On Thursday, rapper Kendrick Lamar released “Untitled Unmastered,” a collection of eight demo tracks created during the recording of “To Pimp a Butterfly” unpublished until now.
“I got a chamber of material from the album that I was in love [with] where sample clearances or something as simple as a deadline kept it off the album,” Lamar said about the previously unreleased content.
Like everything else Lamar has delivered in the last few years, “Untitled Unmastered” overflows with brilliance. The album twists from brooding hip-hop to jazz to funk and back again. Lamar’s ability to present a variety of sounds and styles sets him apart. Within the course of one verse he can trapeze between personalities, varying his inflection just as the beat behind him varies.
“Untitled 1” sounds like it could have come off of 2011’s “Section.80,” while “Untitled 5” has a melodic bass line straight out of motown. Cee-Lo Green’s introduction in “Untitled 6” brings shades of Earth, Wind & Fire to the table. The result is depth and vibrance unique in modern hip-hop.
Lamar also varies his subject matter throughout the record. His two most recent albums have oozed with social and political commentary, and “Untitled Unmastered” is no different. “Seen ‘em black turn ‘em burgundy,” he intones, alluding to the violence of the ghetto where he was raised. He compares his own frustrating relationship with white record executives to the struggle for recognition felt by black people all over the country — “I shall enjoy the fruits of my labor if I get freed today,” he declares. But he also hits lighter notes, rapping about love and religion as well.
Lamar steers clear of provocation for provocation’s sake. Nothing on this album comes close to Kanye West’s infamous “And I get bleach on my t-shirt” stanza from his most recent record. Lamar’s lyrics are characteristically intellectual, and that trend continues with this release.
The new project was put out with notably minimal fanfare — a stark contrast, intentional or not, to fellow rap titan Kanye West’s sprawling, disjointed album rollout last month. Lamar remains in it for the music, not the pageantry, and he resists the temptation to turn the album into a vanity project.
With raw content such as this, it would have been easy — expected even — to weave uninteresting studio conversation in-between each song, but Lamar does almost none of this. The most unrefined the album gets is in the second half of “Untitled 7,” when the music devolves to nothing more than Lamar mumble-singing over a twanging guitar. Even then, the album quickly springs back to life in “Untitled 8,” perhaps the most complete song of the bunch.
Even though the album appears to be unrefined, does not mean it lacks coherence. Although wildly varying in style, a common thread runs though “Untitled Unmastered” — it’s Lamar, and it is simply masterful.
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