There’s a new Kendrick Lamar album (!).
It’s rather befitting of their respective personas that, just after Kanye’s extravagant buildup to The Life of Pablo (much of whose hullabaloo surrounded the difficulty in choosing an album title), Kendrick should quietly drop an eight-track LP called untitled unmastered. The new record has surfaced on Spotify, complete with cover art and eight unnamed, dated tracks.
Anthony Tiffith, the CEO of Lamar’s label Top Dawg Entertainment, hinted earlier this week that TDE would be releasing a surprise record. Tiffith posted a photo to Instagram that gave a brief status report of each Top Dawg artist, and next to Lamar’s name it simply said: “??? (Get Top on the phone).†Still, it was a big surprise that the new release would turn out to be a Kendrick album, hitting fresh off the heels of a Grammy win for his most recent opus, To Pimp a Butterfly.
That said, it’s not like there weren’t hints. Kendrick has performed unreleased material on The Colbert Report, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and at this year’s Grammys ceremony, prompting much speculation among fans over a new album. After the Grammys, Lebron James tweeted at Tiffith, telling him that he “[has] to release those untitled tracks asap!!!,†to which the TDE boss responded, “Give me a few days 2 think.â€
Tiffith did his thinking and then decided to drop, giving us some of the best news of this young 2016. I was pretty bummed when the track Kendrick performed on The Colbert Report wasn’t included on Butterfly (the standalone mastery of that record notwithstanding). It’s quite simply one of the most remarkable, hair-raising hip-hop tracks I’ve ever heard, and it’s about time it got some album love. Thank you Kendrick.
untitled unmastered.:
01 untitled 01 08.19.2014
02 untitled 02 06.23.2014
03Â untitled 03 05.28.2013
04Â untitled 04 08.14.2014
05Â untitled 05 09.21.2014
06Â untitled 06 06.30.2014
07Â untitled 07 2014 – 2016
08Â untitled 08 09.06.2014
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HT: Pitchfork
IMAGES:Â Joerundfp/Instagram/Artist
