Everything You Need To Know About Kendrick Lamar's New Album

On Friday, the world will have yet another Kendrick Lamar album. DAMN a brand new full-length material is the follow-up of 2015’s To Pimp A Butterfly.

With two released tracks and a video already out, the world can’t wait to see what Kendrick Lamar is bringing this time. Well, as far as we know there are some dope collaborations, A-list producers, and politics, yes, but in unconventional ways.

Coming back and it’s…DAMN

Though the rapper released an eight-song collection of outtakes, untitled unmastered, last year he’s ready to release a proper follow-up to 2015’s To Pimp A Butterfly with a 14 tracks full-length album.And we knew just how ready he was to do so when he released two brand new tracks recently. The Heart Part 4 and Humble were the proper teasing letting us know what’s about to come on the new album.

The new album DAMN is the first studio album since the 29-year-old MC captured the world attention of the world. Just two days after the project drops, he’ll close Coachella which he’s headlining.

So, Lamar’s been teasing us well. On March 30 he released Humble along with a music video. The song became Lamar’s highest charting single ever and debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100.That was just a sneak pick on what’s to come. SO really, what’s to come? Well, for sure an immaculately produced album.

Lamar counts with producers such as Mike Will Made-It, who produced Beyoncé’s Formation, Rae Sremmurd’s Black Beatles and Lamar’s Humble along with a second track on the album.

Greg Kurstin, who worked with Adele on Hello, worked the beat of Lamar’s track Lust. Also, in is composer J Blake, supposedly James Blake, who previously worked with Frank Ocean and Beyoncé.

DAMN. by Kendrick Lamar. pic.twitter.com/ucQcg0PuzG

— Kendrick Lamar (@kendricklamar) April 11, 2017

Collaborations and surprises

After To Pimp A Butterfly was released, Lamar has not been shy to collab with fellow musicians, in fact, he has by now a long list on collabs including Beyoncé, Maroon 5, Sia and the Weeknd. But only two guest artists figure o DAMN’s tracklist, Rihanna on a track titled Royalty and U2 on the song XXX.

However, we know Lamar values the good old surprise element. And his past productions tell us so, just like on untitled unmastered CeeLo popped up with a cool appearance and the same happened on Butterfly with Pharrell. It’s more likely for DAMN to have surprise guest artists.

Since we’re talking about the surprise element. It’s also probable Lamar is connecting hip-hop with rock, this is kinda backed up by the fact that U2 has a track on the album but also because he was seen hitting the studio with Rubin, a producer popular for mixing this two genres.

This wouldn’t be the first time Lamar expands his musical palette. On Butterfly he incorporated jazz, blues, and R&B. And he did well.

Unconventionally political

Lamar is not really shy about politics. On his previous work, Butterfly, Lamar addressed modern issues, police brutality, and mass incarceration, in fact, his Grammy-winning song Alright became the cry for Black Lives Matter movement.

However, during an interview with The New York Times Style Magazine, he implied that this new album will come from a different head place than Butterfly.

“I think now, with how wayward things have gone within the past few months, my focus is ultimately going back to my community and the other communities around the world where they’re doing the groundwork.To Pimp a Butterfly was addressing the problem. I’m in a space now where I’m not addressing the problem anymore.”

He also talked about his Christian faith and his new music, “We’re in a time where we exclude one major component out of this whole thing called life: God. Nobody speaks on it because it’s almost in conflict with what’s going on in the world when you talk about politics and government and the system.”