What is Kendrick Lamar’s net worth as he headlines the Super Bowl halftime show?
Kendrick Lamar is undoubtedly one of the biggest names in rap, and he has a sizeable net worth to match.
Born and raised in Compton, California, Lamar began making music when he was in high school under the name K.Dot.
Fast forward to 2025 and the 37-year-old is headlining the Super Bowl halftime show, just weeks after winning five Grammy Awards for his chart-topping diss track, “Not Like Us.”
With a string of chart-topping albums and several multi-million-dollar properties, the rapper was estimated by Forbes magazine to be worth $38.5 million in 2019.
As Lamar prepares to take to one of the biggest stages of his career — for zero compensation — on Sunday, The Independent takes a look at how he made his considerable fortune.
Music career
In 2005, Lamar signed with Top Dawg Entertainment and co-founded the hip-hop supergroup Black Hippy, where he remained a member for nearly 14 years before his eventual departure in 2022.
While the collective, which consisted of Lamar, Ab-Soul, Jay Rock and ScHoolboy Q, didn’t end up releasing any albums together, they frequently collaborated on solo projects.
Kendrick Lamar will bring the thunder at the 2025 Super Bowl halftime (Getty Images)
Over the span of his decades-long music career, Lamar has released a total of six studio albums, including his 2011 debut record Section.80, Good Kid, M.A.A.D City (2012), To Pimp a Butterfly (2015), Damn (2017), Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers (2022) and GNX (2024).
It was his critically-acclaimed second album, which sold 242,000 copies in its first week, that propelled him to fame. It also landed him his first three Grammy nods for Best Rap Album, Album of the Year and Best New Artist. He’s since gone on to receive a total of 57 Grammy nominations of which he’s won 21.
Good Kid, M.A.A.D City and To Pimp a Butterfly are both certified gold, meaning they’ve each sold at least 500,000 units. In total, his albums have sold more than 17.9 million album-equivalent units worldwide.
Back in 2016, Newsweek reported that according to Spotify calculations, the “Squabble Up” rapper earned between $921,600 and $1,290,240 in a single day for a record-breaking 9.6 million streams of To Pimp a Butterfly.
In January, his Drake diss track, “Not Like Us,” surpassed more than one billion streams on Spotify. According to Billboard, it had generated $7.6 million in streaming, sales and publishing revenue by December 2024, while his earlier released Drake diss track, “Like That,” earned $4.6 million.
Kendrick Lamar was estimated to be worth $38.5 million in 2019 (AP)
Lamar has additionally headlined five concert tours in support of his albums and is scheduled to embark on his sixth later this spring alongside longtime collaborator and R&B star SZA.
