Kendrick Lamar’s Surprise ‘Untitled Unmastered’ Album

This was posted on Thursday evening on Top Dawg Entertainment CEO Anthony Tiffith‘s Twitter confirming fan speculation of a new Kendrick Lamar album after the appearance of a work called “untitled, unmastered” on Lamar’s Spotify page. Earlier in the week, Tiffith had teased a new Lamar album for 2016 with an Instagram as well.

The album was released Thursday night with eight album tracks listed as untitled with the addition of dates spanning from 2013-2016. He performed one of these tracks during the Grammys, saying that it was one of the tracks that did not make To Pimp a Butterfly.

He said in an interview with Grammy.com that he had a lot of material from the album that he loved and still listened to that didn’t make the album. He also performed untitled tracks on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and The Colbert Report.

Many people attribute the album’s release to NBA MVP LeBron James‘ tweet at Tiffith:

To which Tiffith had responded:

Tiffith told his followers before the album was uploaded to thank LeBron for his inspiration.

Although LeBron himself took to Instagram to show his appreciation of the album:

The album sticks to the futuristic jazz sound of Lamar’s hint album laced with strong characters and a tight narrative of the struggles within race, identity and self-worth.