From 'Good Kid' to Chanel? Kendrick Lamar's complicated legacy

The Herald Scotland

24-04-2025

Lamar's feud with Drake drew clear battle lines: Drake was painted as a purveyor of façade and immorality while Lamar stood as the righteous force destined to take him down.
But now, everything Lamar does is under a microscope. The immense goodwill he's earned has fostered the illusion of him being some flawless saviour. And many fans feel entitled to dictate his next move, as if they alone know what his career should ultimately mean.
These fans made their voices heard when Lamar was announced as a brand ambassador for luxury fashion house Chanel.
Confusion followed. Is this the same Lamar who spoke for the voiceless, stood up for the marginalised, and confronted systemic inequality in Black America? Now, here he is, promoting high-end fashion that most of his fans could never afford.
It's as if Lamar exists separately from the genre he dominates – as if a rapper collaborating with a luxury brand is inherently noteworthy. But for Lamar, it is noteworthy, precisely because it doesn't go unnoticed by his supporters. In fact, it clashes with the enlightened persona his fans have constructed over the years. To them, it feels like either ignorance or betrayal.
But even when Lamar collaborates with his rapping peers, it becomes a moral and ethical dilemma.
In 2022, Lamar released his critically acclaimed double album Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers. Nestled in the second disc is the track Silent Hill, featuring Florida rapper Kodak Black – a controversial choice for the moment.
Kodak, a hardened street rapper with a raw, emotional delivery, and a firm talent in invoking pathos, brought something Lamar couldn't replicate. Yet his inclusion didn't fit the pristine narrative surrounding Lamar. Kodak had been charged with sexual assault, child neglect, and served time for gun and drug offences – only freed after an unexpected pardon from Donald Trump.
Kendrick Lamar was announced as Chanel's new brand ambassador – prompting confusion and derision from his purist supporters (Image: Getty) Then came another controversial move for Lamar's fans. Playboi Carti dropped his long-awaited album MUSIC after a gruelling five-year wait and Lamar appeared on three tracks. The collaboration seemed odd, given how polar opposite the two artists are in the rap world.
Here was a Pulitzer Prize winner, the same artist who sampled Maya Angelou and other black radical intellectuals, now ad-libbing over raging trap beats about lavish, wealthy lifestyles. To some, it came across as hypocrisy. But it's possibly just the exhale of an artist after years of suffocating under the weight of his own mythology.
Lamar's presence on Carti's album wasn't just a stylistic and thematic diversion – it was another crack in the pedestal. Playboi Carti represents everything Lamar's purist fans disdain: a hedonistic rapper whose appeal lies in vibes and aura rather than lyrical depth, an artist who thrives on aesthetics rather than conscious messaging. For Lamar, a collaborator long associated with meticulous intentionality, jumping into Carti's universe felt like a provocation or a stretch of hands to not be willingly boxed in.
This is the curse of the pedestal. The higher you're lifted, the narrower the space you're allowed to occupy. Every deviation becomes a betrayal; every experiment, a misstep. Fans who praised Lamar for his complexity now feel the right to question any surface level moves that bubble up from below. The same critics who hail him as rap's moral compass are more than happy to scrutinise his associations, as if an artist's worth should be measured by the purity of his collaborators rather than the depth and intention of his art.
But maybe that's the point. Perhaps Lamar isn't slipping, perhaps he's shaking off the weight of expectation. After being rap's thinking man for so long, maybe he's no longer interested in playing the role assigned to him. The Chanel deal, the Kodak Black feature, the Carti features – they're not accidents. They're statements. If the pedestal demands perfection, maybe Lamar would rather stand on the ground, flaws and all.
The tragedy isn't that Lamar is falling off the pedestal; it's that we ever put him there. Pedestals freeze their subjects in perpetual stasis, hindering the artistic liberty to evolve beyond an audience's grasp.
The irony? The same fans who claim to love authenticity often reject it when it doesn't align with their fantasy. Now, his greatest challenge isn't staying on top, it's convincing the world to let him step down.