-
music
Nike Stars Kendrick Lamar and Kobe Bryant Talk Greatness and the Key To Staying Inspired

Written by

No items found.
Kendrick Lamar and Kobe Bryant are both icons in their respected realms: Hip-Hop and Basketball. Lamar is currently at the height of his career having released one of the best rap albums of 2017, _DAMN._ And Bryant, now retired from the Los Angeles Lakers giving the game 20 years of his life, is looking to refocus his career onto new ventures like his recently launched Kobe Inc.  In an interview this past weekend at ComplexCon, Lamar and Bryant sat down to discuss greatness, what fuels them, and their goals for years to come. Throughout the conversation, there were overlapping commonalities that linked the two like working with Nike, their determination to be the best in their esteemed fields, and using adversity as a tool to fuel them further. Bryant sees a lot of himself in Lamar, even referring to the rapper as him on the court saying, “It’s the same hunger. When you step out there on the court, we’re taking heads off.”  In terms of greatness, here’s what the two had to say about it.  Bryant: ”I think there's a certain stubbornness that comes along with being great. I think people see greatness as kind of an easy road, like a one-path thing. You work hard, and then all of a sudden it happens. It don't work like that. There's a lot of darkness that comes from that as well. There's a lot of personal experiences that you go through that you use as fuel to propel you forward. Whereas otherwise it would just be obstacles for others; it might even prevent them from going forward. Whereas for us, those moments do nothing but fuel us even more."  Lamar: ”It's the curiosity of it. The fear, the anxiety. It's the curiosity of knowing, damn, I can possibly overcome this. And when you do and another one approaches, I want to challenge that, too. That's real greatness." * * * Written by Knia Cotton