Kendrick Lamar Brings 'To Pimp A Butterfly' To Life As The First Musical Guest On Stephen Colbert's New 'Late Show'

We've known that Kendrick Lamar’s performance on Stephen Colbert's debut week hosting The Late Show was going to happen for quite some time now. But even with all the built-in hype around having Kendrick as Colbert's first official musical guest (we won't count The Alabama Shakes and, you know, everybody that stopped by to join Jon Batiste and Stay Human in forming an "Everyday People" supergroup the night before) good-kid still manages to impress (as you knew he would). I missed the entire show, but there was no way I was going to bed before this clip popped up on the internet. Kendrick went ahead got the band back together with Bilal, Thundercat, and Anna Wise backing his medley performance of To Pimp A Butterfly tracks “Wesley’s Theory”; "King Kunta" and “U.” Looks like Colbert’s off to a good start with his new gig and with guests like this (and Batiste) to keep The Roots on their toes, while Colbert gives his lil homie Jimmy Fallon a run for his Late Night Snack, it's safe to say that Late Night TV just got a little more lit. Let the soundclash begin! Whoever manages to sneak ahead in the ratings game (Spoiler: it's Fallon) we out here in Okayplayer-land are the clearly winners. Watch Kendrick’s performance, below and get some backstory on the various roles this unique group of musicians had on the creation of To Pimp A Butterfly over here, via our massive Okayplayer exclusive feature It Takes A Village To Pimp A Butterfly.

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