Kendrick made a few TV appearances before and after the release of To Pimp a Butterly, and the then-unreleased tracks he chose to perform caused quite a stir: “Untitled 03” on Colbert, “untitled 08” and a snippet of “untitled 02” on Fallon, and another song - “untitled 05” that followed “The Black the Berry” and “Alright” during his Grammy performance. Everyone, including Lebron, wanted more, and although it’s unclear whether King James’ tweet to TDE and K.Dot played a part, the world got Untitled Unmastered on March 4th (even Thundercat, who’s on 6 of the tracks, was surprised about the drop). Raw, intimate, and authentic, the avant-garde-free-jazz-soul-funk that defines …Butterly is all there, as is, needless to say, the socially charged, god-level bars from Kendrick Lamar. To make clear, this is NOT a throwaway album. The Compton rapper says: “I got a chamber of material from the album that I was in love [with] where sample clearances or something as simple as a deadline kept it off the album.” Pimp, pimp… hooray.

• black vinyl pressing
• music label: Top Dawg Entertainment 2016

reviewed by the_lighted 04/2016