Kendrick Lamar Almost Landed Lil Wayne Collab Long Before 'Section.80'

Kendrick Lamar nearly appeared on a song with one of his Hip Hop heroes Lil Wayne, years before he became a rap titan himself.

In the latest episode of HipHopDX‘s The Bigger Picture, co-host DJ Hed revealed that a young K. Dot was initially supposed to handle hook duties on Jay Rock‘s 2008 sleeper hit “All My Life (In the Ghetto)” instead of will.i.am.

“Fun fact about this record: K. Dot was originally on this hook, and I actually have that record. But it can never see the light of day,” he said. “He was doing a whole different hook. The song was called ‘Ghetto’ but it had a different hook on it that K. Dot did.”

The veteran Los Angeles DJ/radio host also shared that Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith, the founder of the then-fledgling TDE to which Kendrick and Rock were both signed, made the executive decision to rearrange Wayne’s guest verse on the song due to it being too long.

“I probably shouldn’t say this but when Jay Rock did this record, Wayne gave them this long-ass verse and they cut it up,” Hed said. “Wayne was doing that at the time. Glasses Malone had a song called ‘Haterz’ and he did the same thing, it was like a 32-bar verse.

“In this song, Top was actually brilliant — and shout out to will.i.am, too — in arranging the song to where Wayne [and Jay Rock], it sounded like they were going back and forth.”

DJ Hed shares that Kendrick Lamar was originally intended to do the hook on this Jay Rock & Lil Wayne track 👀 #TheBiggerPicture

⏩ WATCH/LISTEN: https://t.co/xGOXZLh1l0@ElliottWilson@DJHed@Jeremy_Hecht@UPROXXpic.twitter.com/bzKp6mhl3L

— HipHopDX (@HipHopDX) August 6, 2024

Released in October 2008 as the lead single from Jay Rock’s debut album Follow Me Home (which wouldn’t hit shelves until three years later due to major label politics), “All My Life (In the Ghetto)” played a pivotal role in TDE’s early ascent.

The song was the West Coast powerhouse’s first to make a commercial dent, reaching No. 10 on Billboard‘s U.S. Bubbling Under R&B/Hip-Hop Singles and No. 110 on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts.

It was also recently ranked as Lil Wayne’s 18th best guest feature by DX, a list that sparked the above discussion.

At that time, Kendrick Lamar (then going by K. Dot) was merely an opening act for his bubbling labelmate and still honing his craft with early mixtapes like No Sleep ‘Til NYC and C4.

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It wasn’t until two years later that the Compton native would build a buzz of his own with Overly Dedicated, his first full-length release under his current stage name, which was followed by his breakthrough project Section.80 in 2011 and classic major label debut good kid, m.A.A.d city a year after that.

Despite missing out on “All My Life (In the Ghetto),” Kendrick would eventually land multiple coveted Weezy collaborations — first, on Mike WiLL Made-It‘s “Buy the World,” and then on “Mona Lisa” from Wayne’s Tha Carter V.

The latter made headlines earlier this year when the Young Money legend explained why he never performs the song during shows, despite requests from fans.

“This is the second time I’ve seen this within my last three shows. Somebody had a sign that said, ‘Mona Lisa’ […] If y’all real Lil Wayne fans, you know I don’t know the lyrics to my shit,” he said at a concert in June.

He added: “You know how hard that fucking song is, girl. [Mumbles lyrics from the song]. You know what I mean? I don’t like to rap the words, but I’m going to learn that shit. I’m going to learn it. I got you.”