The hip-hop artist hugged it out with Obama and talked about the importance of mentorship.
Image via Top Dawg Entertainment
Barack Obama, the chillest president to ever sit in the Oval Office, sat down with his favorite rapper and hip-hop artist, Kendrick Lamar, and talked about the problems facing American youth today. In an interview with BuzzFeed’s Another Round, President Obama’s senior advisor, Valerie Jarrett, spoke to hosts Heben Nigatu and Tracy Clayton about the visit.
“You know what the president said to him?” Jarrett said. “[Because] he was a little nervous—bless his heart, he’s really a very nice young man, and the president said, ‘Can you believe that we’re both sitting in this Oval Office?’”
Lamar says he spoke with Obama about “topics concerning the inner cities, the problem, the solutions, and furthermore, embracing the youth,” in a new video he released about the meeting. It’s a PSA for the National Mentoring Partnership, in which he speaks passionately about the significance of mentors in his life and why he feels it’s necessary to “pay it forward.”
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“As a kid, having a mentor was vital to me, always being there when it counted, allowing me to make some of the most important decisions while growing up,” he says in the video. “So it’s only right that I mentor a younger person, with the same wisdom that was given to me. If it helps the next kid become a better person in life, I will forever be aware of my influence and pay it forward. I look at where I’m at today and realize that most of my success is owed to the mentors in my life.”
Lamar also got an opportunity to recreate the image that covers his 2015 album, To Pimp a Butterfly.
Photo via Instagram user Dave Free (@miyatola)
The cover of To Pimp a Butterfly
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