Ab-Soul Chooses “Money Trees” Over “Luther” As His Favorite Kendrick Lamar Track With TDE Artists

Key Takeaways

• Ab-Soul picked “Money Trees” over “luther” as the better Kendrick Lamar collab with a TDE artist.
• He joked that Lamar “cheated” with the Luther Vandross-sampling track.
• Ab-Soul called Lamar one of his Top 5 rappers.

Ab-Soul is playing favorites. On Wednesday’s (June 11) episode of UPROXX’s "Sound Check," the Carson rapper was asked to choose between two tracks from a “former TDE artist,” aka Kendrick Lamar, who's obviously still close with the label.

His options were the Jay Rock-assisted “Money Trees” from good kid, m.A.A.d city and the chart-topping “luther” with SZA. While the latter track was objectively the bigger commercial powerhouse — topping the Hot 100 for 13 straight weeks — some classics are just hard to top.

In the end, Ab-Soul went with “Money Trees,” joking that Lamar “cheated” with “luther.” After all, sampling Luther Vandross’ “If This World Were Mine” and pairing it with SZA’s vocals was basically a guaranteed hit for the 22-time Grammy winner. “He knows what he be doing, man,” Soulo said.

“He’s definitely hilarious in real life… He plays the fool well,” Ab-Soul said about his longtime friend and “Turn Me Up” collaborator. Earlier in the conversation, the Herbert rapper named Lamar in his Top 5: “I got JAY, Nas, [K.] Dot, [Lil] Wayne, Lupe [Fiasco]... Eminem would be No. 6 for sure.”

When asked if last year’s Drake beef impacted Lamar’s ranking, Soulo responded, “Nah. He’s going to stay put for a second.” The two California emcees have clearly had each other’s backs through thick and thin.

In 2024, Ab-Soul said “redemption is not off the table” for Drake after Lamar dropped the scathing diss track “Not Like Us.” More recently, the “Terrorist Threats” creator even sent warning shots Joey Badass’ way after the Brooklyn rapper took shots at TDE and, speculatively, Lamar.

“Kendrick [or K-Dot at the time] has taught me the most as a recording artist,” Ab-Soul told Red Bull in May. “It’s more than just the raps; there’s writing, recording, and performing. Three distinct arts: songwriting, recording, and performing. So, I feel like I have learned the most from him in that regard.”