Even without LeBron James’ help, there’s no doubt that Kendrick Lamar would have had a big year in 2016. He started things off by putting on a memorable performance at the 2016 Grammy Awards in February. He followed that up by releasing an album full of unreleased material called untitled unmastered. in March, which later landed at No. 11 on our list of the 50 best albums of 2016. And in between doing about 100 other things (no, really, we’ve done 135 news posts on K-Dot so far this year—see here), he also appeared on two big pop songs, Sia’s "The Greatest" and Maroon 5’s "Don’t Wanna Know," towards the end of 2016. So yeah, it would have been a huge year for Kendrick, with or without LeBron's assistance.
But there’s no denying that LeBron helped pushed Kendrick to greater heights in 2016. LeBron was actually the one who encouraged Kendrick to consider packaging his unreleased songs so that he could release them as a proper project.
LeBron also shot an Uninterrupted video that featured him singing Kendrick’s praises for more than a minute:
LeBron used Kendrick’s "Alright" to soundtrack the inspirational post-presidential election post he put up on Instagram, further cementing the importance of the Grammy-winning To Pimp a Butterfly cut:
And while most people focused on the relationship that exists between LeBron and Jay Z at the Sports Illustrated Sportsperson of the Year ceremony held at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. on Monday night after the dig Jay took at Phil Jackson on LeBron's behalf, Jay wasn’t the only rapper who caught LeBron’s attention at the event. LeBron was also really into the performance that Kendrick put on when he ran through "untitled 07" from untitled unmastered. on the SI stage. Seriously, just look at LeBron go!
Kendrick x LeBron continues to be a winning combination.
