PIMPIN' AIN'T EASY

Although the official release date for Kendrick Lamar's highly anticipated new album To Pimp a Butterfly is March 23, Twitter exploded Sunday night with the news that the album was in fact out in the world. It was only the clean version at first, which seemed odd. Then the explicit came out, followed by the full stream on Spotify. There was definitely some theater around the surprise release on social media, with TDE’s boss blaming Interscope publicly for “f*cking up” their release, but considering the coordination that needs to happen in order to get an album set up on digital services, the tweet appears to have been a stunt—part of a well-orchestrated gambit to get people talking online—and it worked like a charm. Around 10pm, Kendrick cleared up the "beef" with a single tweet:

Butterfly contains 16 tracks, including the double Grammy winner "i" and the heater dropped earlier this year, "The Blacker The Berry," plus collaborations with George Clinton, Flying Lotus, Snoop Dogg, Bilal, James Fauntleroy, Ronald Isley, Thundercat and, on the riveting track "Mortal Man," a posthumous appearance from Tupac Shakur with never-before-heard audio, creating an imagined conversation between Kendrick and Pac. It's f**king amazing. —Michelle Santosuosso