Saturday afternoon at Sunset Tower Hotel, musicians and executives gathered for the first-ever Variety Hitmakers event. The event was put together in conjunction with the publication's issue that listed 77 of the top music makers and dissected the 30 most-consumed songs of the year. The even recognized hip-hop artist such as DJ Khaled and awarded Kendrick Lamar with Hitmaker of the Year Award.
In his acceptance speech, Kendrick described the dedication he put in at the studio to become a better rapper and songwriter. Just as he touched on the growth from K. Dot to Kendrick Lamar in his discussion about greatness with Kobe Bryant, he uttered some of the same sentiments.
Kendrick said:
I want to thank the people at Variety, for sure. The word 'hitmaker,' you know, I've been doing this for a long time since I was about 13, 14 years old. I was 15 or 16 with my boy Dave in the studio. A lot of people know me as K. Dot, so to own and hone in on the title of a 'hitmaker' means a lot because we put in a lot of time and a lot of effort.
I want to go back to when I was first in the studio. It was a lot of trash sh*t that I was doing in that studio that didn't live up to the hype. But I respect the moments, and I love the moments 'cause it takes me back to the first initial ideas of me trying to be a lyricist or me trying to be a hitmaker or studying some of the greats that I love, and how to evolve into who I am today.
The Grammy-award winning rapper ended his speech saying, “I thank each and every one of you for allowing me to evolve and let me make these weird a— songs that y’all like. These songs represent me and who I am. I want to continue to push that envelope and hopefully, I continue to have y’all ears to do so.”
