INGLEWOOD, CALIFORNIA – JUNE 19: Kendrick Lamar performs onstage throughout The Pop Out – Ken & Mates Offered by pgLang and Free Lunch at The Kia Discussion board on June 19, 2024 in Inglewood, California.Photograph by Timothy Norris/Getty Photos for pgLang, Amazon Music, & Free Lunch

4:31 p.m.

Hed brings out native Inglewood cult hero Rucci and AzChike to carry out “Gentle It Up.” These two—together with Drakeo, Shoreline Mafia, 03 Greedo (who later stated he was invited however couldn’t make it, and whose type could be evoked on stage by Wallie the Sensei), and a bunch of others—represented, towards the top of the 2010s, an rising L.A. avant-garde that additionally appeared poised to cross over. Deaths, incarcerations, and the whims of streaming and radio slowed plenty of this momentum. And nonetheless, it’s surreal to see the BlueBucksClan rap about stealth Prada the place the Showtime Lakers used to play.

5:02 p.m.

Hed’s forged skews up to date till he brings out the dance legend Tommy the Clown, who stalks across the stage with typical authority whereas a coterie of younger dancers scythe by the drum patterns of largely current songs—till Suga Free’s “Why U Bullshittin?” elicits a roar from the world. Beside me: a pair in Dying Row shirts and black N95s.

5:23 p.m.

Mustard comes out to pyrotechnics and, confusingly, a couple of bars of “Again That Azz Up.” From there he spends some time doing an out-of-the-box set: “Rack Metropolis,” “I’m Completely different,” “Present Me,” and “I Don’t Fuck With You.” Collaborators come out for a pair of songs every—Blxst and Steve Lacy hear heat welcomes, Ty Dolla $ign an even bigger pop for “Paranoid”—and none, as much as and together with Tyler, the Creator, are fairly as rapturously acquired as Dom Kennedy, whose “My Sort of Occasion” brings the Discussion board to a fever pitch. The again half of the set is an prolonged tribute to Nipsey Hussle, which is augmented by a Roddy Ricch look, and a mini-set from YG which, one imagines, he may need made career-spanning if there have been something within the again half of his profession that followers cared to listen to.

6:13 p.m.

“Fuck Wit Dre Day” performs on the home audio system between units, in case anybody was frightened this wasn’t about to get pointed.

6:17 p.m.

Properly: “Stan.”

6:33 p.m.

As Guru stated, it’s largely the voice. For as distinctive as Kendrick, or any variety of rappers who touched the stage tonight sound, there isn’t a one fairly like E-40. The final time I interviewed him, late final yr, we have been using in an SUV from downtown L.A. to SoFi Stadium, which shares a parking zone with the Discussion board. Someplace on the 110, he advised me: “L.A. and the Bay have at all times been household. That’s what’s lovely about it: You’d assume that we might have some kind of conflict or one thing, however we by no means let that occur as a result of we’re all household.” The again half of his pre-recorded intro to Kendrick’s set is drowned out by screams.

6:41 p.m.

Once I moved to L.A. greater than a decade in the past, I labored at what was then referred to as the Staples Middle, and, since then, I’ve recurrently lined exhibits at nearly each venue within the metropolis; I’ve seen rap live shows of each conceivable measurement, ambition, and degree of execution. And nonetheless, I’ve by no means heard a room get fairly as loud because the Discussion board did within the silence following “Euphoria,” Kendrick’s scorched-earth opener. I noticed and heard folks rap each lyric—apart from the brand new ones, which referenced Pac, and Drake’s ridiculous AI gambit.