The coveted trophy was presented by Queen Latifah and Doechii to Lamar, who has nine nominations this year.
"It's an honour to be here," he said in his acceptance speech.
"Hip-hop is always going to be right here ... We're gonna be having the culture with us," he said.
Rosé and Bruno Mars' opened the 68th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday (Monday AEDT) with an electric rendition of their multicultural pop smash, APT, the Blackpink singer channelling a pop-punk Gwen Stefani in her tie and platinum blonde hair.
Host Trevor Noah opened with a speech celebrating the incredible breadth of talent nominated this year while poking fun at them - at one juncture, joking that Jelly Roll and Teddy Swims should be able to unlock each other's phones, given their similar face tattoos.
Noah is hosting the Grammy Awards for a sixth and final time live from Los Angeles' Crypto.com Arena.
During the non-televised Premiere Ceremony held at the adjacent Peacock Theater in ahead of the main show, the Dalai Lama won his first Grammy for audio book, narration and storytelling recording, beating out Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. You read that correctly.
Golden from KPop Demon Hunters won best song written for visual media at the Premiere Ceremony, marking the first time a K-pop act has won a Grammy.
The songwriters delivered their acceptance speech in both English and Korean, highlighting the song's bilingual appeal.
Veteran film director Steven Spielberg won a Grammy to add to his trophy cabinet, making him an EGOT winner - an artist with an Emmy, Grammy, Tony and Oscar.
Spielberg received the Grammy for best music film category for producing the documentary Music by John Williams, with the trophy handed out during the non-televised premiere ceremony.
Yungblud won his first Grammy for rock performance for his cover of Black Sabbath's Changes (live from Villa Park), which he performed at Ozzy Osbourne's final show. Hardcore band Turnstile also won their first Grammy for rock album and later, metal performance.
"To Baltimore, thank you, we love you," said frontman Brendan Yates.
The Cure won alternative music performance but were unable to attend as they were attending the funeral of Perry Archangelo Bamonte, the Cure's longtime guitarist and keyboardist, who died last month.
FKA twigs won her first Grammy for best dance/electronic album for EUSEXUA.
"I didn't expect to come up here. I was just so happy to be nominated," she said in her speech.
"Thank you so much - wow."
"All the Latino kids in the hood watching, anything is possible," said rapper Lefty Gunplay, who also won his first Grammy for rap performance for his role on Kendrick Lamar's TV Off.
It is a dramatically different tone than last year.
The 2025 award show was completely reimagined and refocused to relief efforts following the devastating Los Angeles-area wildfires.
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