It is no surprise that Kendrick Lamar is regarded as one of the most iconic Rap and Hip-Hop artists of the 21st century, winning 14 Grammy awards, alongside an astounding 39 Grammy nominations, as well as 161 other prestigious music awards over the last 17 years of his career. The rapper has maintained a suspenseful 5 year period without releasing an album, since his Grammy award winning DAMN in 2017, alongside his appearance in the iconic soundtrack for Black Panther with All the Stars, featuring SZA in 2018.
Lamar announced his album, Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers, on April 18th by replying to a tweet from a fan, which declared that Kendrick has officially retired.
https://t.co/YVE5bZOBL2 https://t.co/UywGGKExb1
— Kendrick Lamar (@kendricklamar) April 18, 2022
Since the iconic tweet, fans have been overwhelmed with the news, with endless conversations and memes being manufactured, surrounding the mysterious nature of Kendrick’s new album announcement.The website, Oklama.com takes anyone who clicks onto the link to a minimalist page, with files filled with cryptic information about what could be expected of the album, alongside an official release statement.
Kendrick’s fans have been quick to draw parallels to one of the files at Oklama to be reminiscent of Lamar’s childhood hero, Michael Jordan, and his iconic announcement of his return to the Chicago Bulls on March 18th, 1995. Kendrick Lamar is known to masterfully craft art through his lyricism and through that, he manages to keep his fans engaged, even during his extended periods of musical silence. Lamar’s music ensures that even the most die-hard of fans and critics struggle to instantly decrypt and identify the meanings behind his lyrics. Therefore, does coinciding his announcement of his highly anticipated album to be on the same date as childhood hero Michael Jordan’s iconic return, give us an indication that this album will entail references to his love for the sport and basketballer, perhaps? Or maybe an insight into his childhood? Maybe this is a mere nod to beloved basketballer and nothing more – we all wait eagerly for May 13th to find out.
Fans continued to attempt to decipher any clues of what is to be expected from the album, with the little information Kendrick and his label have released. However, on May 3rd, 15 days after the initial announcement, Kendrick silently released a picture on Oklama, without announcing this new file on the website on any of his social media accounts, holding two CD’s and a book, with the book titled Mr Morale and the Big Steppers, and the CD’s titled ‘Morale, master copy’ and the other ‘Steppers, master copy’ in marker pen.
See image below:
— Elliott Wilson (@ElliottWilson) May 3, 2022
Fans have been speculating an album release since September 2021, where Lamar met with ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers) and it has finally, officially been announced. However, in light of this new information added onto Oklama, the only source of factual information declared by Kendrick, can we expect his 5 year hiatus to end with a double album… alongside a book?
There’s no denying that this new teaser has us all anxiously waiting for another clue of what’s to come before the final release on May 13th.
