Hip-hop heavyweight Kendrick Lamar surprised fans with an unexpected release Thursday night; an eight track album of unorthodox titles, but quite orthodox Kendrick style.

“Untitled. Unmastered.” Is made up of songs that did not make the cut on to his recent Grammy winning album, “To Pimp A Butterfly,” as well as demos that were meant to be saved for a different date, but don’t let this lower your expectations.

This is still Kendrick Lamar and this album is far more than leftovers.

One of the first stand out moments in this album is the lyrics of “Untitled 1 | 08.19.2014.”

“I made To Pimp a Butterfly ‘fore you told me to use my vocals to save mankind for you. Say I didn’t try for you, say I didn’t ride for you. I tithed for you, I pushed the club to the side for you…”

With these lyrics, Kendrick is portraying and reflecting on the weight of his music and its meaning. This goes beyond some of his previous songs like m.A.A.d City and Swimming Pools that were great tracks to pump up a club or party. This is Kendrick saying his vocals are embedded with soul and meaning and that he pushed aside club appeal to make music that meant more to him.

With this school of thought, “Untitled 2 | 06.23.2014.” shows off Kendrick’s exploration of using his voice as an instrument rather than simply rapping fast and loud. The almost sporadic vocals in the verse show his experimentation of fusing jazz and hip-hop into his vocals.

Speaking of jazz, it is here in the second track where we start to hear the saxophone.

The influences of free jazz and funk found throughout “To Pimp a Butterfly” are consistent through this new and closely associated album as well.

One of the main producers for “To Pimp a Butterfly” and the songs of “Unmastered. Untitled.” is Sounwave, a.k.a Mark Spears. Spears mentioned in an interview with Spin that Kendrick and the whole band would listen to Parliament nonstop while on tour and the inspiration for the band that had songs like “Give Up The Funk” can be heard in songs like “Untitled 8 | 09.06.2014.”

The bass, synthesizer and backup vocals make this and many of Kendrick songs stand out in the modern Hip-Hop field. While the eighth track is all funk, “Untitled 05 | 09.21.2014” best shows the jazz influence.

Beginning with a bassline that defies the mainstream rap expectations and a cymbal-led drum beat, Untitled 05 is then joined by piano and brass instruments that sound more like something from Miles Davis than a modern rapper. Again, Kendrick here uses his music to portrait bigger ideas, this time his view of a flawed American justice system.

“Justice ain’t free, therefore justice ain’t me…Why you wanna see a good man with a broken heart? … I know that I’m intelligence, my confidence just died.”

Even if the jazz and funk influences are not for you, the typical rap beats are still infused with Kendrick’s unique voice in “Untitled 07 | 2014 – 2016.” With a rhythm and major theme change halfway through, the song still shows creativity and experimentation but is still the go-to track if you’re looking for something to blast in your car.

It is in this seventh track were Kendrick once again realizes his importance in the hip-hop world, saying “Hope it’s evident that I inspired a thousand emcees to do better” before the track fades out into three minutes of messing around in the studio.

In the past year, Kendrick has played some of these songs live; flashing glimpses of this previously unreleased work with the second and eighth songs being played on late night talk shows.

So it may feel like this is not a true album release, rather a bonus set of songs that were not good enough for the initial album, but this undercuts the quality of the content. These songs were written and recorded at the same time as “To Pimp a Butterfly,” which went on to win the Grammy for best rap album along with numerous other accolades.

This album is not “To Pimp A Butterfly” part two, but this is an album that is so much more than meets the eye, since your first impression will be a green album cover and eight awkwardly titled tracks. Now we have a new(ish) set of songs to hold us over until Kendrick releases truly new material and seeing how original and rich this interim album is, I hope we’ll be ready.