INQUISITR.COM / Entertainment

Do You Know How ‘To Pimp a Butterfly’? Kendrick Lamar Has The Answer

By Val Powell
Published on: 22:06 PST, Mar 17, 2015

With his new album, rapper Kendrick Lamar took the world by surprise on Monday. Not only did he pull an unannounced drop of his new masterpiece but he also made history in less than 24 hours.

Earlier this morning, at 6:51 AM, in their official Twitter account, Spotify posted: “@kendricklamar’s #ToPimpAButterfly was streamed 9.6M+ times Monday. A new world record, K-Dot…” The previous record holder for the highest same day stream was Michael Buble’s Christmas which was released four years ago in 2011.

The album was scheduled for release on March 23 but after one of the album’s tracks entitled King Kunta was leaked by hackers last week, Lamar took an interesting approach in pacifying those who were trying to steal his music. Instead of giving them the chance to leak the rest of To Pimp a Butterfly, the angry rapper leaked the entire album himself via his Twitter account in the wee hours of Monday morning. He simply tweeted the title of his new album and the link to buy it at the iTunes store for $14.99.

Since its surprise release, To Pimp a Butterfly has garnered an impressive amount of popularity and praise. Any term related to Lamar and his new album has been trending on Twitter since Tuesday and his drop tweet has been retweeted for 33,000 times. Even his fellow artists have taken part in applauding his new album. Fellow rapper Kanye West tweeted, “Kendrick is an inspiration. Thank you for the vibrations and the spirit. Your meaning, message, and execution are gifts to the world.” Taylor Swift also shared her sentiments about Lamar’s album on Twitter. She posted, “Kendrick put his album out early. No one touch me.”

Moreover, iconic American music magazine Billboard commended Lamar’s new album describing it as a conversation and not an announcement.

Billboard explained, “Questions and conflicts about race and personal responsibility haven’t been answered by presidents, sociologists or all the talking heads on television; it would be absurd to ask one man to have any or all of the solutions. ‘What’s your perspective on that?’ Lamar’s asking us, because he’s still searching.”

To Pimp a Butterfly, according to some critics is a work of poetry. It address different issues that have been faced by African Americans throughout the years. The album features 16 tracks beginning with a Boris Gardner sample of “Every Ni**a is a Star” and ending with an interview of the late famous rapper 2Pac.

[Image via Getty Images]

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