Top Dawg Entertainment had a strong year in 2015, releasing two fantastic albums in Jay Rock’s 90059 and Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly. Don’t ever think that they’ll take a minute to rest on their laurel’s though.
In an interview with MTV, TDE President Dave Free wants the world to know that they’ve “got a lot more music coming,” also adding “it’s gonna be crazy.” How much new music? Glad you asked.
The TDE head honcho goes on to name SZA, Isaiah Rashad, Ab-Soul, and Schoolboy Q as artists who have an album lined up in 2016. He also says listeners should expect growth in the music each artist makes, as each artist pushes “each other to get to the next level.” With the growth Kendrick made this year, it will be hard for other artists to compete.
The Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole collaboration that always seems to be just out of reach came up in the interview as well. While Free doesn’t give as positive a confirmation about the joint album as the other artists, he takes the time to remind fans, “These are two creative guys. It takes a long time for one of them to get in a space to create a song, so to get two of them in a space to do that, it takes a lot of time and energy. It all has to be a singular project, but it just can’t happen overnight.” Guess we’ll have to be happy with what we’ve got, which thankfully is quite a bit.
TDE has had a level of success unprecedented in a label since the early days of Death Row Records. And they got there through Hard Work.