Kendrick Lamar's Unreleased Freestyle Over Tupac's 'Hit Em Up'

Big Boy calls out prompts, Kendrick Lamar turns them into rhymes-rapped over the beat of “Hit ‘Em Up”. On April 14, 2018, the California radio host published the freestyle on Instagram to mark the one-year anniversary of Lamar’s album DAMN. (Grammy winner). Billboard suspects that the recording comes from Kendrick’s visit to Big Boy’s show in June 2017, as he is wearing the same clothes in the clip.

Tupac as a Reference Point for a New Generation

More on the background of the song and the feud with Bad Boy can be found under East vs. West. Above all, however, the clip shows how much Tupac is a reference point for the generation of rappers: Kendrick is often named as his heir (for the comparisons, see Tributes).