Opener Isaiah Rashad certainly put the effort in, and served to warm the crowd up for Schoolboy Q, whose major-label debut LP Oxymoron entered the Billboard charts this week at No. 1. Donning a camo jacket and his trademark bucket hat, he performed with the swagger of a man who had long tired of being a No. 2. Frustrated his energy was not being returned at satisfactory levels, he chastised the crowd for not "turning up."

"I know you're here to see Kendrick," he admitted, before adding, "It's my f-king turn." Unlike his opening acts, Lamar had nothing to prove. A SXSW veteran, he had already navigated the sea of corporate locusts in years past, and this year it was his turn to play mentor. In between album cycles, Kendrick's role in TDE at this point is to leverage his own brand to help create similar success for his compadres.

And at the iTunes Festival, a five-day concert event produced in the U.S. for the first time at this year's South by Southwest music festival, an interesting technique is used to force attendees to sit through the opening sets-ticket holders are informed that their places are only guaranteed until 8pm-thirty minutes before the opening act takes the stage.

So with a captive audience inside and hundreds of disappointed hopefuls on the outside on the street, Kendrick Lamar did not disappoint. His stage demeanor evokes the God Rakim Allah, whose stage presence was so immense that he could make crowds move without ever getting hyped. Performing, Lamar is confident assurance, personified.

He strolled out in a dark hoodie, commanding the large stage with ease as ghetto scenes played out on the futuristic transparent video screens that surrounded him. Alone onstage, he hit every syllable of every note, sounding as eloquent live as he does on record. He brought the crowd to a steady boil, working it like a veteran-first dividing them into different, competing sections, and making them repeat hooks to challenge them to get louder. By the time he got to the crowd-favorite "Backseat Freestyle," the audience is already whipped into a frenzy, but wants to make sure it's perfect, so he restarts the intro again. They're hype, in the palm of his hand , and he hasn't even broken a sweat.