Following the premiere of his new single, “i,” Kendrick Lamar spoke with Los Angeles, California radio station Power 106’s Big Boy’s Neighborhood regarding his new material.

“I think music is universal,” Kendrick Lamar says. “It’s an expression. No matter how it comes across, as long as it always remains you, that’s how they’re gonna respect it and they’re gonna have a connection with it.”

The song, which can be heard here, acts as a self affirmation anthem. “I love myself,” Lamar says in the cut’s chorus over a beat that samples The Isley Brothers’ “That Lady.”

Lamar says he obtained Ronald Isley’s blessing for the track. “I got a chance to meet him and even got him on the ad libs for the record,” Lamar says. “You can hear him.” K. Dot says it was important for him to do that because he does not want to “butcher” a record.

Kendrick, who says his parents love the new single, is still working on his upcoming album, according to the TDE emcee, who says he has seven songs ready for the project. Those seven songs have made the cut following a process that includes cutting out tracks that he doesn’t feel are perfect 10s.

“I record a bunch of ideas and I really just sit and live with them until I feel like they got a potential of being a 10,” he says. “Those be the keepers.”

The ones that don’t make the cut remain in a vault forever, he says. That vault includes songs that didn’t make good kid, m.A.A.d. city. “I got a good kid vault that’s probably gonna never come out just for my own enjoyment,” he says.

Kendrick, who names Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Jay Z and Eminem as artists he’s enjoyed working with, says there’s no release date for his upcoming album.

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