Kendrick Lamar is famously reclusive when it comes to social media. His Instagram account has 11.6 million followers and has been scrubbed down to zero photos. His Twitter frequently goes dormant for many months at a time and even when posts get made, they feel like mostly promotional material posted by his team — like the puzzle pieces that led to announcing Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers. One can’t fault a world-renowned artist who is frequently under the microscope from laying off the oft-toxic world of social media. But in a recent cover story with Citizen, Kendrick gave some insight into why he stays off of social media.
“People ask me, ‘Man, you’ve never been on social media, you really hate it?’ Bro, I don’t really know how to use it like that to be 100% real with you,” he said. “I got friends, family, my team, they send me things, so I got good sentiments on what’s going on.” In the new interview, he speaks about much more than social media, including wanting to reject notions of being labeled as “the greatest,” and trying to perfect the balance between, “Distinguishing between Kendrick and Kendrick Lamar.”
He added, “Because I’m so invested in who I am outside of being famous, sometimes that’s all I know. I’ve always been a person that really didn’t dive too headfirst into wanting and needing attention. I mean, we all love attention, but for me, I don’t necessarily adore it. I use it when I want to communicate something.”
Check out a longer excerpt of the new Citizen cover story here, where you can also order the full issue.