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Kevin Winter / Staff via Getty Images and Jason Koerner / Contributor via Getty Images
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Clipse at 2025 ESPYs and Kendrick Lamar at Rolling Loud Miami 2022
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Key Takeaways:
- Kendrick Lamar surprised fans by performing “Chains & Whips” with Clipse in Los Angeles.
- The track, produced by Pharrell, faced label pushback before its release on Let God Sort Em Out.
- Pusha T revealed Lamar originally wanted to do two songs with Clipse, but only one made the cut.
Clipse surprised fans at Los Angeles’ Novo with Kendrick Lamar over the weekend. On Saturday (Aug. 23), during their “Let God Sort Em Out Tour,” the trio treated the crowd to a live rendition of “Chains & Whips.”
In footage shared online, Pusha T and Malice were midway through the song before the stage briefly went dark. Moments later, the Compton emcee delivered his guest verse as the audience erupted.
“I’m not the candidate to vibe with / I don’t f**k with the kumbaya s**t / All that talent must be Godsent / I send yo’ a** back to the cosmics,” Lamar rapped. Check out the clip and fan reactions below.
“This is our home city. It’s such a privilege to be in front of motherf**king legends, man,” Lamar closed out his performance before showing love to Malice and Pusha T. He added, “I’m going to be out there watching with you all. These are my motherf**king people.”
“If ‘needs no introduction’ was a person,” Clipse wrote on their Instagram Stories. A separate clip was captioned, “Thank you [Kendrick Lamar] for rolling out the red carpet in your city.”
“Chains & Whips,” which boasts production and additional vocals from Pharrell, arrived on Let God Sort Em Out in July. As Pusha T has explained more than once, getting the track out was difficult. In fact, he ultimately had to buy himself out of his contract with Def Jam.
According to Pusha, the label claimed their hesitation came down to Lamar’s “Trump card” line, which he thought was “so stupid.” In his view, the real reason had more to do with the optics of “two Drake foes teaming up” while Universal Music Group — Def Jam’s parent company — was in the middle of their legal battle with the Canadian star.
Even more interesting, there were actually talks of Lamar doing two records with Clipse. Pusha T shared with Fear of God designer Jerry Lorenzo, “[I] sent them songs over, [and] he just called back laughing… He was like, ‘Yo, I wanna do two.’” In the end, the “Not Like Us” hitmaker got “super busy” and only “Chains & Whips” came to life.
