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Kendrick Lamar announces a new album to be released in early May

Fans are eager are hear a new album from Lamar for the first time since 2017

Kendrick Lamar seen at preforming at the Super Bowl in 2022

Photo: Wally Skaij Los Angeles Times/ Shuttershock

By Spencer Cline, Evan Wyno and Christina Liu


After a five year hiatus, Compton native Kendrick Lamar announced that the sequel to his Pulitzer Prize winning record “DAMN” will be set to release on the 13th of May. Lamar took to social media on Monday morning to respond to a viral tweet suggesting that he was retiring from music. Lamar responded with a link to his website “oklama.com” which contained a memo. In that memo, was the announcement and name of the new album, “Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers”.

Lamar’s big news comes after previous entanglements with his record label, Top Dawg Entertainment. Earlier last year, Lamar announced that this will be his last album under the label, as he wishes to expand his musical works beyond its borders. Since his last release, Lamar has opened a new multi-disiplinary media company called “pgLang” alongside musical curator Dave Free, which is speculated to be the medium in which Lamar’s latter works in and outside of music are curated and released.

Ironically enough, the last we heard from Kendrick was on “DAMN”'s final song “DUCKWORTH”, tells a true story about how Kendrick’s father and the founder of Top Dawg Entertainment met, which eventually lead to the conception of Kendrick Lamar, thee artist.

The USC community reacts to the news of Lamar’s announcement.

Speaker 1: It’s been five years, which is I’ve been robbed of good music and I’m just kidding. But I’m just I’m super excited and I actually saw him live in November. It was such a spiritual experience. No, I’m just excited. I love him.

Others show anticipation for a more collaborative project featuring Baby Keem, Lamar’s cousin who rose to the spotlight since his last release. Keem recently recieved his first a Grammy for best Rap Collaboration at the Grammy’s earlier this month.

Speaker 2: I am a Kendrick fan like that. I’ve seen the website, the PJ Lang announcement. I’m very excited. I’m personally a very big Baby Keem fan, so I’m hoping there’s some of the Baby Keem features on the album. But I’m also a huge kind of fan, and I saw the website as soon as he tweeted it out.

For Annenberg Media, I’m Spencer Cline