Kendrick Lamar’s Epic Livestream Concert May Have Buried Drake

Kendrick Lamar had a legendary live performance last night for a Juneteenth celebration. The show, which aired on Amazon Prime and, was referred to by many fans as "Hatechella."

Before K-Dot came out for his highly-anticipated set, he had some of his friends perform to get the crowd hype. Tyler, The Creator, Steve Lacy, Roddy Ricch, Ty Dolla $ign, YG, and more kicked off the show. Some famous faces were also seen in the crowd, like The Weeknd, Lebron James, and Rick Ross.

Kendrick opened up the set by playing his Drake diss track, "Euphoria." For his first time performing the song, fans immediately got the sense that the Ken & Friends celebration would feature more heat toward Drake. Kendrick even added some new lines to the track with "Give me Tupac's ring back, and I might give you new respect."

The sold-out concert had the crowd rapping word-for-word with Kendrick, especially the line where he asks, "What is it, the braids?!" Reacting to his opening track, fans went wild on social media. One person wrote on X (formerly Twitter), "KENDRICK OPENING UP WITH PERFORMING EUPHORIA FOR THE FIRST TIME WITH EVERY ONE SINGING ALONG. THIS IS LEGENDARY S--- [sobbing emoji]." Added another, "Kendrick Lamar opening up with Euphoria going down in history." A third said, "He ain’t ever coming up off Drake’s neck." Wrote a fourth user, "Opening with Euphoria is dastardly."

More fans expressed how Kendrick laid Drake to rest during the Juneteenth celebration. One person wrote, "This is the most lit funeral I've ever watched." Added another: "Drake truly underestimated how much Kendrick Lamar hated him." A third hilariously said: "This is like 'We Are the World' but for hating a guy." Some even noted Kendrick's outfit choice to be one in honor of Tupac. Another had a Game of Thrones reference, writing, "this is drake’s red wedding."

After K-Dot finished "Euphoria," he performed DAMN tracks "Element" and "DNA." He followed that up with To Pimp A Butterfly's "Alright" and Good Kid m.A.A.d City's "Swimming Pools (Drank)," ending the song by telling the crowd that the event that they've got "going on tonight is bigger than me."

Bringing out his longtime friend and collaborator Jay Rock, the duo performed "Money Trees," "Win," "King's Dead," and diss track "6:16 in LA."

Reuniting with his day-ones Black Hippy, K-Dot brought out Ab-Soul and Schoolboy Q, telling the audience, "We finna go up." The trio performed "Collard Greens," "THat Part," and stuck around for "King Kunta," before the rapper went solo once more. Kendrick performed "m.A.A.d City," "HUMBLE," and then "Like That" without Future.

“It’s only right that we start from day one, you know? So where would we be without our legacies,” Kendrick asked the crowd. Dr. Dre came up on the stage to "Still Dre" with Kendrick rapping Snoop Dogg's part and then performed "California Love." Before he leaves, Kendrick asks Dre if he's going to "sing" something. A little shy at first, Dre crouches and whispers, "I see dead people."

This is when things get wild, as Kendrick performs "Not Like Us" another time after telling the crowd at the end of the first time, "So you’re not gonna let nobody disrespect the west coast” or "imitate our legends, huh?" Playing "Not Like Us" for the third time, the crowd chants "OV-Hoe." This time, the rapper is joined by two backup dancers. For his fourth consecutive play of "Not Like Us," he brought out DJ Mustard. Hilariously, K-Dot started to forget his lyrics and even laughed, asking, "What comes after that?"

Fans loved the commitment online, with one person saying, "Ken & Friends is a Hall of Fame hate sesh & it’ll never be dethroned." Another hilariously wrote, "My a-- just started crip walkin' to 'Not Like Us' on Ken & Friends, and I don't even know how! Drake is ded. Bye. Gone." Added another, "'Not Like Us' with a pull-up live & fireworks, straight chef’s kiss theater! Ken & Friends winning Juneteenth."

Looking as though he's having a ball, Kendrick closed out the show playing "Not Like Us" for a fifth time with gang members from different sections joining him on stage, as well as his friends. One person on X noted of the moment, "Kendrick Lamar just unified real life gang members had them all take a group pic and got everyone to dance together to a song calling Drake a pedophile for the 5th time in a row on Amazon Prime."

Kendrick Lamar Duckworth was born on June 17, 1987, in Compton, California. The rapper was named after singer-songwriter Eddie Kendricks of the Temptations. As the eldest of four children, Kendrick and his family lived in Section 8 housing, were reliant on welfare and food stamps, and experienced homelessness.

Despite suffering hardships, K-Dot remembered having "good memories" of his childhood that sparked his interest in hip-hop music. After hearing a recording of his voice for the first time, he became interested in rapping. While in elementary school, Kendrick had a noticeable stutter. Despite that, his first-grade teacher encouraged him to be a writer after hearing him correctly use the word "audacity."

