
After garnering a couple of week’s worth of anticipation, Kendrick’s album will not be dropping today, to the utter disappointment of fans. Apparently mentioning the release date on wax wasn’t enough to guarantee anything.
Top Dawg Entertainment, Kendrick’s label, is notorious for its terrible release scheduling. Last year, Ab-Soul took to Twitter to call out label head Anthony ‘Top Dawg’ Tiffith for putting him on the backbench and holding back Do What Thou Wilt. Isaiah Rashad’s album, despite being announced after Soulo’s, dropped first, as did projects by newcomers Lance Skiiiwalker and SiR. SZA nearly quit music altogether when TDE refused to help her drop her much-anticipated CNTRL album (which, don’t forget, was supposed to drop on February 3rd of this year; that release date came and went with no acknowledgement from the label).
From ScHoolboy Q snapchats to an interview with Pete Rosenberg, it seemed clear that Kendrick’s much-anticipated followup to To Pimp a Butterfly was dropping on April 7th, but a preorder for the album arrived on iTunes last night with a proposed release date of April 14th.
The appearance of the album preorder did come with some interesting news, however: the list of composers for the album dropped, and it’s exciting. Along with old names like Mike WiLL Made-It, Sounwave, and DJ Dahi, Kendrick will be working with BADBADNOTGOOD, Steve Lacy (of the Internet/one of the year’s best EPs), James Blake, Alchemist, and 9th Wonder. The members of U2 are also all credited on the eleventh track, probably intimating at a heavy sample (hearing K-Dot over “The Streets Have No Name” is an interesting prospect).
While we wait an extra week for the new project, keep the as-yet untitled album’s debut single “HUMBLE.” on repeat.