Kendrick Lamar made history in 2018. His triumphs, from becoming the first rapper to win a Pulitzer Prize in music, to grabbing seven Grammy nominations for his No. 1 curated project Black Panther: The Album, were nothing short of monumental.
As the year comes to a close, things with Kung Fu Kenny have been relatively quiet, leaving fans to wonder what else the Compton rapper has up his sleeve. According to a new profile in the Los Angeles Times, that something is not much. He told the newspaper he’s been writing long-form, but isn’t working on a new album.
Here’s the excerpt:
He’s friendly but cryptic, inclined toward vague generalities open to interpretation. He’s been writing long-form, but declines to articulate what it’s about, what themes are recurring and in what form it will eventually see release. He claims he hasn’t been working on a new album, but says that he’s constantly working. Someone in his camp mentions they’re going to the studio immediately after this.
Top Dawg Entertainment CEO Anthony "Top Dawg" Tiffith told fans not to expect a new album back in September. "ATT: KDOT DON'T HAVE A NEW ALBUM COMING NO TIME SOON," he wrote in all-caps on his Instagram story. "So keep playing DAMN until the kid is inspired again."
Instead of talking about new work, Lamar spends most of the interview discussing the Black Panther album, and his collaboration with Ryan Coogler. The interview feels like a push for the Golden Globes, where Kendrick is nominated for best original song in a motion picture for his SZA collab “All the Stars.”
Even if Kendrick isn’t putting out a new album anytime soon, he’s kept a steady flowof collaborations coming, and will hopefully perform at one of the many upcoming award shows.
“I don’t know what I’ll say if I win,” Lamar told the Times. “A lot of different emotions will be running through me, and I usually just say what I’m inspired to say at that moment...what comes off the chest. It’s just a great thing to know that these bodies of work come from a simple thought and you put that simple thought down on wax, and then you give it to the people and it goes from there.”
