Kendrick Lamar’s highly anticipated album To Pimp A Butterfly is finally coming out on Mar. 23. In recent months, we’ve heard only heard two songs confirmed on his tracklist, “i” and “The Blacker The Berry.” Tonight, Kendrick’s third single “King Kunta” and the clean version of To Pimp a Butterfly is now available on iTunes.
Three days ago, a snippet of “King Kunta” leaked online. Over the next several days, we got longer snippets until eventually the entire song was available. The track is fierce and politically-charged, referencing Bill Clinton and Richard Pryor, all to show that K. Dot isn’t playing around. There’s some of Kendrick’s trademark boasts, delivered over a funk-informed track with a killer talkbox bassline that leads up to an acoustic guitar solo. He’s also proud of his Compton history, pondering if he should run for mayor one day: “Stuck a flag in my city, everybody screaming Compton/I should probably run for mayor when I’m done to be honest/I put that on my mama and my baby boo too/ Twenty million walkin’ out the court buildin’ woo woo.”
The album dropped as a surprise and while prior reports stated that TDE was behind the release, they took to Twitter to share their displeasure with Interscope for the album coming out a week early.