Kendrick Lamar has officially signalled his return by announcing a new album, Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, that will drop on May 13th.
The announcement comes from Lamar’s website oklama.com, where the statement of a new album has been signed by “oklama”. The press release for the new album comes “from the desk of oklama”, with the only information being the name of the album and the release date. The document also states that “all factual information for this release will come directly from this source only.”
Lamar’s connection to the “oklama” name has already been established, so this isn’t some random rapper taking on the name…probably. Lamar’s Twitter account did retreat a message of retirement for the rapper, but that was either a joke or a cryptic artistic message. Or maybe it was nothing. Lamar has been mostly M.I.A. for a few years, so anything is possible.
If this is the new Kendrick Lamar album, which it almost assuredly is, then it will be his first since 2017’s Damn and his fifth studio album overall.
The announcement comes two months after Lamar was a part of the Super Bowl LVI halftime show earlier this year. Other than that brief performance, Lamar has mostly laid low, with his only recorded material being a feature on his cousin Baby Keem’s debut The Melodic Blue back in 2021.
That’s pretty much all the information that is currently known about Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, but surely we will get some more concrete details soon enough. Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers is set for a May 13th release.
