by Kandiss Edwards
August 1, 2025
Kendrick Lamar launches ‘Challenge 3 Company’; the company is co-owned with the rapper’s longtime inventive accomplice, Dave Free.
Kendrick Lamar launches Challenge 3 Company, a department of Lamar’s father or mother firm, pgLang. The company was began along side the rapper’s longtime inventive accomplice and supervisor, Dave Free.
Challenge 3 is described as a full-service inventive agency. Creatives will obtain steering and providers in branding, content material manufacturing, design, and technique. The providers are provided to each firms and independents. Inspiration for the identify, Challenge 3, displays the trio of storytelling phases.
The brand new company is designed to provide alternatives to artists and creatives past their private community. Those that have labored with Lamar and Free say that the brand new enterprise is much less about hype and extra about laying foundations for lengthy‑time period inventive work. In an interview with Quick Firm, Free mentioned the work put into constructing Challenge 3.
Initially, the duo hoped that pgLang would be capable to present the “at service” expertise. Sadly, the infrastructure was not in place.
“For us, it was like, how can we construct foundational buildings for the enterprise so [we] can final long run versus attempting to do an excessive amount of directly and being slowed down,” mentioned Free. “And as we developed, we didn’t need to alienate ourselves from business enterprise. We wished to determine a approach to stroll hand in hand with these corporations and provides them info, but additionally study as we’re working with [them].”
July 31, Challenge 3 dropped a brief video on YouTube as a teaser for the corporate.
He added that they wished to work alongside manufacturers in a mutually instructional approach. Challenge 3 Company formally started after pgLang acquired Frosty, an internationally acknowledged inventive studio with a world group of 30, which had partnered with Lamar’s group on quite a few tasks.
Below pgLang, Lamar and Free have earned six Cannes Lions awards, together with Unbiased Company of the Yr in 2023. Their portfolio contains work with manufacturers akin to Chanel, Calvin Klein, Gatorade, and Money App, together with headline manufacturing, together with Lamar’s Tremendous Bowl LIX efficiency.
Cornell Brown, a Challenge 3 government, emphasised the group’s energy in mixing cultural perception and visual affect.
“We’ve tentacles in so many locations: touring, music, merchandising, artwork,” he mentioned. “That provides us confidence in how we form narratives for manufacturers.”
Relatively than chasing each alternative, Lamar and Free are specializing in significant partnerships that respect storytelling and emotional depth. No particular shoppers have been introduced but.
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