Chat. This is not a drill. Not a drill. As far as I can tell, we have brand new Kendrick Lamar.

This could be indicative of where things are going. It could not be indicative of where things are going creatively. It does seem to be a real track. It is getting some pretty far spread across the internet. And even people who seem to be in the know are verifying it to be a real thing, a serious Kendrick track.

People are calling the track "How to Pray" – shout out to the NFR Podcast, of course, those good Canadian boys. Let's give it a spin. Let's listen to it together and make a bit of an assessment of it creatively and see what it's got to offer.

Here we go.

[LISTENING]

There we go. There you have it. Again, not a whole lot of context at the moment for what this is exactly and the whole thing. Obviously, it's new Kendrick in a sense. And of course, a shout out to Amber Mark, who's in the mix here. That's great, that she's crossing over with Kendrick on this one. We've played quite a bit of her stuff on New Music Friday before, that is true.

But yeah, somebody was making a reference to Untitled Unmastered. To me, that sounded too clean to be like Untitled Unmastered, but some similar vibes, I mean, for the most part. And it's already been said in chat, but instrumentally, big kind of Radiohead energy on this song between the guitar arpeggios, between the drums. There's just something about the vibe and energy and guitar and drum work on In Rainbows that, man, it's unbreakable, the influence of it. It just sort of penetrates everything. There's just something about that record that is just really holding up Radiohead's legacy like no other album they've dropped in the 2020s.

I mean, of course, Radiohead has dropped a lot of amazing classic albums over the years. I feel like what time period you're in sort of defines which of those classic records are kind of like buoying the band's success and popularity. But I would say in the 2020s, more than any other, it's really In Rainbows that is doing the band a real service in terms of its legacy and prolonged influence. And I feel like songs like this sort of showcase that, and this is one of many. I hear songs in the hip-hop genre, in the electronic music genre, in the rock genre, all the time these days where it's like, damn, this feels like In Rainbows.

And it's funny at the time. I mean, the album was obviously well received, but when that record initially dropped, I feel like for as beloved as it was and as jazzed as people were on it, there was also a lot of hesitation where people just, like, wanted to keep themselves from jumping over that cliff of committing too hard and being like, "It's better than OK Computer," "It's better than Kid A," it's better than this album, it's better than that album. But these days, I feel like you hear and see a lot more people who are willing to be like, oh yeah, it's better than those records, or it's their best album of all time.

But yeah, it does feel very Radiohead. I'm loving the sort of like romantic vibes coming off the lyrics. I'm liking the sort of chemistry with Amber Mark. It's obviously not a full track, could just be a mere section of a larger cut that goes in different directions stylistically, and there's maybe a few change-ups. The vocal work is obviously impressive in terms of like the harmonies. Doesn't quite have, maybe the bite to it or the eccentricity that I would typically like from Kendrick Lamar, but the guy's known for having his softer moments too. He's far from a one-dimensional artist.

I wouldn't take this as being indicative of him mellowing out to the point where there's nothing memorable or standout about what he does. He's not getting too sleepy, that's for sure. I'm sure it'll be sort of, like, sensible within respect of whatever the greater idea or sort of vision that's being dropped within is. I'm going to give it a 7, aren't I? I'm not going to review it right now or rather give it a score because it's just 90 seconds. But it could land on an album that gets a 7. I'm not ruling it out.

A lot of you guys, or at least some of you, like to pretend like I'm completely incapable of being critical of Kendrick or giving him a negative review, or even feeling some type of way about him that isn't glowing or isn't massively positive, but it is in fact the case. I even got a message the other day of somebody telling me that I need to go back and re-listen to Damn. I refuse to do that right now. I have no interest in listening to Damn. I would rather listen to almost every other Kendrick album instead of Damn. But yeah, that's kind of a possibly what we're looking at in terms of Kendrick on the horizon.

And again, the prospect of him working with Amber Mark in a formal fashion and maybe even more than on this song is pretty cool, honestly. So there you go. Thoughts on some new Kendrick out of nowhere.