Kendrick Lamar‘s engineer has claimed that fans have still yet to discover a number of hidden easter eggs from his last album Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers.
In a resurfaced interview from last year, veteran mixing engineer Manny Marroquin detailed Kendrick’s creative process and the thought he puts into his music.
He said: “It’s such a deep album. 10 years from now, some people are gonna get it. They’ll be like,’ ‘Oh, this is what’s happening.’
“There’s a lot of easter eggs along the way that when people start discovering them, it’s gonna have new life and new listeners. But he won’t talk about them which is a shame.
Marroquin added: “I wish people would hear what he’s told me about the album and how this song connects to this song and this lyric is an answer to a question. I mean, can people please find out? Because it would blow your mind.”
“Mixing engineer Manny Marroquin talks about Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers mixing process and about how he wishes Kendrick would reveal the album’s easter eggs (interview from 2023) pic.twitter.com/VgU796iAmB
— Man-Man (@numnumjuice) September 23, 2024
Kendrick fans are generally pretty good at finding hidden references in his music, especially during his beef with Drake this past summer.
While the video for his chart-topping diss track “Not Like Us” was full of obvious visual jabs at the 6 God, it wasn’t until weeks after its release that eagle-eyed fans noticed a potentially deeper hidden reference in the clip.
One part of the self-directed video sees K. Dot recreating a scene that resembles a photo of model and actress Mila Jovovich as he raps: “Say, Drake, I hear you like ’em young / You better not ever go to cell block one / To any bitch that talk to him and they in love / Just make sure you hide your lil’ sister from him.”
Jovovich, who is best known for starring in Resident Evil, was caught in the middle of various underage scandals herself.
The Ukrainian-born star was discovered while still a minor by French model agency boss Jean-Luc Brunel, who was later accused of raping a child and supplying young girls to convicted 𝓈ℯ𝓍 trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. He hung himself in prison before trial.
When she was 16, Jovovich was briefly married to 21-year-old actor Shawn Andrews and later married The Fifth Element director Luc Besson, who had previously been in a relationship with a 15-year-old when he was 32 and has been accused of rape by multiple women.
The discovery led to viewers hailing Kendrick as a “genius” for the apparent vieled jab.
The Compton rap star also seemingly buried an anti-Drake easter egg in his recent video announcing himself as the headliner of next year’s Super Bowl halftime show.
Some connected the stars and stripes theme of the clip to a scene from the 1970 film Patton in which World War II military general George S. Patton delivers a rousing speech to troops about American’s love of combat.
Some viewed the potential connection as another dig at Drake, whose Canadian heritage provided ammo for Kendrick in their high-profile battle.