Companies are increasingly blending storytelling, commerce, and technology in today’s rapidly evolving media landscape. One such company is pgLang, the multidisciplinary agency founded in 2020 by Kendrick Lamar and Dave Free. While it has often been described as a creative agency, pgLang operates across multiple industries and platforms — from music and film to brand partnerships and live events — positioning itself as a hybrid model within the broader creative economy.

Based on a previous AFROTECH™ report, pgLang describes itself as a “multilingual” company, referencing its spoken language component and ability to communicate across forms: music, television, film, books, podcasts, and visual media. The company’s creative outputs reflect this flexibility, leveraging cross-platform strategies to distribute content that resists traditional industry categorization.

This approach earned the company recognition from Fast Company, which named pgLang one of the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies of 2025, placing it at No. 15. The ranking cited the company’s integration of music, branded storytelling, and live events into a cohesive cultural ecosystem.

In 2024, pgLang produced a series of projects contributing to its visibility in entertainment and tech-adjacent sectors. One of the most notable releases was Kendrick Lamar’s single “Not Like Us,” accompanied by a music video co-directed by Lamar and Free. The video was filmed in Compton and used minimal production in favor of neighborhood-based visual storytelling. The song went on to top the Billboard Hot 100 and broke Spotify’s record for the most-streamed rap song in a single day, Fast Company reported.

Shortly after the song’s release, pgLang produced “The Pop Out,” a concert held on Juneteenth 2024 at the Kia Forum in Inglewood. The sold-out event was live-streamed through a partnership with Amazon, making it available globally via Prime Video and Twitch. The concert featured a curated lineup and extended pgLang’s multimedia strategy into real-time, large-scale public performance.

In early 2025, pgLang expanded its creative footprint by co-producing the Super Bowl LIX halftime show, headlined by Kendrick Lamar at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, LA. The performance, which featured appearances by SZA, Samuel L. Jackson, Serena Williams, and DJ Mustard, drew a record-breaking 133.5 million viewers, making it the most-watched halftime show in history, as Newsweek reported. pgLang led the production and sound design, applying its signature cross-disciplinary approach to one of the world’s largest live broadcast stages, further solidifying its role in high-impact, multi-platform cultural events.

pgLang has also expanded into brand storytelling. The company has produced campaigns for Cash App, including one where billionaire investor Ray Dalio delivered investment advice that Kendrick Lamar translated into more accessible terms. Another featured rapper, Doechii, discusses personal finance from a barbershop chair — a scene designed to situate financial literacy in everyday cultural settings. These branded projects combine direct messaging with non-traditional advertising formats, focusing on cultural relevance rather than standard commercial scripts.

According to pgLang co-founder Dave Free, the company applies a development method he refers to as “break and repeat” — a process that involves refining ideas through critical iteration before public release. “Once there are no more holes to poke, I feel comfortable putting it into the universe,” Free explained in a Billboard report. This methodology is consistent with startup culture principles, where prototyping and feedback loops are central to innovation.

The company’s design sensibility extends to its digital presence. pgLang’s website contains no mission statement or detailed descriptions—only a list of action verbs. This minimalist approach reflects what Free calls a “no yapping” policy—a philosophy that emphasizes output over explanation.

pgLang’s work has also taken on a global dimension. Through a partnership with Global Citizen, the company is involved in Move Afrika, a multi-year touring concert series across the African continent. The series is intended to promote economic opportunity through creative production and artist engagement. This project expands pgLang’s influence beyond U.S. markets and situates its operations within broader conversations about cultural development and the global creative industries.

A separate Billboard report noted that Kendrick Lamar is under consideration for performance at the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. While no formal announcement has been made, sources cited pgLang’s recent activity, particularly “The Pop Out” and the viral impact of “Not Like Us,” as contributing factors to Lamar’s rising visibility as a potential Olympic performer. If selected, it would mark a shift in how large-scale global events consider artist-producer partnerships in performance planning.

Although still relatively young, pgLang’s model offers a distinct approach to content production and platform development. Rather than scaling through a single medium, the company distributes its work across sectors, combining entertainment, brand marketing, live performance, and global engagement into a fluid operational strategy.

Whether pgLang’s approach will influence other media and tech-adjacent ventures remains to be seen. Still, its emergence highlights how hybrid creative companies increasingly shape the boundaries between art, commerce, and infrastructure in today’s innovation landscape.