By middle school, Lamar was introduced to poetry, and through its connection to hip-hop, he studied rhymes, metaphors, and double entendres, which made him fall in love with songwriting. His initial writing helped him manage his psychological trauma and depression, which he struggled with during his adolescence. In high school, he adopted the stage name K-Dot and began freestyling and battle rapping at school. He befriended who would become his long-time friend and collaborator Dave Free, and they recorded music together at Free's makeshift studio.

When Free was working as a computer technician, he introduced Kendrick's Youngest Head N---- in Charge (Hub City Threat: Minor of the Year) mixtape to record producer Anthony "Top Dawg" Tiffith. Impressed with Lamar's potential, he invited him to audition for his newly established independent record label, Top Dawg Entertainment (TDE).

In 2005, Kendrick was signed by TDE, joining Jay Rock as the label's first signings. He then met Ab-Soul and Schoolboy Q, forming the hip-hop supergroup Black Hippy. The following year, Lamar signed an artist development deal with Def Jam Recordings and was featured on two singles by the Game. Lamar's stint in Def Jam was short-lived after an encounter with its president and chief executive officer, Jay-Z. K-Dot later described it as "one of those situations where I wasn’t ready."

Kendrick's self-titled debut EP was released in 2009 through TDE. By 2011, he released his first studio album with Section.80, featuring hits like "A.D.H.D.," "HiiiPoWeR," and "Hol' Up." Just a year later, he followed that up with Good Kid, M.A.A.D City, with even more heat on tracks like "Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe," "Swimming Pools (Drank)," "Money Trees," "Poetic Justice," "Compton," "Backseat Freestyle," and "Sing About Me, I'm Dying of Thirst."

In the following decade, Kendrick released three more studio albums, a compilation album, a soundtrack album for Black Panther, as well as features and singles.

No Marvel soundtrack went as hard as the Black Panther album featuring hip-hop heavy-hitters like Schoolboy Q, 2 Chainz, Vince Staples, Kendrick, Future, SZA, and The Weeknd. "King's Dead" is still as hype as ever, over five years since it dropped. The music video is just as hype and iconic, with the insane visuals. From extreme zooms to the Wolf of Wall Street scene to Kendrick's trippy intersection when the beat switches up halfway through, Kendrick's long-time collaborator and childhood friend Dave Free directed the video.

Kendrick's Drake diss will forever be remembered throughout hip-hop history. As his fourth diss track against the Canadian rapper, Lamar released this gem in May 2024, showing that he stands ten toes down as the GOAT of rappers. His scathing lines like, "Why you trollin' like a bitch? Ain't you tired? Tryna strike a chord and it's probably A minor," is rapped over an insane, bouncy beat. Not only does he drop bars against Drizzy, but the song has maintained the top of the charts since its release and will continue to be a party banger.

"King Kunta" is inspired by Kunta Kinte, a fictional character in the 1976 novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family by American author Alex Haley, based on one of Haley's ancestors, a Gambian man who was born around 1750, enslaved, and taken to America where he died around 1822. In the book, Kinte refused to accept the name “Toby” that slave masters tried to give him, and his right foot was cut off following his attempts to escape the plantation he was enslaved on. Lamar said that after watching the series based on the book, he was inspired to write the 2015 track. He said the overall theme of the track tells the "story of struggle and standing up for what you believe in. No matter how many barriers you gotta break down, no matter how many escape routes you gotta run to tell the truth. That’s what I think we all can relate to."

Kendrick's 2014 compilation album featuring all "untitled" tracks had quite a lot of great songs to choose from. This jazzy track is about the rapper's inner conflict between his life at home in Compton and his life as a global superstar. He raps, "I'm sick and tired of being tired. Can't pick a side, the Gemini." In the chorus, he repeatedly says, "Get God on the phone," as he basks in money, diamonds, and women.

To Pimp A Butterfly has so many great tracks, with "Alright" as one of the greatest. The song is uplifting; it's about overcoming pain and struggle, as K-Dot raps about how he means to escape his troubles. By trusting in God, Kendrick is able to look past his failures and have confidence that everything is "gon’ be alright.” This track inspires the feeling of taking action after being exhausted by being beaten down and wallowing in their sorrows.

This 2012 track has two meanings: "My Angel on Angel Dust" and "My Angry Adolescence Divided." "m.A.A.d City" tells the story of K-Dot's upbringing in Compton, rapping about memories of witnessing someone with their "brains blown" out at a burger stand back when he was nine, as well as how his cousin was killed back in ‘94. With lines like: "Brace yourself, I'll take you on a trip down memory lane. This is not a rap on how I'm slingin' crack or move cocaine. This is cul-de-sac and plenty Cognac and major pain," the rapper takes fans on a journey over a trap beat.

Earning the top spot on Kendrick's best songs is "Sing About Me, I'm Dying Of Thirst," from his debut studio album. This song is number one for a multitude of reasons, one of them being that it is two songs in one when the beat switches up around seven minutes into the 12-minute track. Lyrically, the track tells a story of Kendrick's upbringing in Compton, much like most of this album. He said he merged two tracks into one because "that was a situation that happened that exact same time."