David Bowie is preparing the release of his ★ album (pronounced “Blackstar”) and his producer, Tony Visconti, says he is looking for a different direction than his previous Rock sound.
“We were listening to a lot of Kendrick Lamar,” Visconti says to Rolling Stone. “We wound up with nothing like that, but we loved the fact Kendrick was so open-minded and he didn’t do a straight-up Hip Hop record. He threw everything on there, and that’s exactly what we wanted to do.”
The Compton, California rapper’s sophomore album, To Pimp a Butterfly, features music from a variety of genres. Lamar enlists George Clinton and Snoop Dogg on the LP, among other musicians.
Despite some calling it a “Black” album, Lamar’s producer, Terrace Martin recently said To Pimp a Butterfly is much bigger than that.
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“More than pro-Black, I believe this album has become pro-human being, pro-everybody,” he said. “Playing this music for a mixed crowd is simple because we don’t look at it as a mixed crowd. We look at it as our relatives within the art community, where we don’t experience Black and White or none of that bullshit that the police and the government got us going through as Black people. Within the art is a place of safety.”
Bowie’s album will be Bowie’s twenty-fifth and is scheduled for a January 6 release.
