The Hilarious Kendall Moment In Succession No One In The Cast Saw Coming
For most of my life, I don't think I'd ever genuinely understood what people meant when they said they had an experience where they could feel their soul leaving their body. Then I watched Kendall Roy's (Jeremy Strong) rap on "Succession."
A little context. The first season of Jesse Armstrong's acerbic tragicomedy series about the Roy family — the clan of miscreant one-percenters who own a powerful global media conglomerate called Waystar RoyCo — ends with patriarch Logan (Brian Cox) helping Kendall cover up his complicity in the accidental death of a young waiter at his sister Shiv's (Sarah Snook) wedding. Logan, ever the terrible father, proceeds to lord his newly gained power over his "number-one boy" in season 2, coercing Kendall into kowtowing to his every whim. Eventually, Logan reaps what he sows when a celebration is held to commemorate his 50th anniversary at Waystar in his hometown of Dundee, Scotland. There, a browbeaten Kendall (who, as his sort of girlfriend at the time observes, has become even more weirdly fixated on his dad than usual) "honors" him by rapping about Logan's legacy.
Now, Kendall rapping didn't come out of nowhere. During his very first scene on "Succession," he's shown jammin' to the Beasties Boys' "An Open Letter to NYC" while being chauffeured to work. But even knowing this can't fully prepare you for the incredible spectacle of Kendall rapping lyrics like "50 years strong, now he's rollin' in a sick ride." Strong commits to the cringe-inducing bit so fearlessly that he deserved an Emmy for this scene alone. The best part? Strong confirmed to Entertainment Weekly his co-stars "didn't see it on the page, and they didn't see it until we did it on camera." There's a reason their characters' incredulous reactions look so genuine.
L to the OG
In the same EW interview, Snook was quick to clarify that Armstrong and his fellow writers didn't throw the "Succession" cast in the deep end without any kind of warning. "It was written in the script, but not the whole thing," she said. "It was just like 'Kendall does a rap,' with one verse. And [Strong] didn't want to do it at first!"
"Succession" has always been hard proof that truth tends to be stranger than fiction. For as much as it functions as a funhouse mirror for the Roys' and WayStar's real-life counterparts (most pointedly, the Mudorchs and their conglomerate News Corp and the Fox brand), it's rare that anything happens on the show that doesn't resemble something even more outlandish or disturbing that took place in the real world. In the case of Kendall's rap, Strong said Armstrong "sent me a video that was on Instagram of this guy — he's an oil heir, and he's a billionaire. At his 40th birthday, he got on stage and rapped with Nelly, and he was pretty f*cking good. Jesse was like, something like that."
While I can't say that sentiment extends to Kendall's own rapping (to quote his brother Roman, "You need to stop this!"), his rap itself actually feels like the handiwork of a legit musician ... because it was. Yes, none other than "Succession" composer Nicholas Britell — whose haunting theme song for the show will never leave your brain once you've heard it — penned the tune.
"[Britell] texted me saying, 'I want to do the rap for you over the phone,'" said Strong. "I still have the recording on my phone of him doing the rap for me for the first time." Now that's something I would pay good money to hear.