Jay Rock, Kendrick Lamar & Future’s “King’s Dead” is 2018’s First Great Rap Collab

We're ready for that new Jay Rock album now.

“King's Dead,” the latest fering from the Watts native, features two superstars in fellow TDE MC Kendrick Lamar and Future, as well as English singer-songwriter James Blake, and also happens to be the latest taste the upcoming, Kendrick-curated Black Panther: The Album. Additionally, the record also serves as a restoration hope in the film accompaniment following “All the Stars,” a too-conventional collaboration between Lamar and SZA that fell short its enticing headliner pairing.

Produced by Mike WiLL Made-It and Teddy Walton, “King's Dead” is 2018's first great rap collab and Rock's first release since 2015's 90059. It's a blunt punch to the face that features Jay Rock stutter-stepping across multiple double-time flows, raspy, helium-pitched raps from Future, and a beat switch that will draw comparisons to Kendrick's “DNA.” (complete with a similarly frantic and forceful verse from Kendrick).

So yes, we're still waiting on Black Panther: The Album, coming February 9, but it's nice knowing that “King's Dead” will double as the first taste Rocky's still-untitled third studio album, dropping sooner rather than later.