The Paranormal Experience Between Kendrick Lamar and Tupac Shakur That Inspired the Closing Track on ‘To Pimp a Butterfly’

There is truly no rhyme or reason when it comes to how inspiration strikes. It could be while sitting on a park bench, in a near-death experience, or simply brushing your teeth. It doesn’t have to be grand or mundane, it just has to happen. That said, Kendrick Lamar’s inspiration for “Mortal Man” came in the form of the paranormal prophet, the late Tupac Shakur. Fact, fiction, or a combination of both? Who knows, but the profoundness of the experience struck a chord with Lamar, and in consequence, Lamar struck a chord with the world.

Released in 2015 of his To Pimp a Butterfly album, “Mortal Man” is the closing song on the platinum album and speaks directly to the eerie night in which Lamar garnered the inspiration for his song. The 12-minute rap epic covers seemingly every thematic issue the album tackles. That being so, it seems to ghost of Shakur heated Lamar’s already burning spark and led him to attempt something unprecedented in a rap.

Kendrick Lamar Sees Tupac’s Ghost

It is unclear whether Lamar saw Tupac’s ghost or a version of the late rapper in a dream. Regardless, Lamar spoke with Home Grown Radio and relayed the event. Lamar testified that one night while he was asleep he saw the silhouette of Shakur. “[It] was one of those things when you are really delirious in your sleep,” Lamar told the radio show. It was through this delirium that Lamar received career-changing advice, he recalled the soul of Tupac saying, “Keep doing what you doing, don’t let my music die.”

As ludicrous as that part of the story is, it only gets more uncanny. Lamar also divulged that just a few days prior his mother had alerted him of the fact that the two almost share the same birthday. Lamar’s birthday is June 17, and Tupac’s is June 16. Between the direct message and poetic irony, Lamar took this incident as a divine sign to make something bigger than himself. He seemingly achieved this goal with “Mortal Man.”

“Mortal Man” Samples Tupac Shakur Interview

Besides “Mortal Man” encompassing lyrics shedding light on Shakur’s paranormal presence and his early demise. Kendrick Lamar actually goes so far as to allude to this majestical experience by sampling Tupac Shakur’s 1994 interview with Mats Nileskar, the host of the Swedish radio show, P3 Soul.

The sampling includes lines such as, “I see myself as a natural-born hustler — a true hustler in every sense of the word” and “I changed everything. I realized my destiny in a matter of five years, you know what I’m saying? I made myself a millionaire.” The experience was seemingly awe-inspiring, to say the least, and it is profound experiences such as this that create musically profound experiences for others.

Photo by Ollie Millington/Redferns