Kendrick Lamar may be one of the biggest names in male rap, but he is also in touch with his softer side.
He recently opened up about how being "soft-spoken" and how his feminine side has become his "superpower" over the years.
"I have to balance both. At first, all I knew was the masculinity, and I always kept that wall up because of my pops. But the more I delve deeper into my music and the more expressive I get with myself ... that is the feminine energy right there," he told SZA in a coversation for Harper's Bazaar.
Lamar went on to share that his feminine side is his "superpower."
"That's not the bravado that I grew up seeing all the time. This is who I am, the soft-spoken me, and I have to own it. This is where my superpower lies," he added.
"Because if my job is to communicate, I need to be able to communicate with everyone. I need to be able to sit in front of SZA and talk to you in a way where you feel comfortable, in a way where it feels authentic from me to you, you to me, and I can't do that with a wall up. I can't do that with my full masculinity," Lamar added.
The interview comes after he scored one of the biggest hits of the year with his song "Not Like Us," a blistering diss against fellow rapper Drake.
While Lamar talked about the song in the interview, he did not mention Drake by name.
"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 ... 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," he revealed.
It is not confirmed if Lamar will perform the song at his upcoming Super Bowl halftime show in February 2025. Lamar previously co-headlined the show in 2022 in a celebration of West Coast Hip-Hop alongside Dr. Dre, Eminem, Snoop Dogg and Mary J. Blige.
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