From Radiohead to Beyoncé to D'Angelo to Björk, we are truly in the era of the surprise album release, and yesterday (Jan. 21), it was revealed that Kendrick Lamar might be joining this very prestigious list. According to a leaked photograph posted by Section Eighty, Kendrick Lamar's long-awaited follow-up to his 2012 breakthrough good kid, m.A.A.d city is set to drop this Tuesday, Jan. 27. The photo shows a list of albums scheduled to be released by Wal-Mart this month, which at the very bottom reads "Kendrick Lamar Jan. 27."
As exciting as this news may be, make sure to take it with a grain of salt. Section Eighty doesn't specify where these photographs came from, and as Stereogum points out, surprise releases such as this tend to start off as digital releases before their physical copies hit stores, and to be perfectly honest, Kendrick Lamar doesn't seem like the type of artist to release his album exclusively through Wal-Mart. However, Lamar is performing at some big festivals this year, including Bonnaroo, so perhaps he does have something unexpected like this planned.
Whenever this album does actually drop (it hasn't even been given a title or album cover yet), it will be Lamar's third studio album overall (second on Interscope/Aftermath), following his 2011 debut Section.80 and his classic 2012 breakthrough good kid, m.A.A.d city. Only one single, "i," has been released from the album so far, and though Lamar performed an untitled new song on The Colbert Report back in December, he admitted to Billboard that it would likely not be included on the album.
Kendrick Lamar's "i" was chosen by the Music Times staff as one of the 25 best songs of 2014. You can check out that complete list right here.
You can check out the music video for "i" right here:
Do you think Kendrick Lamar's new album is actually coming out this Tuesday? Let us know what you think down in the comments section below!
