“The flattery of watching my stock rise/the salary, the compensation tripled my cock size / I run through the stop signs/with no brake fluid, just premium gas” he notes, adding “This is the future/the master mind/until my next album/more power to ya!” It’s followed by the sound of a gunshot – the sound that disappeared Martin, Malcolm, Trayvon and on – and a chillingly orphaned beat (composed, if stories are true, by Swizz Beats and Alicia Keys’ five-year-old son). Then, suddenly, you’re eavesdropping in a room, listening to the sound of a song being made up with a bunch of friends over a handful of bass notes. It’s a familiar riff concerning what fame does to your brain, delivered with unfamiliar verve, as Lamar tries to figure a sustainable way to embody King Kendrick. On “untitled 07,” around a hypnotizing chant of “levitate levitate levitate levitate,” a devil-on-the-shoulder character delivers a drug-addled come on, with the promise of dollars and various ecstasy flavors. The most telling track on untitled unmastered. may be its shaggiest. The former lacks the firespitting Black Power outro the latter appears minus a final verse and outro, sacrificing fire for a tighter, more upbeat album-closer. Lamar premiered versions of “untitled 03” and “untitled 08” (then known as “untitled 2 (Blue Faces)”) on Colbert and Fallon, respectively, and they’re changed up a bit here. “untitled 01” is tagged 8/9/14, although Lamar rhymes about how he “made To Pimp A Butterfly for you,” referencing an LP that didn’t come out until nearly a year later.
The songs are not titled per se, simply numbered and dated, although it’s unclear exactly when they were finished. 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. This eight-track, 35 minute set begins in a bedroom, incense burning, Lamar sexing up a lover over soul-jazz, bass-and-percussion foreplay.
Of course, nothing’s that simple in the mind of Lamar, and after torching the Grammys, his embers are still popping.
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