Mustard was enlisted to warm up the crowd at Kendrick Lamar‘s Pop Out event in June, but he admits he “was nervous as s***” when preparing to take the Kia Forum stage.
Speaking to Billboard, he explains the moment was a full-circle one for him that simply “didn’t feel real.”
“When I was a teenager, I’d write with YG in Inglewood [California]. He used to live right across the street [from The Forum]. I made [Tyga‘s] ‘Rack City’ across the street from there,” he said, referring to the first big hit he produced back in 2011.
The performance was eventually followed by Kendrick’s headlining show, where he performed “Not Like Us” multiple times, uniting LA natives who took the stage to rap and dance to the track. The song is likely to play on a bigger stage in 2025, when K.Dot headlines the Super Bowl halftime show.
“I’m going to go and be in a box and watch,” Mustard says of the upcoming event. “I just can’t wait … I might shed a tear!”
Released amid the Kendrick and Drake beef, “Not Like Us” dropped ahead of Mustard’s Faith of a Mustard album, which took five years to complete.
“There’s nothing on that album that I feel like in 10 years I’ll say, ‘Damn, I wish I did that better,’” Mustard says. “I hope it teaches kids that you can take your time and do the right thing.”
His goal is to one day win a Grammy for all of his hard work.
“I definitely speak it into existence every morning,” Mustard says. “The highest reward we can get as musicians is a Grammy. I know that people talk like it’s not a thing, but it actually is.”
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