Kendrick Lamar’s first album in five years didn’t need hyping. All the Compton rapper did was announce the release date and that intriguing title a month ago, then put out one song last weekend, The Heart Part 5, which isn’t among these 18 new tracks. The cover, revealed on Wednesday, offered more clues to the themes: Lamar with his family (the new baby is called Enoch, he says on Worldwide Steppers), a crown of thorns on his head and a gun tucked into his trousers.
The 34-year-old has been a Christian since his teens and often seems serene, monk-like, next to the jostling egos of his peers. Some level of detachment must be essential when he is standardly called the greatest rapper of his generation, spoke the pain of all black America on his extraordinary 2015 album To Pimp a Butterfly, then became the first musician outside the jazz and classical worlds to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music with the follow-up, Damn.
