Before he was a Pulitzer prize winner with nearly two dozen Grammy Awards under his belt, he was a student in Compton. Famed rapper Kendrick Lamar is one of Vanguard Learning Center’s most recognized students but to one teacher, he’s one of many shining pupils with talent.
Regis Inge, an educator with the Compton Unified School District, helped shape Lamar’s love for language and storytelling after introducing him to poetry during the rapper’s middle school days. When he first heard of Lamar’s rise to stardom, he was puzzled and then blown away.
“Kendrick Duckworth is a rapper? Quiet Kendrick?” Inge said he responded when he first heard of Lamar’s early start in his music career.
Inge fondly remembers the rapper as a shy boy who once stuttered. Despite his reserved nature, it was clear to the educator that Lamar was a gifted storyteller.
“The passion that which he was writing with, it was there already,” Inge said.
Beyonce, Kendrick Lamar and Chappell Roan were some of the big winners at the 2025 Grammy awards.
Among Kendrick Lamar’s accolades is a Pulitzer Prize -- honored for not just his musicality but linguistic authenticity blending the colloquial and the cultured, and the educated and the everyday. Inge said he encouraged the budding lyricist to write poetry and to read it aloud. He also put a thesaurus into his hands.
“And what I was doing was, I was circling words that I felt that he could improve on because of the range of the words, the grade level of the words,” Inge said.
What he’s most proud of is Lamar’s commitment to authenticity and positivity, and his potential to inspire others to rise above. Though Inge has received a number of teaching accolades himself, he said it’s still hard to believe one of his students has gained such international acclaim.
“It's still surreal because I treat all of them like I treat Kendrick,” he said of his students. “They're my children.”
What started as friendly jabs has transformed into a full-blown feud between the two rappers.
