Kendrick Lamar‘s sweep at the 2025 Grammys — winning five of the five categories that his 2024 song “Not Like Us” was nominated in — capped a triumphant year for the rapper, who managed to make a global smash hit record from a beef with Drake. The song played as he took to the stage for the last time of the night to accept the Song of the Year award, (dressed in a Canadian tuxedo, no less), and as the audio faded on the most controversial lyric of the song (“Tryna strike a chord and it’s prolly A-minor”), viewers at home could hear the entire auditorium sing along.
For his final acceptance speech of the evening, Kendrick Lamar thanked the Los Angeles rappers who inspired him to be the artist he is today. “[Glasses] Malone, Problem, Bad Lucc, K-Boy, Daylyt, Mykestro, these the cats that inspired me to be the MC that I am today.” He also paid homage to his former Top Dawg Entertainment labelmates ScHoolboy Q, Jay Rock, and Ab-Soul, saying “At the end of the day, nothing more powerful than rap music.”