--- title: Kendrick Lamar 'To Pimp a Butterfly' Interview—Best of 2015 description: Go behind the scenes of TIME's photoshoot with the rapper canonical: https://time.com/4141358/kendrick-lamar-interview-to-pimp-a-butterfly/ author: Salima Koroma article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-12-14T16:31:04.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:50:34.093Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: How Kendrick Lamar Strives to Make Timeless Rap Albums og:description: Go behind the scenes of TIME's photoshoot with the rapper og:url: https://time.com/4141358/kendrick-lamar-interview-to-pimp-a-butterfly/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt74a27c8dec0211d6/6988746b3c16391d9145b181/kendrick-lamar1.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: kendrick-lamar og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Kendrick Lamar Strives to Make Timeless Rap Albums twitter:description: Go behind the scenes of TIME's photoshoot with the rapper twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt74a27c8dec0211d6/6988746b3c16391d9145b181/kendrick-lamar1.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How Kendrick Lamar Strives to Make Timeless Rap Albums by [Salima Koroma](https://time.com/author/salima-koroma/), [Nolan Feeney](https://time.com/author/nolan-feeney/), [Sam Lansky](https://time.com/author/sam-lansky/) and [Adam Perez](https://time.com/author/adam-perez/) Dec 14, 2015 4:31 PM UTC  Erik Madigan Heck for TIME Erik Madigan Heck for TIMEKendrick Lamar, December 2015. by [Salima Koroma](https://time.com/author/salima-koroma/), [Nolan Feeney](https://time.com/author/nolan-feeney/), [Sam Lansky](https://time.com/author/sam-lansky/) and [Adam Perez](https://time.com/author/adam-perez/) Dec 14, 2015 4:31 PM UTC Kendrick Lamar’s _To Pimp a Butterfly_ is one of the [best albums of the year](http://time.com/4131352/top-10-albums/)—and also one of the most relevant. Recorded as the Black Lives Matter movement gained momentum and while conversations around police brutality took off on a national stage, the record became the [soundtrack of protests](http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2015/08/black%5Flives%5Fmatter%5Fprotesters%5Fchant%5Fkendrick%5Flamar%5Fs%5Falright%5Fwhat%5Fmakes.html) and offered many listeners a message of hope in a year filled with dismaying headlines about racism in America. Yet Lamar hopes his songs will be just as meaningful decades from now as they are today. “One thing I understood about myself and my music is it’s not really a concept that I will want you to grasp one day—I want it to live forever,” he told TIME during a photo shoot that appears in the magazine’s Person of the Year issue, on stands now. “I want to continue to have something that’s not microwavable in a world today where our attention span is pretty much lost. We need something that we can hold on to, so in doing that, I’m \[going to\] continue to make the music I want to make and say the things I want to say, whether you agree with it or not.”  Erik Madigan Heck for TIME Kendrick Lamar, December 2015. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4141358/kendrick-lamar-interview-to-pimp-a-butterfly/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4141358/kendrick-lamar-interview-to-pimp-a-butterfly/"},"headline":"How Kendrick Lamar Strives to Make Timeless Rap Albums","datePublished":"2015-12-14T16:31:04.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:50:34.093Z","description":"Go behind the scenes of TIME's photoshoot with the rapper as he talks about his album To Pimp a Butterfly","url":"https://time.com/4141358/kendrick-lamar-interview-to-pimp-a-butterfly/","keywords":["Music","Kendrick Lamar"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt74a27c8dec0211d6/6988746b3c16391d9145b181/kendrick-lamar1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Salima Koroma","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/salima-koroma/"},{"@type":"Person","name":"Nolan Feeney","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/nolan-feeney/"},{"@type":"Person","name":"Sam Lansky","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/sam-lansky/"},{"@type":"Person","name":"Adam Perez","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/adam-perez/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt74a27c8dec0211d6/6988746b3c16391d9145b181/kendrick-lamar1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"kendrick-lamar","caption":"Erik Madigan Heck for TIME","creditText":"Kendrick Lamar, December 2015.","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4141358/kendrick-lamar-interview-to-pimp-a-butterfly/","name":"How Kendrick Lamar Strives to Make Timeless Rap Albums"}}]}] ```