Kanye might be teasing fans with releasing another new album this summer, but it looks like Kendrick Lamar has beat him to the punch: Lamar dropped untitled unmastered., a brand new album, late last night.
You can listen to the album on Spotify, iTunes, and Apple (AAPL) Music (yes, that’s still around). Here’s the enigmatic artwork:
Of course this isn’t entirely a surprise. We first heard rumors of new material after Kdot’s show-stealing Grammy performance when noted hip-hop investigative journalist LeBron James tweeted at Lamar to get off his lazy ass and release some decent new music already. Lamar’s also been performing unreleased songs for a couple of his late-night TV appearances on shows like The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
Beginning with a blossoming flourish of that same back-room jazz-influenced hip-hop that made To Pimp A Butterfly such an undeniable success, gurgles of late-night psychedelic synths and lip-smacking smooth talking climax as Lamar launches into verses about “Atheists for suicide/ planes falling out the sky/ trains jumpin off the track/ mothers yelling he’s a lie.”
So yes, to answer your question: it takes about 30 seconds before it’s totally clear this yet another untouchable, distinctive performance from the man who released one of the best hip-hop records of the last decade almost exactly one year ago.
With woozy George Clinton horn samples and sweating swagger, untitled‘s uniform ambient psych-jazz aesthetic so strongly recalls the funky brilliance of TPAB it wouldn’t be surprising to learn these songs were plucked from the same sessions (he even name-drops TPAB tracks “Mortal Man” and “King Kunta” at the end of “untitled 02 06.23.2014”).
Here’s your soundtrack for 2016. Now quit reading and bask in magic.
Here’s the full track listing:
01. untitled 01 08.19.2014
02. untitled 02 06.23.2014
03. untitled 03 05.28.2013 (feat. Terrace Martin, Bilal, Thundercat, and Anna Wise)
04. untitled 04 08.14.2014 (feat. SZA)
05. untitled 05 09.21.2014 (feat. Jay Rock, Punch, and Anna Wise)
06. untitled 06 06.30.2014 (feat. Cee-Lo Green)
07. untitled 07 2014 – 2016
08. untitled 08 09.06.2014
