RELATED: Stream Kendrick Lamar’s untitled unmastered. Album
We got half of a day to process the news that Kendrick Lamar would be dropping a surprise project, even though Top Dawg hinted at something coming as soon as Friday. The result happens to be untitled unmastered., which everyone has been trying to listen to since it was released last night.
Considering we got very little information on it to begin with (even down to the track titles), we started looking for clues about the effort last night when we were listening. From various tweets and people throwing out vague confirmations, we started piecing some of the collaborators on K Dot’s album. There were definitely some usual suspects on there, but others were a surprise.
For example, Swizz Beatz 5-year old son Egypt Dean is on the second part of “untitled 7,” not the hard ass beat that Cardo, Frank Dukes and Yung Exclusive set the track off with.
Details like the dates on the tracks (we’re guessing that’s when the songs were first recorded) have not yet been confirmed, but the timeline all happens after good kid m.A.A.d city. As we can see, a bulk of dates are after the debut was released on October 12, 2012, plus they’re being promoted as To Pimp A Butterfly demos, before the sophomore effort impacted on March 15, 2015.
There’s a good possibility some of these laid down in the booth for the sophomore album but ultimately didn’t fit the theme (or cleared samples), so were left off the final cut.
Also, where is the song from the beginning of the “Alright” video? (Sounwave says it might still come out at some point, maybe on his project).
Check out some of the credits from the album thus far, which boasts features from the likes of Jay Rock, Hit-Boy, DJ Spinz, Anna Wise, Thundercat, Punch, Cardo, Terrace Martin, DJ Khalil, Cee-Lo Green, SZA, Sounwave, Adrian Younge, Frank Dukes and more.
Untitled 01
Date: August 19, 2014
Features Anna Wise
Produced by Ritz Reynolds
Untitled 02
Date: June 23, 2014
Produced by Cardo, Yung Exclusive, Thundercat and Terrace Martin
Untitled 03
Date: May 28, 2013
Features Anna Wise, Terrace Martin, Thundercat
Produced by Astronote
Was performed on the final episode of The Colbert Report on December 16, 2014. Apparently, Terrace Martin said it was brought to the show the day before because Kendrick Lamar did not want to perform “i,” but if you look at the date, it is the oldest track out of the batch on the album.
Untitled 04
Date: August 14, 2014
Features SZA & Thundercat
Produced by Nard & B
The reference for this track appears on Part III of “untitled 7,” with Kendrick Lamar freestyling a verse as a guitar plays, using lines that ended on the album version.
Untitled 05
Date: September 21, 2014
Features Anna Wise, Jay Rock and Punch
Produced by Terrace Martin, Sounwave, Thundercat and Nard & B
You can hear parts of the first verse from this track at the end of Kendrick Lamar’s outstanding 2016 GRAMMY performance, which aired February 15, 2016.
Untitled 06
Date: June 30, 2014
Features Cee-Lo Green
Produced by Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad
Untitled 07
Date: 2014-2016
Part 1 produced by Cardo, Frank Dukes and Yung Exclusive
Part 2 produced by Swizz Beatz and Egypt Dean
Part 3 guitar by Thundercat
In an interview with Complex, Sounwave revealed that Swizz Beatz sent Kendrick Lamar all the footage from his son producing and K Dot was floored. So he wrote to it. Whether or not he’s sending Jay Electronica a subliminal is still up for interpretation.
Part III is a glimpse of the jam sessions that Kendrick would have with Thundercat that would be the skeleton of certain songs for To Pimp A Butterfly.
Untitled 08
Date: September 6th, 2014
Features Thundercat
Produced by DJ Khalil
Originally performed as “Untitled 2” or “Blue Faces” on The Tonight Show on January 7, 2016. Thundercat said in a recent interview with Billboard, he wrote the song.