XXL Names Every Song on Kendrick Lamar’s ‘untitled unmastered.’
Kendrick Lamar dropped project out of the clear blue sky last night (March 3) with his untitled unmastered., shocking the rap world and delighting his fans.
The effort is part of new information Kendrick revealed recently -- he's got a chamber of unreleased music that he only uses for live performances. It includes the song he did on The Colbert Report, the song he did on Jimmy Fallon, and the new material he performed at the Grammys. But now, some songs released in the form of this small project are essentially leftovers. Kendrick himself said, "Demos from To Pimp A Butterfly. In Raw Form."
Each of the eight songs on the project, however, have dates on them. One is from 2013, six are from 2014, and one just says 2014-2016.
While the project was a huge surprise to everybody, Anthony Tiffith, the head of Kendrick's label TDE, let people know earlier this week that he'd be dropping someone's album. Many thought it'd be Isaiah Rashad or Schoolboy Q, but that obviously didn't happen. Perhaps TDE aims to load up behind Kendrick and then come out firing, but only time will tell.
Since we can't stop playing this project, XXL decided to name the songs based on the lyrics in them. Check 'em out below.
- 1
"Running in Place"
Kendrick's got a passionate plea to his fans in the middle of this, and with To Pimp a Butterfly being so tangled up with his own status as a star now, this sounds like he's getting his frustration out. At the beginning he says his mind is "jogging" a couple times and the last line of the song is, "I guess I'm running in place trying to make it to church."
- 2
"Get Top on the Phone"
The TDE dry erase board was low-key one of the best marketing tactics in a long time. Instead of teasing one or two artists, they flaunted the entire label, got the most amount of buzz up, and then dropped a project from their premier artist. In retrospect, the entire board was most likely a sham with the phone joke already there. Hence the title.
- 3
"Withdraw"
Kendrick's songs are often complex webs of narrative, and here he lets off a quick verse that fills in the story he's telling. His constant refrain of "hit the bank and withdraw" sounds like he's exploiting something and points to the message of the song.
- 4
"Head Is the Answer"
Or "Head Is the Future" alternately. Terrace Martin says they made this song around the time of "For Free?" and were "eating heavy ramen, drinking organic vodka and 60-year-old cognac. We were on our low-key, dim candles-type shit."
- 5
"Bitter Flames"
It sounds like this song takes the same drum break that Kanye used on "Whole City Behind Us." The "bitter flames" imagery in the hook captures the sound of this track well.
- 6
"I Can't Explain"
This bossa nova-flavored cut is a nice change of pace for K. Dot, and CeeLo gives the song a nice boost as well as its title here.
- 7
"Levitate"
Kendrick goes the Migos route and hammers out one word to define the name of this song.
- 8
"Blue Faces"
This song was called "Blue Faces" the night it came out. Brilliant song.
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