This Thursday, Kendrick Lamar unexpectedly released an album titled “Untitled Unmastered”. The album consists of several unreleased tracks that was recorded prior to “To Pimp a Butterfly’s” release. Each track is untitled and contains the date of recording. I appreciated Kendrick’s attention to detail because placing the dates as track names was a great way to understand Kendrick’s mind while recording “To Pimp a Butterfly”

 

Not going to lie, when I first saw Kendrick post a link to some new music my initial reaction was awe, simply because I assumed that it was more tracks with Kendrick and J. Cole working together. I noticed that it was an entirely new project my disappointment subsided slightly. Realizing it was demo tracks that he used as references to “To Pimp a Butterfly”, my enthusiasm spiked right back up.

 

As far as replay value, I don’t think that’s what Kendrick was focusing on with this project. It could’ve simply been an experience to what it took to create TPAB. With that being said, I have to eat my words with the track “Untitled 07 2014-2016” which is my favorite song on the album. The 8-minute song seems to weave 3 tracks that were recorded in 2014, 2015, 2016.  I really appreciated the song because it allowed me to take a glance at Kendrick’s development to the artist that he is now.

 

No CD yet, it’ll be available for purchase soon.

 

With that being said, unlike most top rated artists nowadays it isn’t super exclusive to listen to this project. “Untitled Unmastered” is available on most media platforms, this includes Spotify. I always suggest supporting artists by purchasing their projects, but it isn’t imperative for you to buy this project. To be completely honest, I purchased on iTunes to support Kendrick and I plan on buying the physical copy upon release date for collector’s purposes.

 

As a final verdict, “Untitled Unmastered” was an amazingly crafted album. Every track is quality but, like advertised I can definitely tell that these are demo tracks. With that being said, what separates Kendrick’s demo versus other artists’ demos is the fact that you can weave together the sound and message of the album to Kendrick’s previous album. Also, placing dates as the title for tracks made me feel appreciated as a listener of the album because it leaves room for me to assume that Kendrick wanted us to know how long and hard he has been working on “To Pimp a Butterfly”.