TDE’s Punch Reveals Contribution To Kendrick Lamar’s Classic Album

Top Dawg Entertainment (TDE) head honcho Terrence “Punch” Henderson revealed a “special” contribution he made to Kendrick Lamar‘s seminal 2015 album To Pimp A Butterfly.

The label boss took to Instagram on Wednesday (August 21) to remember his involvement in the album’s closing track, the 12 minute “Mortal Man.”

At the end of the track, K.Dot refers to some words ” a good friend had wrote describing” his “world.” Punch revealed that those words were his.

Alongside an illustrated video of the note, Punch wrote: “We were coming close to the end of making ‘to pimp a butterfly’, we may have been about 70% done. I remember Kdot was feeling a bit lost in the concept, it happens sometimes when your in the thick of the battle, it’s easy to kind of lose sight of the original purpose as new ideas and thought enter in. He hit me and asked if I could write something to sum up the album and where we were going.

“So I thought about it and wrote some words and sent it to him. He said ‘thanks’ and we kept moving with business as usual. A few months later we were done, and we listened to the album for a final time right before release and I hear something new on the end of ‘mortal man’ that I hadn’t heard. Then I realized these were the words that I sent Dot months before! I had no idea he was using it for the album. Even when we played it back during the process he never played that section. This will always be a special moment for me, because of our connection and understanding and also being apart of that masterpiece in that way. [prayer hands emoji].”

Check out the full clip below.

Last we heard from Punch was back in April when he and TDE artist Reason offered some thoughts on a fan’s ranking of [most of] the Top Dawg Entertainment roster.

The list began circulating, which found the artists on the Los Angeles-based record label ranked as follows:

1. Isaiah Rashad; 2. ScHoolboy Q; 3. SiR; 4. SZA; 5. Ab Soul; 6. Jay Rock; 7. Daylyt; 8. Ray Vaughn; 9. Lance Skiiiwalker; 10. Zacari; 11. Punch; 12. Reason.

Having landed at the bottom of the list, Reason took issue with the placement – but only because Doechii was left out and not put before him.

“See man this isn’t fair and I have a problem with this immensely!!! Smh,” he joked on Twitter/X. “Like this just proves yall pay no attention to music and what’s going on and I hate it! Smh I SHOULD BE 13! WHERE IS DOECHII??? [laughing emoji]”

Punch, who also raps, had a much shorter reply, simply writing: “11 is crazy smh. lol”