Kendrick Lamar surprises fans by releasing new eight-track album

Kendrick Lamar has surprised fans by releasing a new album on Thursday, called untitled unmastered. It appears to be a companion work to his critically acclaimed 2015 album To Pimp a Butterfly.

Filled with the free jazz, funk, politically charged lyrics and experimental sounds that made To Pimp a Butterfly such an instant classic, all eight of the songs are untitled but bear a date seemingly indicating they were recorded in 2013-14 (with the exception of the seventh track: untitled 07 2014-2016).

The release may have been drawn from a “chamber of material” that did not make the final cut of To Pimp a Butterfly but was mentioned by Lamar in a recent interview.

“I got a chamber of material from the album that I was in love [with], where sample clearances or something as simple as a deadline kept it off the album,” he said. “But I think probably close to 10 songs that I’m in love with that I’ll still play and still perform that didn’t make the cut.”

Lamar said he had been performing these on late night shows, like The Colbert Report and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

At the Grammys he debuted a new verse that alluded to the 2012 death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.

The basketballer LeBron James tweeted to the artist and Anthony Tiffith, the chief executive of Top Dawg Entertainment, the independent hip-hop label Lamar is signed to: “you have to release those untitled tracks asap!!!”

Tiffith wrote back that he would think about it and on Wednesday hinted at the release in an Instagram post: “Ive decided 2 drop a project 1 day this week. I won’t say wut day or who.” He later posted that fans should thank James for the new release.

When Lamar announced the release on Twitter his post was retweeted more than 43,000 times in two hours.