For the first time in his career, Kendrick Lamar has covered Rolling Stone, and it could not have come at a more opportune time. With his album, To Pimp A Butterfly hitting shelves in just under two weeks, he met up with the magazine to discuss his new album and the direction he took with it.
Still coy about revealing too many details, Kendrick does talk about how personal the album is. He describes the album as "honest, fearful and unapologetic." This comes from his rapid rise to prominence and his long-term struggle with depression, self-doubt and rough adolescence on the streets on Compton. His music has been his outlet through all of the changes in his life ever since 2012's good kid m.A.A.d. city.
"You take a black kid out of Compton and put him in the limelight, and you find answers about yourself you never knew you were searching for," he said. "There's some stuff in there, man. It's a roller coaster. It builds."
The meaning of the album title To Pimp Of A Butterfly is something "that will be taught in college courses someday," maybe side-by-side to a Kanye West course.
According to the cover story, Lamar incorporates elements of funk, spoken-word poetry and free-jazz. One of the TDE producers, Sounwave, spoke on the album saying "It's a unique sound," while K.Dot's longtime engineer Derek "MixedByAli" Ali gave some insight into process of how the beats were made on the album.
"He would say, 'I want it to sound eerie,' or 'I want it to sound like you're driving past something.' Or he talks in colors: 'Make it sound purple. Make it sound light green,'" described Ali.
To Pimp A Butterfly is slated for release on March 23. Check out the lead single "The Blacker The Berry" below.
