Kendrick Lamar’s participating in a series of interviews with MTV in which he breaks down the tracks of To Pimp a Butterfly. In the first installment, before digging into the songs, he reveals that he almost called his latest album To Pimp a Caterpillar (or Tu Pimp a Caterpillar). The title was significant because, abbreviated, it spelled Tu-P-A-C. It was a now-obvious nod to the late West Coast rapper Tupac, who Lamar interviews on his album. “Me changing it to butterfly, I just wanted to show the brightness of life. And the word pimp has so much aggression,†he explained to Rob Markman. “For me, it represents using my celebrity for good. Another reason is not being pimped by the industry — through my celebrity.â€
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