Kendrick Lamar’s TV Off Lyrics Meaning: The Victory Lap and Cultural Critique

Kendrick Lamar’s TV Off doesn’t just arrive, it barges in, flicks the lights, and dares you to look away.

Across two tightly stitched movements the Compton rapper fuses West Coast swing with a live-wire sense of theatre, yelping “Mustard!” at the pivot as the beat snaps into a new gait.

That shout has since taken a life of its own online, yet on record it is a staging cue, a wink, and a power switch all at once.

Released as a single on 26 November 2024, and sitting seventh on Lamar’s sixth album, GNX, which arrived a few days earlier, the track credits a heavyweight room of collaborators, among them Mustard, Sounwave, Jack Antonoff, Kamasi Washington, Sean Momberger and Larry Jayy, with Lefty Gunplay handling the hypnotic outro chant.

The composition list also nods to Jimmy Webb and John Barry, a tell for the record’s sampling DNA and orchestral flashes.

Part of the charge here is how TV Off converses with Lamar’s 2024 moment.

In the first half he sizes up rivals and resets pecking orders, dropping short, barbed statements that read like push-notifications.

In the second, the record goes big-room, Mustard’s drum language kicking in as Lamar taunts, “turn his TV off,” a hook that turns a living-room gesture into a public silencing.

That refrain repeats the phrase back-to-back for emphasis, a classic hip-hop move Lamar has long used.

If you are new to the song, the skeleton is simple and satisfying.

Mustard’s bounce supplies instant movement, the beat switch lands two minutes in, and the second half is built to be shouted back in arenas.

If you already lived through the spring and summer feud cycle, you will hear even more.

The record arrived after a run of diss records and public chess moves, and Lamar closed his Super Bowl LIX halftime set with the back half of TV Off, staging that chant for a global audience in New Orleans with Mustard on hand, a savvy piece of world-building that folded sports television into the song’s televisual taunt.

The production carries its own conversation with 2024. Critics and fans immediately clocked the kinship with Mustard’s work on Not Like Us, not as a copy, more as a knowing rhyme between records from the same moment.

Complex even tracked how the “Mustaaard!” yell became a mini-meme, proof that the producer tag is part of the story.

Sonically, TV Off is also a sampler’s collage. It pulls from Monk Higgins’ take on MacArthur Park, flashes a horn figure from John Barry’s The Black Hole – Overture, and interpolates The Notorious B.I.G.’s Kick in the Door, stitching West Coast tension to classic cinema sweep and New York grit.

That combination gives Lamar room to switch camera angles mid-verse, from street-level quips to widescreen declarations.

The writing is dense but quotable in short bursts. “All I ever wanted was a black Grand National” lands with gleaming specificity, pointing to Buick’s one-year GNX unicorn from 1987, Lamar’s birth year, a tidy symbol for rarity and intent.

Later he snaps “This is not a song,” and “alpha and omega,” lines that tilt the record toward manifesto.

Each is a quick hit, under ten words, and each changes the temperature of the track.

In the months prior Drake’s Family Matters lobbed allegations and accusations into the news cycle, and TV Off reads, in part, like Lamar clearing the smoke while keeping his heel on the year’s narrative.

You do not need the timeline to feel the adrenaline, but if you have it, the song bristles with extra subtext.

There are side-eyes for peers too. Lines about entitlement from those who “knew me since a kid,” and bars that press the idea of “it’s not enough,” have been read by fans as glancing at J. Cole’s spring detour and retreat, though Lamar keeps names out of it and the record resists being reduced to a single target.

It is bigger than that, more interested in the ecosystem than any one avatar.

Lefty Gunplay’s outro, the looping “crazy, scary, spooky, hilarious,” functions as punchline and calling card.

It is also how the internet talks now, four moods, no commas, verdict by vibe.

Some listeners map those four words onto Lamar’s sequence of earlier diss records, others hear it as a general mood board for a year of spectacle. Either way, the cadence sticks.

Commercially, TV Off did what headline records do. It powered GNX’s news cycle, moved fast on global charts, and helped Lamar occupy multiple top spots at once, a habit he extended into 2025 on urban radio formats.

For a single built on the metaphor of switching off a picture, it travelled everywhere.

What finally makes TV Off sting is not only the score-settling, it is the cultural framing.

“This revolution been televised,” he raps, flipping a famous phrase and daring the audience to stop doom-scrolling and watch for real, or better yet, to turn distractions off entirely.

