In the past year, rap artist Kendrick Lamar has released a highly publicized album called To Pimp a Butterfly. The album was nominated eleven times at the 58th Grammy Awards ceremony, taking home the gold for best rap album. One of Kendrick’s songs Alright won for best rap song as well.

When Lamar makes guest appearances at live events or talk shows, Lamar typically avoids performing any of his pre-released songs. Instead, Lamar tends to write a new verse or freestyle for that specific occasion. For his performance at the 58th Grammy Awards ceremony on February 15, 2016, Lamar combined many of his greatest hits into one song and performed for the audience.

On March 3, 2016, Kendrick Lamar released a new album called Untitled Unmastered. The album has a series of eight songs that have not been given a proper title and have been properly finished. For example, the first song in the album is titled Untitled 01 08.19.2014.

The reason why each song is titled this way is because Lamar only used these songs for guest appearances; any song he has ever developed for events like talk shows and the Grammy’s are on this album. Lamar never meant for these songs to be publicized; therefore, they are untitled. The date in the title of each song represents the day in which he sang that song.

Zack Finkill, 11, loves rap music. Finkill has already listened to the full album Untitled Unmastered and highly enjoys Lamar’s music.

“It was very unexpected,” Finkill said. “I recently just listened to his other album that won a Grammy, To Pimp a Butterfly, and I didn’t expect a new album for a while considering how much time and effort he put into that album. So when I saw it pop up on iTunes I got really excited and had to listen to it as soon as possible.”

Lamar refers to himself as a “King,” and his fans believe he is even higher than that. Considering how well Lamar’s last album did, there are high expectations on his new album according to The Washington Post.

Andrew Bentley, 11, loves the vast diversity of rap music. He loves new artists like G-Eazy, but he also admires the oldies like Tupac. Bentley has listened to most of Lamar’s music including Untitled Unmastered.

“I love his music with a passion,” Bentley said. “He really does act like the king of rap, his music speaks to the people and shows the type of life he lived. The fact he has more coming out is just going to give him more power in the music community.”

Lamar has already shown he can dominate the rap community; but, by attaining more listeners, Lamar faces many challenges. With the creation of the album Untitled Unmastered, this could be a musical breakthrough for him in developing his fan base.

“He is a very talented musician, I’ve liked all his stuff ever since his first album. Whatever he puts out I believe it will be, at the least, decent. I also know that Lamar is very passionate about what he does, so I don’t think anything he creates will be so called bad,” Finkill said.

Nevertheless, Lamar still continues to produce more content for his fans. Whether it is a Grammy Award winning song, an untitled song or even a guest appearance special, Lamar is always surprising the music community.