*Kendrick Lamar’s middle school teacher, Regis Inge, recalls the rapper as a quiet and thoughtful student with a passion for storytelling.
Inge, who introduced Lamar to poetry, helped nurture his early talent. Lamar, now a Pulitzer Prize winner and Grammy Award-winning artist, credits much of his success to his authenticity and dedication.
“Kendrick Duckworth is a rapper? Quiet Kendrick?” Inge said was his initial response when he first heard of the hip-hop star’s rise in the music industry, per NBC Los Angeles.
“The passion that which he was writing with, it was there already,” said Inge, a teacher with the Compton Unified School District.
We reported earlier that Lamar’s Super Bowl Halftime Show on Sunday made history, shattering viewership records and igniting conversation about its cultural impact.
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While some critics debated the performance’s messaging, one fact is indisputable—Lamar’s show was the most-watched in Super Bowl history, drawing 133.5 million viewers, surpassing even legendary Halftime Shows by Michael Jackson and Prince, TMZ reports.
The performance also gave Lamar’s music a major boost. His streaming numbers skyrocketed, with music analytics platform Chart Data confirming that he now holds the record for most monthly listeners for a hip-hop artist on Spotify—surpassing his nemesis Drake.
Inge takes credit for encouraging Lamar to write poetry and to read it aloud.
“And what I was doing was, I was circling words that I felt that he could improve on because of the range of the words, the grade level of the words,” Inge said.
Inge remains proud of Lamar’s global influence and his ability to inspire others through his positive and genuine approach to music and storytelling.
Hear more from Inge about Kendrick Lamar in the Instagram video below.
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