David Bowie's upcoming album 'Blackstar' is inspired by rapper Kendrick Lamar.
The 68-year-old singer has been busy recording his 25th studio album with long-time producer Tony Visconti and the studio mastermind has revealed the pair spent a lot of time listening to the 'Poetic Justice' hitmaker's LPs and they were very impressed by his ability to veer between different musical genres.
Tony said: “We were listening to a lot of Kendrick Lamar. We wound up with nothing like that, but we loved the fact Kendrick was so open-minded and he didn't do a straight-up hip hop record. He threw everything on there, and that's exactly what we wanted to do. The goal, in many, many ways, was to avoid rock and roll.”
Another artist to have an impact on the record was LCD Soundsystem founder James Murphy, who plays drums on two of the tracks.
Speaking to Rolling Stone magazine, Tony said: “At one point we were talking about three producers for the album: David, James and myself.
“[James] was there for a brief time, but he had his own projects to go off to.”
'Blackstar' will be released through RCA on January 8, 2016, which will be Bowie's 69th birthday.
The release comes three years after the music legend's surprise LP 'The Next Day', which was his first album in a decade and went on to top charts around the world.
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