untitled 08 | 09.06.2014.

Album: Untitled Unmastered (2016)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • This song finds Lamar lamenting the feelings of futility and hopelessness felt by black Americans and contextualizes his own success.
  • The song was written by Lamar with bassist and vocalist Stephen "Thundercat" Bruner and Mono/Poly, who is an electronic music producer from Bakersfield, California.

    The track was originally titled "Blue Faces." Thundercat told Billboard magazine: "I remember 'Blue Faces' ["untitled 08"] -- that song that was like, mostly me and Mono/Poly -- was more from the beginning of me and him working together. We wrote it at the house and brought it to him. Overall, he mixed it up a bit, that's the best way to describe it. The old, and a bit of the new."
  • A version with a different ending was performed by Lamar as "Untitled 2" on the January 7, 2016 episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
  • Part of the first verse was previously used for a sped-up, jacked-up remix to "Ain't That Funkin' Kinda Hard On You?" from Funkadelic's 2014 album First Ya Gotta Shake the Gate. Lamar and George Clinton also worked together on "Wesley's Theory", the opening song of Lamar's album To Pimp A Butterfly.

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Stand By Me: The Perfect Song-Movie Combination

Stand By Me: The Perfect Song-Movie CombinationSong Writing

In 1986, a Stephen King novella was made into a movie, with a classic song serving as title, soundtrack and tone.

Modern A Cappella with Peder Karlsson of The Real Group

Modern A Cappella with Peder Karlsson of The Real GroupSong Writing

The leader of the Modern A Cappella movement talks about the genre.

Jeff Trott

Jeff TrottSongwriter Interviews

Sheryl Crow's longtime songwriting partner/guitarist Jeff Trott reveals the stories behind many of the singer's hits, and what its like to be a producer for Leighton Meester and Max Gomez.

Michael Schenker

Michael SchenkerSongwriter Interviews

The Scorpions and UFO guitarist is also a very prolific songwriter - he explains how he writes with his various groups, and why he was so keen to get out of Germany and into England.

Loudon Wainwright III

Loudon Wainwright IIISongwriter Interviews

"Dead Skunk" became a stinker for Loudon when he felt pressure to make another hit - his latest songs deal with mortality, his son Rufus, and picking up poop.

Little Big Town

Little Big TownSongwriter Interviews

"When seeds that you sow grow by the wicked moon/Be sure your sins will find you out/Your past will hunt you down and turn to tell on you."