Kendrick Lamar Talks GRAMMY Nominations, New Album & Lessons from Kanye West

With his upcoming performance at 56th GRAMMY Awards this Sunday, Kendrick Lamar is enjoying extensive media coverage these days. Accordingly, K. Dot took some time to talk to The Hollywood Reporter‘s Jeff Weiss and opened up about a range of topics, such as his already classic “Control” verse, the low number of guest features on good kid, m.A.A.d city , what Kanye West taught him, as well as the status of his next album. You can read the story in its entirety here.

On his next album:
I got ideas, I haven’t really locked in the studio yet. Really challenge myself to do something better. I mean, of course you want to do better than your last. But creatively, I want to be in another space. That’s the challenge, if anything.

On “Control:”
It wasn’t pre-meditated, it just came to me when I was writing that bar,” says Lamar. “The crazy part is, I didn’t think it would ever go to where diss records were coming at me. I thought people would be like… he threw some challenges out there… that was dope.

Kanye taught me to never to downplay your ideas. I learned to always stay as creative as possible and never have any boundaries. Those things that people called ‘rants’ on-stage are real conversations that we had behind closed doors — about business and how when you get to a certain level people won’t want to see you break through because they only see you as a rapper.

On his GRAMMY nominations:
I was actually on stage, so I had no idea. Everybody else knew but me. By the time I got off I kinda got the news late. It was a great feeling, everybody was happy, excited. We celebrated in that dressing room.