“Can I ask you a hypermasculine question?” SZA asks Lamar. “You can also tell me to shut the f— up. What does ‘Not Like Us’ mean to you?”
Lamar answers, “Not like us? Not like us is the energy of who I am, the type of man I represent. Now, if you identify with the man that I represent …”
He continues, “This man has morals, he has values, he believes in something, he stands on something. He’s not pandering. He’s a man who can recognize his mistakes and not be afraid to share the mistakes and can dig deep down into fear-based ideologies or experiences to be able to express them without feeling like he’s less of a man. If I’m thinking of ‘Not Like Us,’ I’m thinking of me and whoever identifies with that.”
“Not Like Us” was the veritable kill shot that precipitated Drake waving the white flag and ending the battle that caused a quake in the culture. It followed “Euphoria” and “Meet the Grahams.”
The song spent the most weeks at the number one spot on Billboard’s Hot Rap Songs chart, a title previously held by Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus’s “Old Town Road.”
