Kendrick Lamar performed a surprise show from the back of a moving truck
Call it the dopest 5k in rap history. On Tuesday night, Kendrick Lamar performed his first live show in the wake of the release of his critically lauded sophomore album, To Pimp a Butterfly, on the back of a moving flatbed truck in Los Angeles. Earlier in the evening, Lamar sent a tweet out to his nearly five million Twitter followers asking them to meet up with him at the prescribed location at 9:30. There, he began rolling down the street playing live cuts from the new record, as well as from his debut album Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City, leaving his fans jogging to keep up. Black Hippy cohort and Top Dawg Entertainment label mate Ab-Soul also appeared as a guest.
The event itself appears to have been sponsored by Reebok, who were on hand with cameras to film the entire thing. It’s been reported that the cops in L.A. brought the show to a close shortly after Lamar echoed that famous N.W.A. refrain, “Fuck The Police,” from his moving stage. Of course, this isn’t the first time that a musical act has literally taken its show literally on the road; U2 undertook the stunt back in 2004, and Kiss (nearly) pulled off the same move by miming “Rock and Roll All Nite” at the 2014 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.