May of 2026 will mark two years since Kendrick Lamar officially settled the beef with Drake when he released “Not Like Us” on May 4, 2024. “Not Like Us” broke the record for most time at No. 1 in the Billboard charts surpassing Lil Nas X’s 2019 single, “Old Town Road.”

From there, things only seemed to go up for Lamar. The fall of 2024, just four months after the release of “Not Like Us”, Lamar would debut his ninth studio album with GNX, GNX featured anticipated tracks such as “heart part 6”, “Squabble Up” and “Luther” featuring SZA.

Fast forward to February of 2026, and Lamar is only one year removed from headlining the Super Bowl halftime show, and nominated for album of the year for GNX,

Though he would lose out on album of the year to Bad Bunny’s DtMf, Lamar would not go home empty handed on the night, splitting the award for record of the year with SZA for Luther. With the win, Lamar passes the iconic producer, and husband of Beyonce herself, Jay-Z. Lamar has taken over the rap and music scenes in general over the last few weeks and months off the releases of his new music along with the halftime show.

This year at the Grammy’s, Lamar cements himself as one of the all time greats within both the genre and the industry as he continues to redefine hip-hop and rap. He cements himself as one of the greats by passing one of the other greats in the industry, and only Kendrick knows what’s up next for him at the moment.

Photo credit: Sharon Alagna