After being nominated three times in the category, the rapper’s achievement is long overdue

Kendrick Lamar accepts the Record of the Year award for “Not Like Us” onstage during the 67th Annual GRAMMY Awards on Feb. 2, 2025.Kevin Winter/Getty Images for The Recording Academy

From beef-ending Drake diss song to Record of the Year: Kendrick Lamar’s anthem, the death blow in a summer-long musical feud with his Canadian counterpart, won the rapper his first Record of the Year award at the 2025 Grammys.

“We gonna dedicate this one to the city,” Lamar told the crowd, naming neighborhoods like Compton, Watts, Inglewood, Hollywood, and others. “This is my neck of the woods, have held me down since a young pup. Since I was in the studio, scrapping to write the best raps and all that.”

He continued: “I can’t give enough thanks to these places I rode around since high school. And most importantly, the people and the families out in the Palisades and Altadena. This is the true testament that we can continue to restore the city.”

Lamar has been nominated three times previously in the category — for “Humble,” “All the Stars,” and “The Heart Part 5” — but it was the DJ Mustard-produced salvo that finally netted him the award.

“‘Not Like Us’ transcended the battle of egos that birthed it to give us something much better than a diss track,” Rolling Stone wrote in naming the track Number Two on our Best Songs of 2025 list. “It’s the sharpest, funniest Lamar single in ages, a reminder that the Pulitzer Prize-winning genius is also a world-class entertainer with a mean streak and impeccable timing.”

“Not Like Us” also becomes only the third hip-hop song to win Record of the Year, following Childish Gambino’s “This Is America” and Lizzo’s “About Damn Time.”