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This week,Kendrick LamarreleasedMr.
Morale & the Big Steppers, his first record in more than five years.
Its alsothe final onehe issued through Top Dawg Entertainment, the label he has been with since 2005.
There is a long history of rappers getting locked into interminable deals by vulture-ish executives.
This was different: a partnership between Black Angelenos forged far outside the major-label system.
The founder believed that both Jay and his label were ignored during a period of corporate restructuring.
By the beginning of the 2010s, it appeared this strategy had succeeded beyond any realistic expectations.
Will you let hip-hop die on October 22?
he asks at the end of The Heart, Pt.
In the decade sincegood kid, Kendrick has delivered on his considerable promise by every metric.
His three Interscope-Aftermath-TDE albums good kid, 2015s jazz-infusedTo Pimp a Butterfly, and2017sDAMN.
Each has been certified platinum at least once,good kidandDAMN.several times over; he has won 14 Grammys.
His name has become shorthand for rap as high art, fraught as that may be.
Instead, it became something less stratospheric, though longer lasting.
The imprint has retained its spirit of independence, partnering with corporate giants only on one-off bases.
Beyond their personal affinity for one another, those four MCs records shared plenty of DNA.
To its credit, TDE has not leveraged this in a cynical way.
In each of these cases, the non-TDE partner seems secondary, at least on a musical level.
Each has received critical acclaim, while SZA has become a genuine star.
Her lone album,2017sCtrl, is by far TDEs biggest non-Kendrick record, moving over 2 million units domestically.
She surely has thousands of fans who are not even aware of the label connection.
Some rockiness during that transition was likely inevitable.
But TDEs very foundation is the belief that the long game will pay off.
