Andres Tardio writing for Billboard pulled this from TDE’s Punch, “As far as Untitled, Me and Kendrick always talked about doing a sort of Black Album, like how Prince did back in the day,” said the TDE exec. The name has meaning too, beyond the stylized lowercase lettering a la e.e.
And the Internet’s verdict was uproarious and immediate. After Lamar performed snippets of the songs at the Grammy Awards (part of “untitled 05 | ”) James immediately tweeted Top Dawg CEO Anthony Tiffith to beg for a project releasing “those untitled tracks.” An Instagram followed after, with Kendrick’s name scribbled in red sharpie next to “Get Top on the phone.” Then Spotify upped the ante, as a grayed out version of the project mysteriously appeared on the Swedish streaming service well before its scheduled arrival.
These skeletons of songs left off of To Pimp a Butterfly came at the behest of, surprisingly, LeBron James. But it’s the word wonder that defines Kendrick right now. That we, the very salt of this earth, will not have to wander forever. He would tell you South Africa provided the tabula rasa, blanking his slate of preconceived notions of blackness and newness. That the murder of collaborators, producers, and singers add even more nuance than his multiplicative lyrics, each one layering humanity into a binder already bursting at the seams. That jazzman Kamasi Washington and alt-bluesman Thundercat hollowed out the bow of his ship laced with acid jazz and masterful bass as Kendrick decorated with heapings of rhymes and flows. That Terrace Martin helped create the soundscape along with Sounwave, Taz Arnold, Flying Lotus, Cardo, Yung Exclusive, Swizz Beatz and so many more. His lane, his sound, is a roaring train with only he and his team as passengers.Īnd that’s what he would tell you. There is now a cavern between what Kendrick does and what everyone else does. “Get God on the phone!” It almost feels like Dot is playfully talking to himself, transformed as he has into rap’s modern prophet, his prime stretching out over music, threatening to drown other artists plying their trade on the radio, in strip clubs, on SoundCloud, in your headphones. “Pimp Pimp, Hooray!” Boozy and quivering, “untitled 02 | ” comes headlong into life on Kendrick’s eight-track bundle of songs lovingly titled untitled unmastered.
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