Kendrick Lamar is never shy about pinpointing the people and the things that made him go from basement rapper to global sensation. Last month, K. Dot penned an open letter to the late great Tupac on the 19th anniversary of his death, showing the versatility of his pen game.

Today, as part of a larger feature piece from Paper Magazine, Kendrick has revealed (in a similar open letter format) the impact that NWA legend Eazy-E had on his career. As most of us already know, it was quite the impact, but this open letter really explains why.

Read the full piece below and be on the lookout for Paper Magazine’s full feature piece.

What made Eazy special was that he was telling a different type of truth, a truth that wasn’t heard in music yet. Before them, rap was fun — you had your battles and whatnot, but this time around, when it came to what Eazy wanted to do, being a visionary, he had the idea of speaking the honest truth, and I think it really resonated with a lot of people because it was the shock value of, “Okay, these guys are really standing out and focused on telling their reality, no matter how pissed off you get by it.” And it got interest from people. People actually wanted to hear it and wanted to know what was going on.

I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for Eazy and I wouldn’t be able to say the things that I say, talk about my community the way I talk about it, for good or for bad. He’s 100 percent influenced me in terms of really being not only honest with myself, but honest about where I come from and being proud of where I come from.

Source: Complex