Last month, Kendrick Lamar topped the charts with his Drake diss track. On Friday, the rapper delivered a surprise commencement speech at Compton College’s Class of 2024 graduation.

“I wanted to come out here just to tell y’all how much I appreciate y’all. I’m proud of the city of Compton, I’m proud of Compton College, most importantly I’m proud of the graduates out here,” he said. “I know what it takes. You had a lot of hardship, not only in your house, in your communities, but most importantly, in yourself, and that’s the toughest thing to overcome. We still growing day by day, brick by brick, making sure we develop, not only in physical form but in the spiritual as well.”

He continued:

And I still believe in everything we’re doing, brick by brick, it’s time that we change the narratives. Some people tell us this generation don’t have what it takes. Gen Z. We talk about it all day. They try to pull us down and say we don’t know what we’re doing. They wrong though. Because not only you all have what it takes, you have something bigger: You have the heart and the courage to be independent thinkers. There’s nothing more valuable than that.

Lamar is also getting ready for The Pop Out — Ken & Friends, his show at the Kia Forum in Inglewood on Juneteenth. Watch his full speech below, which begins around the 43-minute mark.