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2017 was easily a successful year for Top Dawg Entertainment.
With SZA’s rise to stardom with her debut album “CTRL” that as an album, showcased a woman’s growth throughout to becoming an individual that is more independent and requiring less validation from others. Many of the songs did very well on the charts and SZA is now on the forefront for the label with great potential to be a great artist. Also with legendary artist: Kendrick Lamar dropping his 4th LP: “DAMN.” that solidified the artist’s ability to delivery from all forefronts of Hip-Hop. “DAMN.” was easily his most successful album in terms of sales to date with many tracks such as DNA, LOVE, and HUMBLE charting very high on the Billboard Hot 100. The way Kendrick was able to appeal to a more mainstream audience without sacrificing his quality of music was incredible.
Usually after a major release and tour though, Kendrick is known to disappear until it is time for the next era, but it looks like he’s going into 2018 with full force. It was recently announced that Kendrick Lamar with the help of TDE would help curate “Black Panther: The Album”. This will be the first time a rapper will be curating, writing, producing music for a movie on a bigger scale, which is a big deal for Hip-Hop in general. The news was first hinted in the LOVE music video on December 22nd, but now with the announcement the soundtrack is confirmed to be filled with original and unreleased tracks.
The soundtrack is set to release next month with two singles so far released. The first single: All The Stars featuring smooth vocals from SZA throughout the track makes this a great listen and perfectly fitting for any movie.
The second track: King’s Dead is a crazy banger featuring Kendrick Lamar, TDE’s finest: Jay Rock, James Blake, and Future. Each artist’s contributions make this song as wild as it sounds. With a hard verse from Jay Rock, Kendrick rapping crazy on the beat switch towards the end, James Blake on the transition of the song, and Future attempting a falsetto towards the end of his verse. This song shows that TDE has big plans with “Black Panther: The Soundtrack” and will make sure it meets their quality expectations. King’s Dead with both be apart of the soundtrack and is also the upcoming single for Jay Rock’s upcoming album set to be released sometime this year.