DJ Hed made the revelation on the most recent episode of HipHopDX’s The Bigger Picture.
Speaking about his longtime friendship with the TDE crew, Hed discussed their early days struggling to make it in the music industry.
“We came home from the road and one of the homies was like, ‘Can you give us Jay Rock,’ and I’m like, ‘I know you ain’t got no money,’” he said.
DJ Hed then revealed the promoter asked about “the young dude,” referring to Kendrick Lamar, telling them the fee was $500.
“This was literally in 2010 so we had just came home from the road,” he added. “He’s eating sandwiches and noodles on the road. It’s an independent grind.”
Hed also recalled Kendrick’s reaction to the booking: “He was like, ‘Hell yeah, I need that right now,’ like in a real way.”
Kendrick Lamar’s performing fees have come a long way in the years since, having held the record of highest-grossing Hip Hop tour of all time.
K.Dot’s The Big Steppers Tour, which began in the summer of 2022, ran until the autumn and earned $110.9 million from 929,000 tickets across 73 shows.
His record has since been surpassed by Drake’s It’s All a Blur Tour, which saw him accompanied for stretches by J. Cole and Lil Durk.
Kendrick Lamar was also likely paid a lot more than $500 for his historic “Pop Out” concert in Los Angeles last week, which saw the Compton native bring out an array of special guests such as ScHoolboy Q, Jay Rock, Tyler, The Creator and Dr. Dre.
The concert would also see Kendrick perform his Drake diss songs “Like That,” “Euphoria” and “Not Like Us” for the first time, as well as make attempts to unite the city’s gang divide by welcoming Bloods and Crips on stage together.
Kendrick Lamar addressed the audience as the gig came to a close, saying: “This shit making me emotional. We been fucked up since Nipsey [Hussle] died. We been fucked up since Kobe [Bryant] died. This is unity at its finest.
“We done lost a lot of homies to this music shit, to this street shit. For all of us to be together on stage, that shit is special. Everybody on this stage got fallen soldiers.”
