Over the weekend (November 18), Variety hosted their first annual inaugural Hitmakers Brunch, bringing out some of the music industry’s top executives, artists, songwriters, and producers.

The honorees in the room had been featured on the magazine’s Hitmakers List, which is based on the most-consumed songs of the year (from audio streams, video streams, song sales, radio spins and Shazam tags), and included Kendrick Lamar, DJ Khaled, Diplo, Machine Gun Kelly, Kat Graham, and Charlie Walk (who was just announced as co-host of The Four, alongside REVOLT TV Chairman Sean “Diddy” Combs.)

Variety‘s Senior Music Editor Jem Aswad presented Kendrick Lamar with his Hitmaker of the Year award and, during his acceptance speech, he said, “I have been doing this for a long time, since I was about 13, 14 years old…K.Dot, lotta people know me as K.Dot.”

Lamar reflected on how he made “a lot of trash shit,” but that he respects and loves those moments “because it takes me back to the first initial ideas of me trying to be a lyricist” and helped him evolve into the artist that he is today. Watch the speech below.

DJ Khaled received the Mediabase PowerPlaylist Award and opened his speech by giving all thanks to God.

“This is the type of ‘cloth talk’ to have,” Khaled said. He detailed his hustle “from working in the studio and not getting any sleep, to working with icons and their busy schedules, and still making sure we can still make those records,” and named it another reason to be appreciative of his award.

The DJ even revealed that we may be in luck for a K.Dot and Khaled collaboration.”Every time I see Kendrick, I’m sure he’ll tell you, I whisper in his ear,” Khaled said. “And say, ‘I got something for us.’”

Kendrick Lamar, DJ Khaled

The event was sponsored by iHeartMedia and Mediabase, Cîroc French Vanilla, Shutterstock, and BuzzAngle Music.