Det tog fem år för Kendrick Lamar att följa upp hyllade föregångaren “DAMN.” från 2017. Så sent som i maj fick vi Pulitzer-vinnarens senaste alster i form av djupt personliga “Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers”, men redan nu har han påbörjat sitt nästa projekt. Åtminstone enligt nära kollegan och mångåriga Kendrick-producenten Sounwave. I en intervju med Complex berättar han att man alltid påbörjar nästa projekt direkt, vilket alltså inte garanterar att det kommer att gå snabbare än sist.

“Oh, we always start, immediately after. Like, we’re starting on the next one now. That’s never going to change, all the way from the Kendrick Lamar EP. The next day, we started on Section.80. It’s just the ideas never stopped. That’s one of the main reasons I go on tour with him, is to create the next album”, säger producenten.

“We can’t skip a beat. We have to just keep it going. There’s no breaks. There’s no such thing as a vacation when you’re doing what you love. Everything you do is what you love to do, so you’re excited.”

En process som han är medveten om inte är lika populär hos deras familjemedlemmar.

“Your family might feel a different way about it, but it’s always like, what’s next? We’re like kids in a candy shop. Personally, once I release an album like this, I don’t go back to it for a while, because I lived it so much. It’s like, it’s not for me anymore. It’s time for me to clear my head, so the best thing to do is to think about the next project.”

I intervjun avslöjar han också att albumet kunde ha delats upp i tre olika projekt, då Kendrick Lamar gick igenom mycket under pandemin.

“For Kendrick, I don’t know. I know he went through a lot, too. If you want to say this, we could do three albums of Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers. There would be similar content, but sonically, it’d be completely different. Just because our emotions constantly keep changing—things keep happening in the world which changes this. Then, all of a sudden you don’t feel that way any more. So it’s constantly changing to the point where you look up and like, ‘Oh, shoot, this is a completely different album.’”

I en annan intervju med GQ som publicerades häromdagen berättade Sounwave dessutom om den tuffa skapandeprocessen av skivan och reflekterade kring hur låten “We Cry Together” kom till.

“I just remember one day, it was probably 2019, where he just had this scratch idea of a couple arguing. He didn’t have all the words down—he just had the male’s verse and then mumbles of the lady’s part.

I come in one day and he had pitched his voice up to sound like a girl and he was literally arguing with himself. I remember my mouth just dropped—‘Do we drop it like this with just your voice?’ He was like, ‘Nah, we’ve gotta find someone who can actually nail this moment’”, säger han och tillägger:

“I remember Dave Free bringing the idea of [Taylour] Paige. We all lit up. ‘Let’s give it a shot!’ She came in, instantly added her two cents to it, added everything you hear now. She almost one-taked it! That was one of the songs that we knew was staying, for sure.”

Innan vi får ett nytt album av Kendrick kan skandinaviska fans njuta av “Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers” i live-format, då hiphopgiganten kommer till Norge, Danmark och Sverige i höst. Läs mer här!

Foto: KROD / Renell Medrano