After Kendrick Lamar's stunning Grammy performance, Lebron James tweeted at Top Dawg Entertainment CEO Punch telling him that he should release those untitled cuts. Lebron was onto something...
When TDE posted a photo of their upcoming release board, it went viral. Music from ScHoolboy Q, SZA, Kendrick Lamar, and more are all on the horizen; lucky us. Anthony "Top Dawg" Tiffith thickened the plot when he said that he'd drop an album from one of those artists this week. The rumor mill started churning, but very few people thought that the top dog himself, Mr. Kendrick Lamar, would be the subject of this release.
Last night, the album untitled unmastered. appeared on Spotify. The blogosphere went crazy at the idea of hip hop's most valuable player dropping a surprise album. Sure enough, it was all so real. The eight-song, thirty-four minute record contains songs previously performed live on television, and a handful more loose joints to boot. After a few listens, we've decided to compile our thoughts for ya'll to discuss.
Stylistically, it's similar to "To Pimp a Butterfly."
If you're going into untitled unmastered. hoping for a slew of trap bangers a la m.A.A.d city, you are going to be disappointed. Stylistically speaking, this is along the same lines as To Pimp a Butterfly. It could almost pass as a modern jazz record, with Terrace Martin's signature saxophone sound, Thundercat's bass and live drums that can be heard around the collection of songs.
The tracks stick mostly to socio-political topics, the same kind of stuff that made To Pimp a Butterfly so highly acclaimed. On "Untitled 3," which was previously heard on The Colbert Report, he touches on multiple races in a way that turns the mirror back on them.
"What the white man say?
A piece of mines
That's what the white man wanted when I rhyme
Telling me that he selling me just for $10.99
If I go platinum from rapping, I do the company fine"
There are little interlude-esque parts peppered throughout the album, much like TPAB. However, unlike its predecessor, it isn't as tightly polished, but you could probably tell that from the titles and album roll out, at any rate.
"untitled unmastered." proves Kendrick's best days are not yet behind him.
After the back-to-back-to-back releases of Section.80, good kid m.A.A.d city, and To Pimp a Butterfly, certain skeptics didn't know whether or not Kendrick had his best days behind him-- of course he avoided the sophomore curse, but it's always a battle from there to stay relevant, stay consistent, basically, stay dope. The enjoyment of his music is subjective, but the vastly experimental nature of Kendrick's music seems to be yielding better and better music as the time goes on. With untitled unmastered., he enlisted frequent collaborators like Terrace Martin and Thundercat along with lesser-utilized producers like Hit-Boy and Cardo.
The marriage of these artists is unlike anything we've ever heard before. You have rich hip hop sounds, as present in "Untitled 2," along with the type of basslines that would have Dr. Dre envious (if the album weren't out on Aftermath). Terrace Martin's saxophone adds a layer of soul that cannot be matched with Ableton or Pro Tools, and the same can be said for Anna Wise's sultry vocals. This stuff isn't over-produced, and the soul comes across stronger like that.
Lyrically speaking, Kendrick has bars for days.
It's one thing to rap about how rich you are, how high you get, or how many ladies are slippin' into your DM, but it takes another type of artist to continuously rap about real problems and real life. Kendrick Lamar is the modern-day Tupac Shakur: a west coast rapper who's words can spark political protest. Despite how dark the world seems to be in 2016, with war, police brutality, inequality all on the screen of every news channel, Kendrick keeps a relatively uplifting tone about it all. It was evident in his 2015 smash hit "Alright," and it's also apparent here with cuts like "Untitled 8," which was first heard on The Tonights Show Starring Jimmy Fallon:
"Why you hate to work for it?
The reason I never went to work for it
See a nine to five was so jive turkey
But when Thanksgiving came that check didn’t hurt me"
Kendrick is also razor-sharp on "Untitled 7," which is an entirely unheard song, apparently recorded over the past few years. At eight minutes long, it's the longest track on the album. Musically, it begins with a stand-out rap beat, not wispy jazz drums, and was the product of a super-collective of producedrs: Frank Dukes, Cardo, Yung Exclusive, Swizz Beatz & Egypt Dean, the latter of which is Swizz Beatz five year-old song. (He probably sang the interlude, "Compton is where I'm from, is where I'm from, is where I'm from."
"Hope it's evident that I inspired a thousand emcees to do better
I blew cheddar on youth centers, buildings and Bimmers and blue leather
Forcasted my future, this is the future
The mastermind until my next album, more power to you"
His supporting cast is on 100.
If To Pimp a Butterfly taught us anything about the creative process in hip hop, it's that jam sessions and a band-like mentality can produce some epic music. Rap is typically created with MPCs, where a single man makes a beat and gives it to a single rapper for him to rap over. In some circumstances, the producer and MC don't even meet during the recording of a track.
But Kendrick's TPAB sessions were legendary. Terrace Martin, Bilal, Anna Wise, Thundercat, Kamasi Washington, and more were involved in what has been described as jams that turned out many of the tracks on the LP. untitled unmastered. follows the same structure, with lots of hands on deck to create songs that live and breathe like a live band created them.
Old friends like Terrace, Bilal, Anna Wise, Thundercat, and Jay Rock all contributed in some way. Punch even hopped on "Untitled 5" for a rare, but really dope, verse. SZA got on a track, reppin' that good soul music for TDE. Less frequently seen on Kendrick's albums are Cardo, DJ Khalil, Adrian Younge, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, DJ Spinz, Hit-Boy and one Mr. Cee-Lo Green. Green adds his unmistakable voice to "Untitled 6," crushing it with a verse of his own:
"I reside
I want God
Both sides of me are evenly odd
It's attractive
You're intrigued
Am I mortal man or make believe?"
The tracks don't all seem to be finished.
Like Kanye West's The Life of Pablo, untitled unmastered. seems to boast songs that were never fully finished for human consumption. "Untitled 3" doesn't have the final verse that we saw on The Colbert Report, where Kendrick ends things by screaming triumphantly "Tell 'em we don't die, tell 'em we don't die, tell 'em we don't die, we multiply!" Similarly, "Untitled 5," heard at the Grammys recently, doesn't have the rhyme about Trayvon Martin that it did in the award show broadcast.
This concept of an unfinished album being released for consumption is new, and pretty interesting to think about. The world moves at lightning speed in 2016, and perhaps over-thinking each nook and cranny of production isn't always necessary. The Life of Pablo seems to resonate pretty well with Kanye fans, and its release has apparently opened the door for another album due this summer, posing the question: should releases be about absolutely polished material, or should artists work harder to put out a lot of music?