(Photo Credit: Sharon Alagna)
A new batch of Kendrick Lamar songs have appeared on Spotify, titled untitled unmastered. The album will be released by Aftermath/Interscope in conjunction with Top Dawg Entertainment. While there has been no official announcement from Lamar, TDE or Insterscope, the Spotify mobile app lists March 4 as the release date for what will be the rapper’s latest musical release.
The announcement does not come as a huge shock to those paying close attention to the hip-hop world, as Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith posted an image on Instagram with a whiteboard schedule that teased releases from Schoolboy Q, SZA, Isaiah Rashad, Soulo and Jay Rock. Of course, Kendrick Lamar’s name was on the board too, with the vague message to “get TOP on the board.” He then took it a step further by explicitly stating that TDE would “surprise release” an album this week.
Shit about to get nasty real soon… I told y’all I got y’all in 2016
An Instagram post from this evening from Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith further confirms the release of Kendrick Lamar’s latest album.
As Lamar has stated in the past, he always has a plethora of unfinished songs that never made it onto his full length studio albums (Section.80, good kid m.A.A.d. city, To Pimp a Butterfly). These songs were left out for one reason or another, whether it be a missed deadline or the inability to get a sample cleared. Judging from the relatively ambiguous titles of the songs on untitled unmastered., these may be some of those songs, mostly cut between 2013-2014 (although there is on track with a 2016 date in the title), the period between good kid m.A.A.d. city and To Pimp a Butterfly. Some such songs have been performed recently when Lamar appeared on Late Night with Colbert, Jimmy Fallon and of course, the Grammys: Kendrick Lamar Debuts New Song in Controversial… by jalled92 And a tweet from Kendrick Lamar himself makes it all official:
untitled unmastered.:
01. untitled 01 08.19.2014
02. untitled 02 06.23.2014
03. untitled 03 05.28.2013
04. untitled 04 08.14.2014
05. untitled 05 09.21.2014
06. untitled 06 06.30.2014
07. untitled 07 2014 – 2016
08. untitled 08 09.06.2014
UPDATE (03/04/2016 – 3:30 PM PST): According to Swizz Beats Twitter page, his 5-year old son Egypt (whose mother is Alicia Keys) produced the final portion of the track “untitled 07 2014 – 2016”. That claim was confirmed by TDE producer Sounwave:
And Swizz Beats posted this video of his son at work in the studio to Instagram:
According to Pitchfork, a representative for Adrian Younge has confirmed that “untitled 06 06.30.2014” was produced by Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad of A Tribe Called Quest.
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