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Everything We Know About Kendrick Lamar’s New Album

Rumored release date, collaborations and the new album's potential sound

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Published Oct 21, 2021

Since he first put his stamp on Hip-Hop in a big way with his 2011 independent album Section.80, you could make the argument that Kendrick has never dropped anything less than a classic album. To add to his status as an icon, between albums, he often disappears for years at a time, not even seen occasionally courtside at a basketball game or driving down the street.

If you thought the two and a half year wait for To Pimp A Butterfly after good kid, m.A.A.d city was something, Kendrick has really been testing your patience, because since DAMN. dropped, it’s been four and a half years. In the time since we got the Black Panther soundtrack and a handful of features. But as of late, there’s reason to believe that Kendrick Lamar’s new album could be out very, very soon.

His Final Album With TDE

On a Friday afternoon in August, Kendrick took to Twitter for the first time since around the time that the pandemic started to tweet out a link to a site called oklama.com and a picture of a folder titled “nu thoughts”.

When fans clicked, they found a short letter that Kendrick had penned to them, updating them on the way his life was going. He talked about writing and listening a lot, going months without a phone and reflecting on what matters the most. While that could point to some potential themes on the album, the main piece of news that fans took away was that he announced that his next album will be his final one with Top Dawg Entertainment.

The news was a big surprise because as he noted in the letter, he has been part of TDE for 17 years and as long as any of his fan base has known of him. As far as we know, the split between him and the label is amicable, but that doesn’t take away from some of the mystery of it. Although, we do know what a part of the reason could be.

pgLang

In March of 2020, Kendrick Lamar made the announcement that something called pgLang was here. Back then, fans thought it was the name of his new album or a label he would sign artists to. It turns out it’s somewhat close to the latter, but it’s also far more than that. It’s a multi-media company that serves not just as a music label, but a production house and publishing company.

The only artist who’s come out with a musical release since then is Baby Keem, who released the melodic blueunder pgLang, but multiple artists like Jorja Smith and Brent Faiyaz have been associated with it in one form or another.

Whenever Kendrick’s album does drop, perhaps it’ll drop not just on TDE, but pgLang too. If not, it’s a safe bet that any of his subsequent releases could come as pgLang releases.

What will Kendrick's new album sound like?

Nearly two years ago now in January of 2020, former Billboard Editorial Director Bill Werde tweeted that he was hearing from friends that recording on the album may be done and that Kendrick was “pulling in more Rock sounds this time”. When it comes to Kendrick, that could mean anything from a little more percussion or guitar to all out Rock moments, but either way it was intriguing. He also made a point of saying that albums are assumed to be finished a lot despite getting worked on further and of course, it seems that that was the case.

Another way that the sound of the album could be going is something similar to what Baby Keem has been doing, in terms of production and/or delivery. The cousins have definitely been spending a lot of time together in the studio, to the point where fans believed a joint album was coming from a while, so it will be interesting to see how Keem has influenced Kendrick.

Who is rumored to appear on Kendrick's next album?

Earlier this week, 6 new Kendrick Lamar snippets surfaced and while 3 of them were solo, the other 3 had other people credited on them. One of them, to nobody’s surprise, was Baby Keem. Kendrick appeared on the melodic blue not once, not twice, but three times in total, so seeing the new snippet leak didn’t come as a shock to anyone.

The other two people on a couple of the other snippets were Taylor Paige and Eckhart Tolle, a actress and author, respectively.

In an interview that he did last year, Thundercat revealed that he worked on Kendrick’s new album, although “not as much” as he did on To Pimp A Butterfly.

With the news of Kendrick performing at the Super Bowl LVI halftime show with Dr. Dre, Eminem, Snoop Dogg and Mary J. Blige, it’s not unlikely that at least one or two of them will appear on the new LP. The same goes for Kendrick’s current labelmates like ScHoolboy Q, Jay Rock, Ab-Soul and SZA.

When will Kendrick's new album drop?

Shortly after he put out his “nu thoughts”, Kendrick appeared on Baby Keem’s ‘family ties’, with a verse that shook up the game and had everybody paying attention all at once. On it, he raps “2021 I ain’t taking no prisoner”. To some, that confirmed that he was looking to release his new album before the year’s end. That would give him somewhat of a small window, considering he’d likely not want to release anywhere near Adele or Ed Sheeran, that gives him an even smaller window.

Interestingly, at the same time that the aforementioned 6 snippets surfaced online, people were murmuring that he could be coming out with the album as soon as this Friday. That’s because some trusted sources have said that it could be in the plans and this week’s New Music Friday falls on October 22^nd, which Kendrick fans know as the day that good kid, m.A.A.d city dropped in 2012. He could be plotting on dropping it on the anniversary.

To make things even more suspicious, in the midst of all of this chaos, Kendrick’s profile picture on Spotify changed to a never-before-seen picture of him. It marked the first time that it changed since 2017.

Even if the album doesn’t drop on Friday, Kendrick is set to headline at Day N Vegas in just three weeks’ time and although the flyer specified that he would perform music released from Section. 80 to DAMN., plans always change. As we mentioned earlier, it might also be a good idea for Kendrick to put out something new before he performs at the Super Bowl halftime show in February of 2022.

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