Kendrick Lamar Gives Insight on His Fourth Studio Album

Kendrick Lamar's critically acclaimed third album To Pimp a Butterfly was catapulted to classic status soon after its release in March 2015. Since then, fans have been searching for any signs of what his follow up album might be like. But as we've all grown to know how TDE operates, there hasn't been much progress made in that search. Luckily for us, Kendrick is a cover star of T Magazine's latest issue along with Beck and Tom Waits. During his interview for the cover story. he gave a bit of insight on what his next album may cover.

In the conversation, when responding to what's been on his mind, Kendrick replied, "Been thinking about my little brothers. One little brother, he bigger than me, he's 22. Another brother, he just turned 11. Family." He continued, "I think now, how wayward things have gone within the past few months, my focus is ultimately going back to my community and the other communities around the world where they're doing the groundwork. 'To Pimp a Butterfly' was addressing the problem. I'm in a space now where I'm not addressing the problem anymore," he said. "We're in a time where we exclude one major component out of this whole thing called life: God. Nobody speaks on it because it's almost in conflict with what's going on in the world when you talk about politics and government and the system."

Kendrick also mentioned that the album is "very urgent" and proceeded to asking the interviewer if he had any children, to which he answered he had a daughter. In response, Kendrick said, "This is what goes on in my mind as a writer. One day, I may have a little girl. And it's a girl in particular—funny you said that. She's gonna grow up. She's gonna be a child I adore, I'm gonna always love her, but she's gonna reach that one point where she's gonna start experiencing things. And she's gonna say things or do things that you may not condone, but it's the reality of it and you know she was always gonna get to that place. And it's disturbing. But you have to accept it. You have to accept it and you have to have your own solutions to figure out how to handle the action and take action for it."

He continued: "When I say 'the little girl,' it's the analogy of accepting the moment when she grows up. We love women, we enjoy their company. At one point in time I may have a little girl who grows up and tells me about her engagements with a male figure—things that most men don't want to hear. Learning to accept it, and not run away from it, that's how I want this album to feel."

Unfortunately, the writer wasn't given the opportunity to actually hear any of the new material. Read the full interview here.

Photo: Screengrab of previous interview via YouTube

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