Kendrick Lamar Has Six Albums of Unreleased Music

We haven’t heard any new solo music from Kendrick Lamar in a while, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been working. According to his personal engineer, Derek “MixedbyAli” Ali, K-Dot is sitting on six album’s worth of unreleased tracks.

Ali was a guest on The ETCs With Kevin Durant Podcast on Thursday (Nov. 12), where he talked with co-host Eddie Gonzalez about his career and working closely with the TDE team. He spoke specifically about Kendrick’s work ethic, saying the Compton, Calif. MC has tons of material he hasn’t put out yet.

“For Kendrick alone, let me say, I think we could put together like six albums,” Ali said around the 34-minute mark. “And, you know, we got everyone’s the same way. It’s all about just understanding that you could do something better. It’s having that mindset to strive for the best possible version of you possible.”

He detailed Kendrick’s perfectionist ways, adding, “That’s Kendrick’s whole mindset is just always striving to do better whether it’s recording a new verse. You know, he would record a whole song and get one ad-lib back a month later, because he don’t like how he breathed on the ad-lib. It’s being that detailed with is what separates the kids from the men, the good from great, to just being that particular with every corner of a song and really getting into a crevice and understanding every piece of it. He’s a true artist.”

With over three years since he put out his last album, the Grammy Award-winning DAMN., Kendrick fans have been waiting very patiently for something new. Last month, Kendrick addressed why it takes some long for him to drop albums. “I spend the whole year just thinking about how I’m gonna execute a new sound, I can’t do the same thing over and over,” he said during an interview with i-D magazine. “I need something to get me excited. I see you get frustrated sometimes because you want some new shit.”

There have been few details released on Kendrick’s upcoming LP, which will be his fifth. Earlier this year, it was reported that the forthcoming album would feature more rock influence. In October, TDE’s Punch said the project would be coming “soon soon.”

The question remains, where is Kendrick Lamar’s new album?