One of Kendrick Lamar’s best songs got turned into … a salad?
Puns? Love them. Pop culture puns? Double love them. But health food chain sweetgreen has taken the pun game to the next level.
For years now (since 2013, to be exact), sweetgreen has been selling shirts that say, “Beets Don’t Kale My Vibe” — a play off of rapper Kendrick Lamar’s song “B*tch, Don’t Kill My Vibe,” a single off of his major label debut good kid, m.A.A.d city. Why a health food company first decided to craft t-shirts based off of a rap lyric, we’ll never know, but the slogan is catchy, on brand, and above all, pop culture savvy. Lamar is one of the most relevant rappers in the world right now, and clearly he (or at least his legal team) didn’t have beef with sweetgreen’s twist on his song.
Now, the pun has come full circle. sweetgreen hosts a music festival called Sweetlife Festival in Maryland, and one of this year’s headliners is none other than Kendrick Lamar. In honor of the occasion, sweetgreen locations will be selling a limited Beets Don’t Kale My Vibe salad until the end of May, with 10% of the proceeds going to their charity arm FoodCorps, which provides healthy lunches and food education to schools.
They’re taking the food side of this salad pun very seriously. The Beets Don’t Kale My Vibe salad sounds delicious and includes, “organic wild rice, shredded kale, roasted beets and red onions, local goat cheese, roasted chicken, honey-glazed pecans and [sweetgreen’s] housemade balsamic vinaigrette.” Uh, you had us at literally every part of that salad.
This got us thinking about other possible health food/Kendrick Lamar puns. “Barbecue Freestyle?” “Paella Justice?” I guess, there’s a reason why we aren’t in the food naming (or rap) business. Whatever the case, we love that both parties are embracing the name. Now, if KDot is looking to seriously get into food, we have a suggestion as to what his next foray should be:
