TDE in-house producer Sounwave tells Complex that LeBron James deserves all of the credit for the release of Kendrick Lamar’s surprise project, untitled unmastered.
Inspired by Kendrick Lamar’s powerful Grammy performance this year, LeBron James took to Twitter to urge TDE bossman Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith to share the unheard music with fans.
“Yo @dangerookipawaa after that @kendricklamar Grammy performance , you have to release those untitled tracks asap!!! What’s up? Talk to me,” LeBron tweeted.
K. Dot’s history of performing unreleased music includes the beginning of his 2016 Grammy performance, his performance of an “Untitled” song on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert in 2015 and also his “Frontseat Freestyle” at the beginning of his “Alright” visual.
“When you get somebody like LeBron asking for them, it’s like, ‘Alright, maybe it is bigger than we think it is,'” Sounwave tells Complex in an exclusive interview. “That’s when Top got on the phone asking me and K. Dot to pick out our favorite records. It just so happened that the songs we picked out sounded like an album.”
Prior to untitled unmastered.‘s release, Top Dawg announced the project on Instagram and gave a special shout out to LeBron James.
The Digi+Phonics member was heavily involved with the creation of Dot’s Grammy-winning album To Pimp A Butterfly and he explained the process of sifting through music they had recorded over the past three years to piece together untitled unmastered.
“The only involvement that we had was me and Ali trying to convince Kendrick that the project has to be mastered,” the Grammy winning-producer says. “We wanted to go all out and he wanted it to feel authentic 100 percent. The reference mixes that we recorded two, three years ago on this album was just me and Kendrick going through old songs and picking our favorites.”
The release of untitled unmastered. has caused a lot to speculation of whether or not Kendrick was throwing jabs at Drake and Jay Electronica on the project.
Sounwave deflects whether or not the lyrics were aimed at either rapper. When specifically asked about Drake and the “Drake you down” lyric from “untitled 07,” the producer thinks people are mistaken that its a diss.
“OK, now people might be reaching on that one,” the “Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe” producer says. “That’s how we recorded To Pimp A Butterfly. Thundercat would be in there playing riffs and Kendrick would be freestyling and mumbling stuff. If y’all heard ‘Drake you down’ I don’t know, to me that sounds kind of questionable. You’re gonna have to ask Kendrick what he meant by that.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Sounwave hints at the possible release of the full “Frontseat Freestyle.”
“I’ve been getting a lot of questions referring to the beginning of the ‘Alright’ video,” he says. “And it is tucked and possibly going to come out. I’m working on my project, so hey, you never know. You might see it. You might not. I’m working on the blueprint now.”
Kendrick has entered Top 5 of All Time, show respect
Top 5? Yeah, let’s froget about tupac, big l, eminem, Jayz, dmx, rakim, nas, big pun, biggie, Andre 3000, 50 cent, and many many others. I would put kendrick near top 5 yet. He hasn’t been in the mainstream for more than 5 years. And Tupac, blessed us with like 10 amazing albums, all raw gangster rap. We have 3 albums from kendrick. Kids nowadays are so quick to judge some shit. Kendrick has to spend more time before he’s considered a top 5 rapper. And imo, this project he just dropped ain’t helping his cause. It was not a great rap album, but more of a soul funk with some rhymes
I’m a huge Big fan, Pun, L, and X. But, from OD to this, Kendrick has to be mentioned.
HAHAHAH u just can’t cope with it that Kendrick is better than all of your alive artists hahahahaha
King, Kendrick! Unfiltered.
yo what up lebron! thanks for pushing for the project!
This guy sucks
Kobe all day 2 4 / 7, but gotta say thanks to LBJ for pushing Top to release the Best from the West music out.
Oh, And Drake needs to ignore the diss, if he wants to stay relevant. He stands no chance on the mic with KDOt
This nigga couldn’t beef with Meek he don’t want it with Drake
LOL is that a joke?
bring it on lol we all know Drake can adapt to any situation he is a survivor
– said no one eva!
tde is the best label
Much Respect 2 Soundwave For Those DopeAss Beatz!!! I Still Need Dat “Dead Homies” Track 4 Sho…
Kendrick Is Number One Right Now But If Bishop Lamont Would’ve Dropped Back Before Dre Found Kendrick Y’all Wouldn’t Have Heard Of K.Dot >>> Much Respect 2 Kendrick For His Music!!! Thank You!!!
its absolutely hilarious when kendrick fans get their head in a tizzy thinkin Kendrick is dissing Drake. Time after time, Kendrick denies it. But the fullproof reason you know Kendrick aint messin with Drake is a portion of Kendrick’s most popular highly-regarded songs are produced by Drake’s go-to producers from Toronto who are heavily tied to OVO (Boi1da, T-Minus etc). “Blackerthe Berry” was produced by Boi1da. These are guys are so loyal to Drake, Boi1da went after OG Maco when he tweetin garbage about Drake re: Meek Mill thing. And you know Meek Mill aint ever gettin another beat from anyone tied to OVO. if Kendrick was serioualy dissing Drake, that producer-artist relationship would be game over. It aint no Drake diss in that record just like the so-called Compton disses which are also bogus… if y’all know how to read lyrics (but this is how these fools operate- they dont understand this art form), its clearly not a diss at all
Swing and a miss! Kendrick fan here and I never once thought any of this? Seems that you’re the one in your feelings
Get out your feelings bruh!
Not one fact in your entire bullshit comment. Try again, Drake stan.
“a portion of Kendrick’s most popular highly-regarded songs are produced by Drake’s go-to producers from Toronto who are heavily tied to OVO (Boi1da, T-Minus etc)” Only two songs out of the hundreds released. They didn’t produced an entire album for him.
Lebron is the true mvp,props to him
With his jeffn ass
I heard the line and it sounded like he said “drag you down.” Of course if he said “Drake you down,” I would have just thought of it as he’s talking about Drake making love songs so he wants to take her down and… you know. Neither sounded like a diss. Now it looks like no one is denying the diss to Jay Electronica.