For most of the day so far, the music world was focused on looking back at the first weekend of Coachella. Everything changed this afternoon, though, when Kendrick Lamar came out of nowhere and announced that his next album is called Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers and it’s set for release on May 13.
Lamar shared the news via a tweet and almost immediately after doing so, he became the No. 1 trending topic on Twitter. While most of the conversation consisted of excited knee-jerk reactions to the news, some fans took a minute to observe how Lamar’s announcement bears a striking resemblance (intentionally, it appears) to an iconic Michael Jordan moment.
Lamar shared the news via a simple letter that plainly states the news of his album, with the formatting of the note seemingly modeled after the famously minimalist fax MJ sent in 1995 to confirm he was ending his retirement and returning to the NBA. Journalist Andreas Hale also observed that Lamar’s announcement comes almost exactly 27 years after Jordan’s: MJ’s note was dated March 18, 1995, while Lamar’s is from today, April 18.
Imitating the Jordan fax has actually become a bit of a trend in hip-hop lately: Migos did the same thing last May and Logic followed suit the next month.
Check out some more Lamar reactions, to both the Jordan similarities and to the album news more broadly, below.
Kendrick really pulled a Michael Jordan, GOAT shit pic.twitter.com/9AXmWFI57l
— lil mumu. 🇵🇸 (@mautezawad) April 18, 2022
Kendrick is back
LFG
— Denzel Curry (@denzelcurry) April 18, 2022
Kendrick
— illmind.eth (@illmindPRODUCER) April 18, 2022
https://twitter.com/kevinabstract/status/1516126738589237248
Kendrick Lamar is quite literally the Michael Jordan of rap https://t.co/ocdmUeQRNh pic.twitter.com/4ROMGeCPRg
— Michael Sykes, II (@MikeDSykes) April 18, 2022
I love that no one has any idea what to expect from this Kendrick record… except that it will be awesome.
— Noah Callahan-Bever (@N_C_B) April 18, 2022
Kendrick fans right now 😭😂 pic.twitter.com/91OLTLQXyH
— NFR Podcast (@nfr_podcast) April 18, 2022
Pusha T Album: April 22nd
Future Album: April 29th
Kendrick Lamar Album: May 13th pic.twitter.com/IzOi84nA0A
— Piñata Farms: The Meme App (@pinatafarms) April 18, 2022
“kendrick is finally dropping after 5 years”: a thread pic.twitter.com/UHbZo4J2bl
— Genius (@Genius) April 18, 2022
kendrick lamar saw this shit and said ‘yall really struggling out here i gotchu’ https://t.co/YlYBekZF0M
— mariano 🦦 (@oscos) April 18, 2022
Frank Ocean and Rihanna fans watching Kendrick fans get a new album: pic.twitter.com/JStketG1Vy
— Toxic💫 (@Illestchoppa) April 18, 2022