How King Kendrick made it to Glastonbury
"There was no sound cloud, he did it the old fashioned way" - Will Chalk talks to Kendrick Lamar's biographer, Marcus Moore, about the rapper's rise to the top.
The list of rappers who've headlined at Glastonbury is short. There are just five of them - Gil Scott-Heron, Jay-Z, Kanye West, Stormzy... and now, Kendrick Lamar. At 35, he's already regarded not just as the greatest rapper of his generation, but one of the greatest musicians.
As well as multiple Grammys and Brit awards, he won an Oscar for his work on the film Black Panther - and in 2018 became the first non classical or jazz artist to win the Pulitzer prize for music.
For 5 Minutes On, music journalist Will Chalk chats to American author Marcus Moore, who's written a book about Kendrick Lamar. Marcus says he wanted to capture the rapper's story because his rise to the top from 2011 to 2017 was history happening in real time. "He did it the old fashioned way", he says. "There was no sound cloud, he wasn't an internet rapper. He had to get good locally, do open mics and try to get a local record deal. It was years of hard work and being told he wasn't good enough. When you do it that way, it means more".
Image credit: Prince Williams via Getty Images