The Super Bowl staging underlined the gag, a TV spectacle ending with a hook about powering down. It is typical Lamar, a neat contradiction that doubles as critique.

You can hear the record’s architecture cleanly on the official audio, where the beat switch and the “Mustard!” cue hit with studio crispness, but it is built for loud speakers and louder rooms, a reminder that sometimes the sharpest editorial is danced, not debated.

A final thought, and a question. TV Off works as victory lap, West Coast rallying cry, and media critique, all at once.

If the year’s story hinged on screens, Lamar’s answer was to seize the broadcast, then dare you to press the button yourself.

Full tv off Lyrics from Kendrick Lamar

Intro: Kendrick Lamar
All I ever wanted was a black Grand National
Fuck being rational, give ’em what they ask for

Chorus: Kendrick Lamar
It’s not enough (Ayy)
Few solid niggas left, but it’s not enough
Few bitches that’ll really step, but it’s not enough
Say you bigger than myself, but it’s not enough (Huh)
I get on they ass, yeah, somebody gotta do it
I’ll make them niggas mad, yeah, somebody gotta do it
I’ll take the G pass, shit, watch a nigga do it
Huh, we survived outside, all from the music, nigga, what?

Verse 1: Kendrick Lamar
They like, “What he on?”
It’s the alpha and omega, bitch, welcome home
This is not a song
This a revеlation, how to get a nigga gone
You need you a man, baby, I don’t understand, baby
Pay your bill and makе you feel protected like I can, baby
Teach you somethin’ if you need correction, that’s the plan, baby
Don’t put your life in these weird niggas’ hands, baby (Woah)

Verse 2: Kendrick Lamar
Hey, turn his TV off
Ain’t with my type activities? Then don’t you get involved
Hey, what, huh, how many should I send? Send ’em all
Take a risk or take a trip, you know I’m trippin’ for my dog
Who you with? Couple sergeants and lieutenants for the get back
This revolution been televised, I fell through with the knick-knacks
Hey, young nigga, get your chili up, yeah, I meant that
Hey, black out if they act out, yeah, I did that
Hey, what’s up, though?
I hate a bitch that’s hatin’ on a bitch and they both hoes
I hate a nigga hatin’ on them niggas and they both broke
If you ain’t coming for no chili, what you come for?
Nigga feel like he entitled ’cause he knew me since a kid
Bitch, I cut my granny off if she don’t see it how I see it, hm
Got a big mouth but he lack big ideas
Send him to the moon, that’s just how I feel, yellin’

Part II

Intro: Kendrick Lamar
Huh
Huh, huh
Hey
Hey (Mustard on the beat, ho)

Chorus: Kendrick Lamar
Mustard
Niggas actin’ bad, but somebody gotta do it
Got my foot up on the gas, but somebody gotta do it
Huh, turn his TV off, turn his TV off
Huh, turn his TV off, turn his TV off
Huh, turn his TV off, turn his TV off
Huh, turn his TV off, turn his TV off

Verse: Kendrick Lamar
Ain’t no other king in this rap thing, they siblings
Nothing but my children, one shot, they disappearin’
I’m in the city where the flag be gettin’ thrown like it was pass interference
Padlock around the building
Crash, pullin’ up in unmarked truck just to play freeze tag
With a bone to pick like it was sea bass
So when I made it out, I made about 50K from a show
Tryna show niggas the ropes before they hung from a rope
I’m prophetic, they only talk about it how I get it
Only good for saving face, seen the cosmetics
How many heads I gotta take to level my aesthetics?
Hurry up and get your muscle up, we out the plyometric
Nigga ran up out of luck soon as I upped the highest metric
The city just made it sweet, you could die, I bet it
They mouth get full of deceit, let these cowards tell it
Walk in New Orleans with the etiquette of LA, yellin’

Chorus: Kendrick Lamar
Mustard (Ah, man)
Niggas actin’ bad, but somebody gotta do it
Got my foot up on the gas, but somebody gotta do it
Huh, turn his TV off, turn his TV off
Huh, turn his TV off, turn his TV off
Huh, turn his TV off, turn his TV off
Huh, turn his TV off, turn his TV off

Outro: Lefty Gunplay
Shit gets crazy, scary, spooky, hilarious
Crazy, scary, spooky, hilarious
Shit gets crazy, scary, spooky, hilarious
Crazy, scary, spooky, hilarious
Shit gets crazy, scary, spooky, hilarious
Crazy, scary, spooky, hilarious
Shit gets crazy, scary, spooky, hilarious
Crazy, scary, spooky, hilarious