Kendrick Lamar helps Stephen Colbert call it a career on cable
This week, Stephen Colbert is saying goodbye to his parody show on Comedy Central, The Colbert Report, as he prepare to take over David Letterman‘s duties on The Late Show. To help him do that, Kendrick Lamar joined Colbert on last night’s show to perform a brand new song, presumably off his upcoming, yet-to-be-titled sophomore album, called “Untitled.”
While no audio has surfaced yet, last night, Lamar performed the record backed by an impressive band, including Thundercat and Bilal. The song is similar in sonic value to Kendrick’s first single, “i,” but features a much grittier, aggressive and more conceptually complex K. Dot. He begins the song telling a story about a conversation he had with a girl, then divulged advice he received from a Black man, and Indian, and a White person. The White person’s advice clearly set Kendrick off, and he goes off into Super-Saiyan Kendrick mode, viciously delivering the verse’s bars, hitting each clap of the live instrumental in pinpoint accuracy. “Black people we don’t die, we multiply,” appears to be the song’s hook, and evidenced by the headlines that have dominated news outlets for the past 4 months, Kendrick chose the perfect time to debut this bit of new music.
Watch his performance above, and check out the short pre-performance interview he had with Colbert below.
