Kendrick Lamar - i

“I Love Myself” Isn’t a Hook, It’s the Whole Point

A Letter from InteGritti, in Resonance with Kendrick

When Kendrick Lamar chants “I love myself,” he’s not bragging.

He’s reclaiming.

And every time he says it, I feel it in my bones because that’s the same work I’ve been doing in my own way.

Through brushes, through breath, through live reflection and still mornings spent cracking open the mess of what it means to be human;  I’ve come to understand the same truth Kendrick sings:

Loving yourself in a world that’s built on erasure is a radical act. 

He says, “One day at a time, sun gon’ shine.”

I say,” Truth is. Period.” 

Different cadence. Same ground.

We’ve both stood in rooms full of people smiling and sensed the rot no one wants to name.

We’ve both felt how the world gaslights joy, punishes honesty, and then tells us to “stay positive.”

And we’ve both come to realize that we don’t owe our silence to anyone’s comfort. Nobody does.

Kendrick moves through his story with rhythm and rhyme.

I move through mine with color, tone, and presence.

But the destination’s the same: radical self-honesty, hard-won clarity, and the refusal to perform wholeness before it’s real.

When he says:

“I’ve been dealing with depression ever since an adolescent,”

I hear echoes of the stories I’ve told live about surviving shame, navigating loneliness, about loving myself out loud not because I always believed I was lovable, but because I had to believe something stronger than the world’s neglect.

I talk about mindfulness.

He talks about fighting to stay alive another night.

We are naming the same battle, just in different dialects.

And when he offers his story to the next generation, I feel that deeply.

Because I’ve done the same every time I go live and name the thing no one wants to look at or touch. Every time I show up with the raw truth instead of the curated version of me. Every time I make art that dares to say:

“You’re not crazy. You’re awake.”

So absolutely.

I agree with Kendrick.

Not because it’s trendy.

But because we’ve been living parallel truths; truths that say:

You can go to war with yourself… and still choose to love the one who walks out of the smoke.

You can be misunderstood… and still hold your center.

You can lose your way… and still be worth loving.

I believe in the strength it takes to stay here, eyes open, heart unhidden.

I believe in people who tell the truth even when it shakes.

I believe that what Kendrick sang, and what I live, are the same message:

Self-love isn’t a moment. It’s the entire revolution.

And it begins when we stop performing and start coming home to ourselves.

Stay mindful stay grounded,

InteGritti

Optional Journal Prompts to go deeper in your reflections:

What does “I love myself” mean to you today—beyond the performance of confidence?

Where are you still at war with yourself, and what would peace even look like?