Kendrick Lamar remembers the moment he let himself cry for the first time

Lamar describes himself as a spiritual man and admits that he has intensive conversations with his god every day. And while his faith gives him the strength to be the open-minded, educated person he is today, he says he still finds it difficult to escape the way he was raised: to suppress his soft side.

“We talk about our childhood. I hate going back to that. It’s traumatizing. My dad, he was tough. He was militant, in that every day you were expected to go to work, take care of your family and get up again to do it all again. Being a man is shit, right? And he never showed any weakness. He never showed any emotion that could draw a one-up from the person sitting across from him. And I learned to experience that, not knowing that I had the same qualities, right?” says Lamar. “But for what I do, there is certainly no growth without vulnerability. If I had understood the power of vulnerability earlier, I could have had more depth and more reach for the guys around me.”

He adds that because his job is to communicate, he has taught himself to embrace his feminine side. “But the more I get deeper into my music and the more expressive I become with myself… that’s the feminine energy there. That’s not the bravado I grew up with. This is who I am, the small voice, and I have to own it,” he says. “This is where my superpower lies. Because if my job is to communicate, I have to be able to communicate with everyone.”

When SZA asks him when the last time he cried, Lamar says it was probably when he recorded his emotional song “Mother I Sober” for his 2022 studio album. Mr. Morale and the big steps. “I would say the last time I cried probably happened Mr. Morale. “That shit was deep for me,” he says.

SZA asks, “Would you say you’ve cried more lately than you have in your life?”

“Now? Yes, I have to,” Lamar replies.

“It’s cleansing,” says SZA.

“But maybe it’s easier for you,” he notes, before diving back into his memory.

He continues: “The first time I made it happen is documented on stage (in 2011) when Dre and Snoop and the whole West Coast were out, and they said, ‘This is the torch we passed. ‘ Dre gave me the torch and there was a burst of energy that came out, and I had to let it flow.”

“My tears are all over the internet,” Lamar says. “And now I look back and I love that moment. I think it’s great that that happened. Because it showed me how to express myself in real time and see all the work I put out there actually come to life in that moment.”