When Kendrick Lamar dropped his fourth studio album DAMN. back in April of this year, it didn't take long for fans to start hypothesizing different ways to analyze the LP. Though some though K. Dot had plans to release a second album, others realized there was an alternate project already embedded in the album; all you had to do was play it backwards.

“I think like a week after the album came out, [fans] realized you can play the album backwards,” he tells MTV News in a new interview. “It plays as a full story and even a better rhythm. It’s one of my favorite rhythms and tempos within the album. It’s something that we definitely premeditate while we’re in the studio.”

Fans think the entire arc of the story on DAMN. changes when you play it in reverse, but K. Dot isn't so sure. “I don’t think the story necessarily changes, I think the feel changes,” he says. “The initial vibe listening from the top all the way to the bottom is ... this aggression and this attitude. You know, ‘DNA,’ and exposing who I really am. You listen from the back end, and it’s almost the duality and the contrast of the intricate Kendrick Lamar. Both of these pieces are who I am.”