Anxious to get another Kendrick Lamar fix? You’re in luck, as the head of Kendrick’s record label says that the follow up to Good Kid, m.A.A.d. city will drop by September of this year and that the Compton-born rap star will team up other Top Dawg labelmates to finally push out the debut album from their group, Black Hippy. It’s a happy time to be a hip-hop head.
News of Kendrick’s third full-length studio album leaked over the past week with initial hints from Billboard at the end of February and then an apparent confirmation from Anthony Tiffith, CEO of Kendrick’s label, Top Dawg Entertainment. Fans of the rapper can likely expect new work to show up by September, the Top Dawg head said. Tiffith revealed that TDE is slated to drop albums by not just Kendrick Lamar, but also Jay Rock, Ab-Soul, and a New Jersey-based female singer-songwriter called SZA.
As to the nature of Kendrick’s next release, the “Swimming Pools” performer said last month that it would likely be a bit darker, telling i-D Magazine that it was inspired in part by the weather in London.
“Y’all’s weather’s a bit gloomy right now,” Lamar said, “I like gloomy weather, I work best and do most of my album under gloomy weather, so you’ll hear a lot of dark tracks in there.”
Lamar’s last album, Good Kid, m.A.A.d. city , hit certified platinum status last year, driven in part by the ironic success of “Swimming Pools,” which saw heavy rotation in bars and clubs… even though Kendrick was rapping about people unwisely binge drinking in bars and clubs. Since then, Kendrick’s star has never been brighter. He captured the hip-hop world’s attention with a breakout verse on Big Sean’s “Control” in mid-2013 and Lamar has stayed in the spotlight since. More recently, Kendrick stole the show at the Grammys with an energetic performance alongside Imagine Dragons and followed that up with an equally celebrated show during the NBA’s All-Star Weekend.
Kendrick is drawing attention to his labelmates as well, with ScHoolboy Q catching some shine for his own release, Oxymoron , thanks in part to Lamar’s success. ScHoolboy’s album currently sits in the twelfth spot on Apple’s iTunes album charts, and an assist from Lamar on the track “Collard Greens” certainly didn’t hurt.
Other fun news out of Top Dawg includes the label’s tentative plans to release a full-length album from Black Hippy this year as well. Black Hippy, for the uninitiated, is a group consisting of Kendrick, Ab-Soul, Jay Rock, and ScHoolboy. They have yet to release a full album, but assorted tracks by the collective have captured the imagination of many hip-hop fans, with Tech N9ne going so far as to compare Kendrick and crew to seminal rap group N.W.A. (That’s “[N-words] With Attitude,” for those born in the Clinton era.)
How exactly Kendrick will manage a full-length release of his own alongside a Black Hippy release remains to be seen, but Lamar will likely take the “hardest working man in hip-hop” title if he pulls it off. In the mean time, you can hip yourself to some Black Hippy so you can act like you’ve been all about them for some time.