Kendrick Lamar announces ‘Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers’ vinyl release

Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers’ is officially set for release on vinyl.

The rapper first announced the record’s existence on Thursday (June 30), and made it available for pre-order today (June 1). Orders will begin to roll out from August 26.

The gatefold release includes the entirety of the double-disc album, which spans 18 songs over 73 minutes. The records will be available in both regular black and exclusive gold-brown pressings.

The vinyl rollout comes weeks after the digital release of ‘Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers’, which hit streaming services on May 13. The project marked Lamar’s fifth studio album, and first solo full-length since 2017’s ‘DAMN’ (which earned the rapper a Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2018).

‘Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers’ also marks Lamar’s final album release under Top Dawg Entertainment, which he signed to in 2005. Since then, Top Dawg has distributed all of the rapper’s studio albums including 2011’s ‘Section.80’, 2012’s ‘Good Kid, M.A.A.D City’ and 2015’s ‘To Pimp A Butterfly’.

More recently, Lamar curated and produced ‘Black Panther: The Album’ for the 2018 film of the same name, and last year featured on Terrence Martin’s ‘Drones’ alongside Ty Dolla $ign, James Fauntleroy and Snoop Dogg.

Alongside praise from fellow artists like Lorde, Pharrell and Tyler, The Creator, ‘Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers’ was met with critical acclaim. In a five-star review, NME’s Kyann-Sian Williams said the album is “one of the deepest cuts we’ve had from Kendrick.

“This album is as much about struggle as it is freedom, and what a beautiful sentiment that is,” Williams wrote.

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