Eckhart TolleNYT Bestselling author of the Power of Now

How Eckhart Tolle Ended Up in a Kendrick Album

15 May 2026 · 1 min

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In this brief spoken excerpt, spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle recounts being approached by rapper Kendrick Lamar, who expressed a desire to incorporate Tolle's teachings into his music. Tolle describes his first impression of Kendrick as unexpectedly soft‑spoken, gentle, and attentive, contrary to the flamboyant image often associated with rap artists. After meeting, Tolle gave Kendrick permission to reference his name and teachings, noting that the resulting album, released a few years prior, contains several mentions of Eckhart Tolle that listeners can spot with careful attention.

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Kendrick Lamar contacted me and says, "I want to introduce your teaching into my rap music." I had never heard of him until it was mentioned to me, but it seems he's awakening, so I met him and he was not how you would expect a flamboyant rapper to behave or look like. He was kind of soft-spoken, quite gentle and able to listen. And then I said, okay, go ahead, you can mention my name and so on. So in the album that came out a couple of years ago, Eckhart Tolle is mentioned several times, you just have to listen carefully.