Kendrick & Dave Free Launch New Agency, Project 3 and importance of cultural integrity

Back in March 2020, Kendrick Lamar and his longtime friend and creative partner Dave Free announced pgLang, a multidisciplinary creative communications company described at the time as an “at-service” platform for artists. Its launch was mysterious yet alluring—wrapped in cryptic messaging and a minimal, avant-garde aesthetic that hinted at a new era of storytelling.

But behind the scenes, the pgLang team soon realized they didn’t yet have the infrastructure to provide services at a global scale. Now, five years later, they do—with the launch of Project 3.

They made their debut announcement on instagram with a humorous teaser video starring The Bear’s actor Lionel Boyce along with Chase Sui Wonders of The Studio. At the end of this obscure video, we’re left with a phone number that leads directly to what we can assume to be Project 3.

Project 3 represents a new creative endeavor aimed at expanding resources for both corporate and independent businesses. At the core of this initiative is Project 3 Agency, a full-service creative company offering content creation, event planning, brand design, creative direction, production services, and strategic consulting.

Collaborating with brands is nothing new for pgLang—they’ve already partnered with Calvin Klein, Chanel, Casp App, and many others. But Project 3 and its agency arm mark a more intentional leap into the creative agency space, one rooted in clarity, cultural fluency, and creative confidence. As Fast Company reports, executive of pgLang and Project 3 Cornell Brown put it plainly:

“We see brands now, and one mistake can have you questioning your existence—or the audience questioning your purpose.”

Dave Free echoes the sentiment:

“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.”

Due to their acquisition of the international creative studio Frosty, a longtime collaborator of pgLang, Project 3 Agency was born.

In an era where marketing missteps can go viral for all the wrong reasons, the need for cultural integrity in advertising has never been more critical. Over the years, we’ve witnessed a string of tone-deaf partnerships and insensitive campaigns that trivialized identity and missed the mark entirely. Brands are learning the hard way that relevance without responsibility will cost them everything.

In recent memory, apparel company American Eagle faced backlash for its ad campaign featuring Sydney Sweeney, which many interpreted as signaling white supremacy. Back in 2017, Kendall Jenner’s Pepsi collaboration was widely condemned for mocking the gravity of protests against police brutality. Even in 2022, Balenciaga released a campaign that exploited children, sparking global outrage. Intentional or not, these moments reveal a glaring lack of cultural awareness and why it can no longer be an afterthought.

With that being said Project 3, seems to be an initiative that’s essential during this time of need. To bring realignment and direction with a framework rooted in integrity and cultural consciousness. They’re connecting vision with value and a message with meaning within storytelling. Those same moral codes are embodied within the name Project 3, as it pays homage to the 3 pillars of storytelling: the beginning, middle, and end.

 As Dave Free expressed, “We were seeing companies we admired, but the storytelling was lackluster, 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 on to people.”

To learn more you can visit their website here.

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