It probably wasn’t on anyone’s bingo card that Kendrick Lamar would have the kind of year he’s had since jumping on the 2024 song “Like That” alongside fellow artists Future and Metro Boomin. But here we are.

Kendrick Lamar, idealized as he is as the relative ascetic among his class of self-styled rap princes, is very much attracted to such power. What makes him unique is his relationship to it: the laurels he has won,