Kendrick Lamar’s pgLang launches a new creative agency

When Kendrick Lamar and his longtime creative and business partner Dave Free launched pgLang in 2020, it was under the banner of an “at service company” for creatives. It was an enticing, if somewhat mysterious, modus operandi that led to inquiries in droves.

However, the pgLang team quickly realized they didn’t have the infrastructure to offer their services broadly. In the beginning, there were more internal projects including producing Lamar’s music videos and concerts, as well as a smattering of brand work with the likes of Cash App, Chanel, Calvin Klein, and Gatorade. But they didn’t have the bandwidth to operate at scale.

Five years later, they do.

Project 3 is a new venture within pgLang designed to expand creative resources for businesses. And under the umbrella of Project 3, sits Project 3 Agency, a full-service agency providing creative direction, content creation, production services, brand design and strategy.

The creation of Project 3 Agency was powered in large part from the acquisition of international creative studio Frosty, a frequent collaborator of pgLang’s over the years.

“For us, it was like, how do we build foundational structures for the business so [we] can last longterm versus trying to do too much at once and being bogged down,” says Free, cofounder of pgLang, on the five-year road to Project 3. “And as we developed [pgLang], we didn’t want to alienate ourselves from commercial business. We wanted to figure out a way to walk hand-in-hand with these companies and give them information, but also learn as we’re working with these companies.”

To be sure, pgLang has already been producing work for brands. In fact, they scooped six Cannes Lions Awards, including Independent Agency of the Year, in 2023. While pgLang can be considered the parent company overseeing and aligning all external ventures under a unified vision, the creation of Project 3 and Project 3 Agency allows the teams to direct their focus solely toward other companies. And in those efforts, they feel uniquely positioned to fill a void in the creative agency industry.

“We see brands now, and one mistake can have you questioning your existence or the audience questioning your purpose,” says Cornell Brown, an executive at pgLang and Project 3. “For us, there is a confidence that we can bring to this. We have tentacles in so many places: touring, music, when we’re creating merch, when we’re creating art—we have so many inputs that there’s a confidence that comes from seeing all of that around you.”

Both Free and Brown see Project 3’s superpower in helping brands rediscover or, in some instances find for the first time, their true story and purpose. That ethos is baked into the name of the company as Project 3 is a nod to the three pillars of storytelling: the beginning, middle, and end.

“Brands who will utilize us best are gonna be the ones who aren’t coming for a one-off campaign,” Brown says. “They’re coming to us to realign strategy and to align them with their purpose.”

“We were seeing companies we admired, but the storytelling was lackluster,” Free adds. “And a lot of it is because the agency motto became a turnover business of more, more, more. Sometimes that’s great, you need that. But [the storytelling] also has to help people. It has to change the world. It has to latch onto people.”

Free notes there’s no desire for “infinite growth” with Project 3. He wants the company to scale, but at a pace that puts quality well over quantity to ensure the work aligns with their “purpose and integrity.”

“That’s gonna be the marker of how successful this can be because I just don’t see us doing anything with anyone,” Free says. “We are definitely going for a more premium approach.”

The goal, as Free explains, is to give brands a foundation for longterm success. “When I look at a brand, I’m not thinking about how to get them to the next quarter,” he says. “I’m thinking about how to get them to the next 10 years. I’m trying to make the best thing that they’ve had that becomes reference material for all the companies.”

When pgLang launched in 2020, it was very clear there was a desire to have roots across the creative spectrum. “We’re going to touch every facet of culture,” Free says.

They’re starting with Project 3 to build up the commercial side of their business, and to learn from the brands they work with (how they function, why they make the decisions they do, etc.) which can inform other aspects of where pgLang will expand next—the graphic above providing perhaps a hint of at least how many areas pgLang and Project 3 may go into.

“We know the trajectory,” Free says of pgLang’s future. “But it’s going to take time, and we’re going to give every piece its own space in its own light. Right now the agency is the foundation that helps set the standard for these other services that we’re going to offer.”