Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
10 questions No timer
60 free Kendrick Lamar trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
56 free Kendrick Lamar trivia questions with answers. Kendrick Lamar went from a stuttering straight-A kid in Compton to the first rapper with a Pulitzer Prize, and this quiz walks the whole road. Fifty questions cover the K.Dot mixtapes and the TDE audition, Section.80, good kid m.A.A.d city, To Pimp a Butterfly, DAMN., Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers and GNX, plus the Drake feud, the Pop Out, the Super Bowl LIX halftime show and a record haul of Grammys. The early questions are for anyone who has heard Humble or Not Like Us on the radio; the later ones are for people who know which sample sits under Luther, who designed the DAMN. cover and how many times he played Not Like Us in a row at the Forum. Use it solo, or lift a round for a hip-hop trivia night. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on Kendrick, his albums and singles, and each question carries the sentence that backs it up. No forum guesses, no recycled listicle mistakes.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Kendrick Lamar was born and raised in which California city?
Compton
He calls it Hub City on his early mixtapes, and Section.80's follow-up was billed on its cover as a 'short film' set there.
Q 02Under what stage name did a teenage Kendrick release his first mixtapes?
K.Dot
He retired the alias around 2009 because he felt it hid who he really was, and switched to his first and middle names.
Q 03Which independent label signed Kendrick in 2005, making him one of its first two artists?
Top Dawg Entertainment
He freestyled for two hours at the audition, and on signing he bought a minority stake in the company.
Q 04Kendrick's 2017 album DAMN. won which honor, a first for any music outside classical and jazz?
Pulitzer
The award came on April 16, 2018, and was widely read as the cultural establishment formally recognising hip-hop as an art form.
Q 05Which 2024 diss track won all five of its Grammy nominations, including Record and Song of the Year?
Not Like Us
That five-for-five haul tied the 5th Dimension's 'Up, Up and Away' as the most-awarded song in Grammy history.
Q 06Which singer joined Kendrick as the special guest at his Super Bowl LIX halftime show?
SZA
The pair then took the Grand National Tour on the road from April 2025, which became the highest-grossing co-headlining tour ever.
Q 07Which actor appeared throughout the Super Bowl LIX halftime show as a satirical Uncle Sam?
Samuel L. Jackson
His running commentary between songs was staged to illustrate the cultural divide of America.
Q 08Which Compton-raised tennis champion danced on stage during Kendrick's Super Bowl 'Not Like Us'?
Serena Williams
Her crip walk echoed the one she did after winning gold at the 2012 Olympics, for which she was criticised at the time.
Q 09Kendrick's first Hot 100 number one came as a featured artist on which Taylor Swift remix?
Bad Blood
Years later he re-recorded his verse for Swift's Taylor's Version project during her masters dispute.
Q 10Which lead single from DAMN. became Kendrick's first Hot 100 number one as a lead artist?
Humble
It debuted at number two and climbed to the top in its second week, beating the peak of his earlier hits.
Q 11Which 2018 film soundtrack did Kendrick curate and executive produce?
Black Panther
He sang lead or background vocals on every track whether or not he was credited, and the album earned the most single-week streams of any soundtrack.
Q 12Which Kendrick and SZA duet spent 13 weeks at number one, his longest-running Hot 100 chart-topper?
Luther
Only Old Town Road has spent longer at number one among hip-hop songs.
Q 13Kendrick's sixth album, released as a surprise in November 2024, shares its name with what?
A Buick car
He bought a limited-run 1987 Grand National Experimental after the Big Steppers Tour, the high-spec version of the car his father drove him home from the hospital in.
Q 21Which TDE supergroup did Kendrick form with Jay Rock, Ab-Soul and ScHoolboy Q?
Black Hippy
The four never released a group album, but appeared on each other's records constantly, often without a credit.
Q 22Kendrick's feud with Drake traces back to his 2013 verse on which Big Sean song?
Control
He name-checked Drake among the rappers he wanted to compete with, and Rolling Stone called the verse a 'wake up call' for hip-hop.
Q 23Kendrick's surprise 2024 verse on which Future and Metro Boomin song reignited the Drake feud?
Like That
It became his first song to debut at number one, and its bass line samples Rodney-O & Joe Cooley's 'Everlasting Bass'.
Q 14Which DJ-producer, later a guest at the Super Bowl LIX halftime show, made the beat for Not Like Us?
Mustard
He had sent Kendrick roughly five beats a day for three months, and the one that stuck was finished in about 30 minutes.
Q 15Which To Pimp a Butterfly track became a Black Lives Matter protest chant?
Alright
Pharrell Williams co-produced the beat in 2014 with Fabolous in mind, and ended up singing the hook himself.
Q 16What is the title of Kendrick's independently released 2011 debut studio album?
Section.80
It sold about 5,000 copies in its first week and peaked at 113 on the Billboard 200; Snoop, Dre and the Game crowned him 'New King of the West Coast' the same year.
Q 17good kid, m.A.A.d city carries which subtitle on its cover?
A short film by Kendrick Lamar
The nonlinear coming-of-age narrative has been compared to Scorsese and Tarantino screenplays, and Rolling Stone named it the greatest concept album ever.
Q 18Which single from good kid, m.A.A.d city was Kendrick's first top-20 hit on the Hot 100?
Swimming Pools (Drank)
Its subject is peer-pressured drinking, and it climbed slowly to number 17 in its thirteenth week on the chart.
Q 19Kendrick and Dave Free's creative company, launched in March 2020, is called what?
PGLang
Its first big campaign was a series of seven short films for Calvin Klein; it later scored and co-designed a Chanel couture show.
Q 20Kendrick's cousin, who he features on Family Ties and Range Brothers, records under what name?
Baby Keem
Family Ties won Best Rap Performance at the 2022 Grammys; another cousin is former NBA player Nick Young.
Q 24Which Drake and J. Cole track, with its talk of a 'big three', provoked Kendrick's Like That verse?
First Person Shooter
Cole later apologised on stage and pulled his own reply, leaving Drake alone in the fight.
Q 25Drake's answer record to Not Like Us, released the very next day, was titled what?
The Heart Part 6
The title hijacked Kendrick's own long-running 'The Heart' series of pre-album singles.
Q 26Kendrick's Juneteenth 2024 concert, The Pop Out: Ken & Friends, was held at which venue?
Kia Forum
Amazon Music streamed it after ticket demand exploded, and it became the most-watched video production the service has ever distributed.
Q 27To close The Pop Out, how many times in a row did Kendrick perform Not Like Us?
Five
Each run-through added a different element, with a stage full of LA rappers and athletes behind him.
Q 28What is the title of Kendrick's 2016 compilation of eight date-labelled leftovers from To Pimp a Butterfly?
untitled unmastered.
LeBron James publicly lobbied TDE boss Top Dawg to release the songs after Kendrick played untitled tracks on Colbert and Fallon.
Q 29Which basketball star's public request led Kendrick to release his 2016 compilation of leftover demos?
LeBron James
The album debuted at number one anyway, Kendrick's second consecutive chart-topper.
Q 30Kendrick and SZA's 'Luther' samples a 1982 duet between Vandross and which singer?
Cheryl Lynn
The Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell original is played uninterrupted for the final minute of the music video.