In an interview with Elsie not Elise, Top Dawg Entertainment’s president, Terrence "Punch" Henderson, said that Jay-Z was happy when he was told that To Pimp a Butterfly could “piss off” Kendrick Lamar’s fanbase.
At the 21-minute point of the interview, which can be seen above, Punch was asked if there was any second-guessing about how To Pimp a Butterfly might be received before its release in 2015.
“It’s funny, I said this online before... While we were working on To Pimp a Butterfly, me and SZA would go to Beyoncé’s sessions, and she was writing for her,” he said. “Jay-Z was there every night. So, I had a chance to talk to him, and I told him, ‘Yo, we getting ready to drop this album that’s going to piss off the whole fanbase.’”
When he told Hov that TPAB had a chance of alienating some listeners—especially because it was such an audacious pivot after Good Kid, M.A.A.D City—the Roc Nation founder gave his approval.
“His response was, ‘Good, do it now, so they can’t never put you in the box,’” Punch said. “And that stuck with me, for sure. … It gave me more confidence, like, yeah, ‘We on the right track, for sure.’ That’s always the thing is—rules are set, the geniuses know when to break those rules.”
He acknowledged that when To Pimp a Butterfly was released, it still upset some of K Dot’s fanbase.
“And with that being said, he could never be put in a box,” he added.
The album celebrated its tenth anniversary in March. Despite some fans coming away from the project without getting what they wanted from Lamar—who followed it up with the more straightforward hip-hop album Damn in 2017—it was released to widespread critical acclaim and debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.
While Kendrick is no longer part of TDE, releasing his most recent album GNX, on his own imprint pgLang, the majority of his discography dropped through the label.
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