To Pimp a Butterfly

Lamar first spoke of the follow-up in a February 2014 interview with Billboard. His trip to South Africa, where he toured sites such as Mandela's cell on Robben Island, changed the direction of the record and led him to scrap two or three albums worth of material. Flying Lotus played him tracks while they were both on the Yeezus Tour. Only the opener Wesley's Theory made the final cut, with Thundercat and George Clinton as guests. Lamar said he listened often to Miles Davis and Parliament-Funkadelic during the sessions. Musicians from the West Coast Get Down, including Kamasi Washington, contributed.

The album was released on iTunes and Spotify eight days early. Anthony Tiffith said the early release was unintentional and apparently an Interscope error. It debuted at number one in the United States with 324,000 copies, and at number one in the UK, and set a first-day streaming record on Spotify with 9.6 million plays. Metacritic scores it 96 from 44 reviews. Pitchfork said the album has half a jazz band present at all times and named pianist Robert Glasper, Terrace Martin and Thundercat. Petridis in the Guardian saw moments of self-indulgence, naming the closing Mortal Man, but said they were offset by gripping material.

It won Best Rap Album at the 2016 Grammys and lost Album of the Year to Taylor Swift's 1989. In The Guardian's 2019 poll of 45 music journalists it was voted fourth best album of the 21st century.