Rapper Kendrick Lamar keeps a birthday promise to a seven-year-old fan

Kendrick Lamar makes very few public appearances that are not attached to a record, which is part of why this one travelled. In March, seven-year-old Romell Frazier Jr. was attacked by two pit bulls in Detroit. He lost both arms to amputation and suffered severe injuries to a leg and a foot, and spent two months in hospital before returning home in May.

His biggest birthday wish, his family said, was to hear from his favourite rapper. In July, Kendrick Lamar called him. Romell turned seven on July 31, and had asked whether Lamar might come to the party; what arrived instead was a video call and an invitation to Los Angeles. His first question, according to the account of the call, was whether his mother could come too.

Lamar spent part of the call talking to the boy directly. "You continue to be great, continue to keep that smile on your face, man," he said, telling him he had a beautiful life to live and was giving people a lot of inspiration with how strong he was. He also spoke to Romell's mother, saying the boy's smile showed the kind of household he had been raised in.

On August 27, the family shared footage of the visit actually happening. Clips show Lamar with Romell as a cake is brought out and the room sings happy birthday. Beyond the meeting itself, the trip took in VIP experiences at Disneyland, Universal and around Hollywood, plus a belated party and gifts. Romell's mother described the weekend as a core memory, and said it was one the family would not forget.

The visit picked up a small cast along the way. A Delta Airlines employee posted about spending time with Romell during the trip, calling the family his special guests and thanking Lamar. That kind of detail is usually the first thing to fall out of a story like this, and it is the part that suggests the weekend was arranged rather than staged.

Lamar's own year has been busy in more conventional ways. He turned up on "How To Pray", a track from the producer Dahi's album, and has been the subject of steady catalogue argument and battle retrospectives for two years running. He also took BMI's songwriter prize in a year when Nas received the icon award, and Dahi released How To Pray with him and Amber Mark shortly before this story broke.

None of that is what the hip-hop audience spent the last week of August talking about. A promise made on a phone call in July was kept in August, and there is video of it.