Kendrick Lamar’s deep embrace of hip-hop in Los Angeles was a major highlight of 2024. For a long time, he existed outside of the scene, largely ignoring the street rap scene and operating in his own lane entirely. But in 2024, Kendrick Lamar put his boots to the ground and worked with hot and lesser-known LA rappers alike. One was Lefty Gunplay’s breakout moment on “tv off”. “S**t gets crazy, scary, spooky, hilarious,” he snarled on the outro.Naturally, with the new boost of attention towards his music, Lefty Gunplay is starting to take his career a lot more seriously. However, in order to do that, he said he needed to finally get sober. In a recent interview, he revealed that he went cold turkey from taking drugs, something he struggled with at a young age. When he made the decision to do so, he reached out to Kendrick Lamar and Top Dawg for extra encouragement.“I said, ‘You know what? I’m going to go,’ and everyone was telling me, ‘You’re blowing all this opportunity,’” Lefty Gunplay said. “And yeah, I ain’t the best rapper, but nowadays, you don’t got to be the best rapper on the West. It’s just different. You just got to have it. People got to really love you and vibe with you, but every day, I’m trying to get better at rapping, and being sober is part of it.”Kendrick Lamar Helps Lefty Gunplay Finally Get SoberThe Kendrick Lamar cosign has already proven extremely beneficial professionally. Even though his was a brief appearance on “tv off”, it still won Lefty a Grammy in 2025. On the red carpet, he told USA Today the award would find its home at his mom’s house. “She meant everything to me, man. She raised me, rough childhood but I surpassed all that. [Now] I’m the first Latino to win a Grammy in hip-hop,” Lefty Gunplay told the outlet.Evidently, the relationship wasn’t just transactional, either. Kendrick Lamar celebrated him once again after the release of his collab album with JasonMartin, Can’t Get Right.“Wow. N***a yall did that!!!” Lamar wrote of Lefty Gunplay and JasonMartin. “I appreciate this too much dawg. The first album of a new artist from gnx. And it’s going up. I’m bout to thump it out here. I’m proud of lefty. And always love for u playing big roles behind them boards.”Photo by Michael Owens/Getty ImagesThe post How Kendrick Lamar Helped a Collaborator Go to Rehab Behind the Scenes appeared first on VICE.