Kendrick Lamar releases fifth solo album ‘Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers’

Los Angeles, May 13 (IANS): ‘Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers’, the fifth solo album by Kendrick Lamar has hit the airwaves.

The album happens to be his first full-length in five years. The 18-track album includes guest appearances from Summer Walker, Ghostface Killah, Kodak Black, Sampha, Baby Keem, Beth Gibbons of Portishead and an emotional performance from Taylour Paige on the harrowing ‘We Cry Together’, reports ‘Variety’.

Production is primarily from Sounwave, Duval Timothy, Boi-1DA, Lamar as OKLAMA, and Pharrell Williams on a Mr. Morale’. As per ‘Variety’, the album does not include ‘The Heart Part 5’, the new song – which features a deep fake video.

Lamar’s last full-length studio album was 2017’s Grammy-winning ‘Damn’, which was released just two days before he headlined Coachella and made him the honoree at Variety’s inaugural Hitmakers event.

He followed up a year later with the curation of the ‘Black Panther’ soundtrack, which included his duet with SZA, ‘All the Stars’ – receiving four nominations at the 61st Grammys including record of the year and song of the year. In 2021, he featured on two songs from his cousin Baby Keem’s latest album, ‘Range Brothers’ and the Grammy-winning ‘Family Ties’.

While disc one from the album features tracks like ‘N95’, ‘Worldwide Steppers’ and ‘Die Hard ft. Blxst & Amanda Reifer’, disc two consists of tracks like ‘Count Me Out’, ‘Crown’ and ‘Silent Hill ft. Kodak Black’.