Finally.
Late last month, Kendrick Lamar arrived with news that the music world spent the last three or so years waiting to hear from him. He revealed that his fifth album, titled Mr. Morale And The Big Steppers, would arrive on May 13. The announcement was made in a statement from his PgLang agency, which he founded with longtime partner Dave Free. Aside from the album’s title, its release date, and some very early projections of the project’s first-week numbers, there’s little we know about the nature of Mr. Morale And The Big Steppers. With just less than five days until the album arrives, officially launches his new era with “The Heart Part 5.”
The new track is the fifth installment in the series that Kendrick has run in between albums since 2010 with the last edition coming in 2017 with “The Heart Part 4.” Just like “The Heart Part 5,” the 2017 track was released a short time before Kendrick’s fourth album Damn. “The Heart Part 5” is the first piece of music with Kendrick as the lead artist that we’ve received since his contributions to the 2018 Black Panther soundtrack. One of his more recent musical contributions overall came on Baby Keem’s “Family Ties,” which the two won a Grammy award for last month.
The new track also arrives after Kendrick appeared beside Dr. Dre, Eminem, Snoop Dogg, and Mary J. Blige at the upcoming Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show. As the group’s performance neared, rumors swirled that Kendrick would use the marquee weekend to make his long-awaited, but that did not turn out to be the case.
One final note about Mr. Morale And The Big Steppers: it’s set to be Kendrick’s final album on TDE, a label he’s called home since 2004. Once Mr. Morale And The Big Steppers is released to the world, it remains to be seen what Kendrick’s next moves as one of rap’s biggest superstars will be.
You can press play on the video above to hear “The Heart Part 5.”
