Kendrick Lamar Says Dr. Dre’s Working On His Next Album, Can’t Say Anything About Detox

Kendrick Lamar gave his fans a reason to be a bit more amped this week when he revealed that he will, in fact, be working with Dr. Dre on the forthcoming follow-up to Good Kid, Maad City. The news was just one confirmation in the midst of Kendrick dismissing a number of rumors about his sophomore major release, but it was a big one.

The news came via KIIS FM (h/t, Complex), with Kendrick telling interviewer Nessa that the Good Doctor would be contributing to Lamar’s next album.

“Dr. Dre is focused, man,” Kendrick said.

“Is he working on your album?” the interviewer countered.

“Yes,” Lamar replied simply. “One thing about Dre is you can’t take the music away from him, no matter how much money he has, he’s always in the studio. Before the deal, after the deal, he’s always locked in there; that’s something that I know personally.”

Given the fact that Dre’s Beats By Dre was recently acquired by Apple – a deal that netted Dre hundreds of millions of dollars and may see him becoming Director of Cool at the iPhone maker – there had been some speculation that the rap legend might not have time to work on Kendrick’s Good Kid follow-up. Then again, those rumors appeared to ignore the fact that Dre’s infamous video confirmation of the Apple acquisition showed the music legend in the studio with Tyrese Gibson and others.

Kendrick also took time to address in passing some of the other flotsam and jetsam bobbing around the hip-hop internet. Asked about the recent fake information regarding the title of his forthcoming album, he said that “The United States of Alarm” was a good title, but not his title.

With regard to Lupe Fiasco saying Kendrick’s not the best lyricist out there right now, Lamar responded with a simple “everybody entitled to their opinion… I just continue to do what I do.”

What Kendrick is doing right now is important to real hip-hop heads, because there aren’t too many others making much noise right now, a fact that Lamar acknowledged in the interview.

Asked whether he was excited about news of developments or forthcoming material from any other artists, Kendrick struggled to name anyone in particular before settling on a couple of TDE artists, including SZA, whose “Babylon” Kendrick guested on earlier this year.

“It’s been a real drought, man, it’s been a drought,” Lamar admitted, “I’m sure everybody cooking up.”

The next Kendrick Lamar solo project is expected to drop in September of this year, or at least that’s the word that TDE head Anthony Tiffith gave in March. The next release from Lamar could wind up being quite a bit darker, but that’s just the sort of thing we’d like to see from Kendrick’s sophomore release.

Oh, and Kendrick – like everyone else – is mum on whether Dr. Dre’s mythic Detox will ever see release, or even whether it exists.

“I couldn’t give you that word, [Dre]’ll have to give you that word. He’s still a creative genius, though,” Lamar said. And the wait continues.