Kendrick Lamar Looks Back on Being Brought to Tears by Dre and Snoop's 2011 Torch Passing: 'Had to Let It Flow'

The sooner in life you can learn that vulnerability is a goddamn superpower, not an albatross, the better off you’ll be and the sweeter life’s fruits will taste. But don’t just take my word for it. In an interview with SZA for the latest Harper's Bazaar cover story, Kendrick Lamar, whose 2025 is already set to include a little something called the Apple Music Super Bowl Halftime Show, underscored the importance of vulnerability and how achieving it in his own life has reaped numerous benefits.

Such insight was spurred by a question from SZA about “contributing factors to self-transformation,” a topic on which Kendrick had plenty to offer.

“The power of honesty and being honest with myself, perspective about the person sitting across from me, and learning that vulnerability is not a weakness,” he told SZA. “That last one probably been one I’m still developing.”

In fact, Kendrick said learning the strength of vulnerability was the “hardest” aspect of his own journey toward transformation. This, he said, is rooted in his childhood, specifically his “tough” and “militant” father.

“He never showed any emotion that could garner a one-up from the person sitting across from him,” Kendrick recalled, adding that he himself took on those “same traits.”

Over time, however, Kendrick’s desire for growth required him to see these memories in a new light.

“But for what I do, there is certainly no growth without vulnerability,” he said. “If I understood the power of vulnerability earlier, I could have had more depth and more reach to the guys that was around me in the neighborhood coming up.”

Later, Kendrick revealed both the first time he allowed himself to cry, as well as the most recent. Per Kendrick, the last time he cried was “probably” on the Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers track “Mother I Sober,” released in 2022.

“That shit was deep for me,” Kendrick said.

As for the first time, Kendrick credited a special moment with Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg as having inspired him to let the tears roll back in 2011.

“Dre passed me the torch, and a burst of energy just came out and I had to let it flow,” he said, adding that his tears are “all on the internet” to this day. Looking back, Kendrick said he has “love” for this crucial moment in his career, seeing it as a turning point being witnessed “in real time.”

For the full feature, complete with photography by Quentin De Briey, see here.

Just over a decade after the torch-passing moment that had an indelible impact on a then-still-on-the-rise Kendrick Lamar, he again joined Dre and Snoop as part of a Super Bowl Halftime Show lineup that also featured Eminem, Mary J. Blige, 50 Cent, and Anderson .Paak. The performance, set at the SoFi Stadium in Inglewood in 2022, went on to win an Emmy.

Kendrick returns to the Super Bowl stage next February in New Orleans, this time as the headliner. It's hard to imagine the Drake-dissing “Not Like Us,” which remains in the top 20 of the Hot 100 more than five months after its initial release, not being a key part of Kendrick’s plans for the 2025 halftime proceedings.