David Bowie And Producer State That Kendrick Lamar Had An Influence On The Sound Of New Album Blackstar

David Bowie’s new album, Blackstar, will be available January 8, Bowie’s 69 birthday next year. The musician and his producer, Tony Visconti, noted that Kendrick Lamar was major influence on the new album. However, the entire album Blackstar needs to be noted as nothing to do with rock and roll music.

“We wound up with nothing like that, but we loved the fact Kendrick was so open-minded and he didn’t do straight-up hip-hop record. He threw everything on there, and that’s exactly what we wanted to do. The goal, in many, many ways, was to avoid rock and roll,” said Visconti to Rolling Stone. Last year,Bowie was reported to walk into a jazz bar at West Village, offering the jazz group a chance to play on Nothing Has Changed. This year, David Bowie contacted the drummer and the saxophonist from the same jazz band that he used for Nothing Has Changed to help him with the album Blackstar. “I tried not to think about it too much. I just wanted to stay in the moment and just do the work [he wanted],” says saxophonist, Donny McCaslin from the jazz band in New York’s West Street. The entire group was offered to come play with Bowie to record Blackstar. Drummer Mark Guiliana said it was something he didn’t expect to hear from Bowie himself, but then Guiliana thought that this was something Bowie was known to do often at times and the entire band began recording Blackstar with Bowie ten months ago this past January.

Kendrick Lamar’s inspiration for Bowie to recruit jazz musicians and shift from his comfortable roll as rock musician is nothing new to anyone who listens to any of Bowie’s works. But Lamar’s influence was most noted when David began to listen to some of Lamar’s works.Visconti noted that there are times where David would go into isolation and then contact him after or near December to work on new album. In this case, David was listening to Lamar’s albums and compositions and then contacted his producer for the making of Blackstar. Kendrick Lamar is rapper and hip-hop artist who is also known for receiving seven Grammy awards for his good Kid, m.A.A.d. City album as well as other works. Kendrick is also performing in some music festivals this year and next year alongside other musicians.

Bowie’s album Blackstar is available next year with jazz and electronic influences by LCD Soundsystem James Murphy and other musicians within those genres.