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.
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.
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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.
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.
His recent Big Steppers tour grossed over $100 million in ticket sales.
Real estate portfolio
Lamar owns several high-value properties. According to Architectural Digest, his earliest known property was a $523,400 four-bedroom, three-bathroom home he bought in 2013 in Eastvale, California. It’s reported that he later sold it in 2021 for $825,000.
The magazine reports that in 2017, he purchased his next investment property, a six-bedroom, six-bathroom residence in Calabasas, California for $2.65 million. However, similar to his first property, it was used mostly as a residence for his family members, per listing records.
He additionally owns a $9.7 million contemporary-style mansion in Manhattan Beach, a $15.85 million midcentury ranch-style house in Bel Air, and an $8.6 million Manhattan penthouse.
Last year, Lamar purchased his most expensive property, a $42 million Brentwood mansion.
Sponsorships and endorsements
An added source of income for the Pulitzer Prize winner is his numerous brand deals.
He’s previously worked with popular shoe brands like Reebok and Converse. He partnered with the former from late 2014 to 2016 on several of their shoes, including the Ventilator, Classic Leather, and Club C sneakers. Meanwhile, he and his production company pgLang have, on multiple occasions, worked with Converse to release a version of the Converse Chuck 70.
In August 2017, Lamar officially stepped away from Reebok to become a member of the Nike family. He’s since collaborated with the sports brand on their Nike Cortez line.
While it’s unknown exactly how much he makes from these collaborations, Forbes notes that he’s made millions from his collaborations with Nike and American Express.
