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A TAV Curator’s Pick.

Untitled Unmastered is a compilation album by American hip hop recording artist Kendrick Lamar, released in 2016 by Top Dawg Entertainment, Aftermath Entertainment and Interscope Records

It consists of previously unreleased demos that originated during the recording of Lamar's album To Pimp a Butterfly (2015), continuing that work's exploration of politically-charged and psychological themes, as well as its experimentation with free jazz, soul, avant-garde, and funk styles. - Wiki

"Issued without advance notice 17 days after Kendrick Lamar's riveting 2016 Grammy Awards performance, untitled unmastered. consists of eight demos that are simply numbered and dated. Apart from segments previewed at the Grammys and late-night television appearances, there was no formal promotion. A postscript, it's (artfully) artless in presentation -- not even basic credits appear on the Army green liner card in the compact disc edition -- yet it's almost as lyrically and musically rich as To Pimp a Butterfly." - AllMusic

"As with To Pimp A Butterfly, Untitled Unmastered straddles the personal and political to make some salient points and advances...A perfectly fine release, Untitled Unmastered doesn't exist to change anyone's mind about Lamar. That ship has sailed, and for the foreseeable future the narrative course is a righteous one. But the vessel has cracks, as it always has, and if we continue to rely on the immensely talented and imperfectly mortal Lamar in the ways we've been relying on him, we're likely to end up dashed on the rocks." - The Quietus

"This eight-track, 35 minute set begins in a bedroom, incense burning, Lamar sexing up a lover over soul-jazz, bass-and-percussion foreplay. But before we hit the two-minute mark he's seeing rapists and murderers, "death faces screaming in agony," "atheists for suicide/planes falling out the sky/trains jumping off the track." And this is a jam about uplift." - Rolling Stone

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