Why Kendrick Lamar Hung up on Dr. Dre the First Time the Producer Ever Called Him

Kendrick Lamar and Dr. Dre’s connection goes back more than 15 years, but their introduction got off to a rocky start. In a resurfaced interview, Kendrick recalls Dre reaching out to him by phone, but the Grammy-winning rapper hung up on him because he thought he was being pranked.

During a 2017 appearance on The Howard Stern Show, K. Dot recalled the incident happening while he was on tour with Tech N9ne and Jay Rock. One night, while sitting down for dinner at a restaurant, he got a call from someone claiming to know Dre.

“Me and my boy Ali, we was eating at Chili’s,” Kenrick remembered. “I’ll never forget it. We was eating at Chili’s, and we got a call like, ‘Yo, Dr. Dre likes your music.” And we were like, ‘Yo, who the fuck is this on the phone?’”

Kendrick laughed and quipped that they “might have blown it,” but the window of opportunity wasn’t closed. “Another call came in from somebody else,” he said. “Then another call came in from somebody else, like, ‘Yo, they trying to reach out and figure out who you with.’”

Dre’s reps kept trying to get Kendrick on the line. Eventually, they were successful, which led to the two men working together in a recording session, and the rest is history. Kendrick went on to release four of his albums under Dre’s Aftermath label: Good Kid, M.A.A.D City (2012), To Pimp a Butterfly (2015), Damn (2017), and Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers (2022).

Dre Sided with Kendrick in his beef with Drake

Dre and Kendrick’s bond runs very tight. So much so that Dre made it clear he sided with Kendrick when the Compton rapper went head-to-head in a 2024 beef with Canada’s own, Drake. He also had a very specific reason as to why.

“I don’t want to get negative,” Dre said during a recent appearance on the Unusual Suspects podcast, speaking to hosts Kenya Barris and Malcolm Gladwell. “My whole s*** is about being positive and moving forward and all that s***.”

“The fact I heard Drake say something negative about Kendrick’s wife and his kids,” Dre continued, “that made me say, ‘Ah, adios!’”