Kendrick Lamar Credits His Children For Release Of His New Album 'Mr. Morale' - Here's Why

Kendrick Lamar‘s fans have his children to thank for the gift of new music.

The 35-year-old To Pimp a Butterfly rapper dropped his album Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers earlier this year. However, he revealed that the confessional project almost didn’t see the light of day.

He opened up about hesitancies he had regarding releasing the project in an interview with W Magazine and said that thinking about his two children inspired him to put it out.

Click inside to find out Kendrick Lamar’s kids inspired him and to read a couple other highlights from the interview…

On how his children helped him push past his insecurities to put out the album: “When I got to completion and I said, ‘I may or may not put this out; I’m not going to put this out; it’s way too much,’ I thought about my children… I thought about when they turn 21, or they’re older in life, and when I got grandchildren, or if I’m long gone—this can be a prerequisite of how to cope. That’s the beauty of it for me.”

On the seeds of Mr. Morale growing inside him for a long time: “It’s stuff that I’ve written that’s just now seeing daylight, because I wasn’t secure with myself in order to do it…. It was really about not being insecure [or] tormented by opinions…When I did this, it was kind of .the marker and the growth of everything I’ve always wanted to say. I think that was really my purpose of writing my way out of things that I was feeling, from the time I was 9 years old, all the way up to 35.”

On the most rewarding part of this latest album: “I’ve had rewards for my other albums in different ways, whether it was accolades, whether it was the Pulitzer, whether it was the Grammys… this one is the reward for humanity for me.”

Check out the rest of Kendrick‘s interview here.

In case you missed it, Kendrick was the featured performer for the season premiere of Saturday Night Live earlier this month.