Much to the disappointment of fans, 2020 has not yet yielded new music from Kendrick Lamar. A follow-up to 2017’s Damn has been heavily discussed, but it has yet to arrive. In the meantime, though, fans finally have at least a new Lamar verse to enjoy, as he just popped up on a new Busta Rhymes song, “Look Over Your Shoulder,” which is built on a sample of the Jackson 5 classic “I’ll Be There.”
Lamar takes ownership of the song’s opening verse and begins, “I wrote my first bars in the car with Stacy / How bizarre, my battle scars at large would lace me / Big marbles, n**** / I lead this new generation, boy / Don’t argue with us.” The track comes from Rhymes’ upcoming new album Extinction Level Event 2: The Wrath Of God, which comes out on Friday and also features Mariah Carey, Anderson .Paak, Q-Tip, Rick Ross, Chris Rock, Rakim, Bell Biv Devoe, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Rapsody, Mary J. Blige, and others.
Lamar recently spoke about the reasoning behind his gaps between albums, saying, “I spend the whole year just thinking about how I’m gonna execute a new sound, I can’t do the same thing over and over. I need something to get me excited. I see you get frustrated sometimes because you want some new sh*t.”
Listen to “Look Over Your Shoulder” above.