Over six years ago, about one week after the release of Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly, Grammy-nominated artist, musician, and producer Terrace Martin, in a philosophical conversation with Lamar, discussed a growing desensitization and a general lack of compassion amongst society. This conversation quickly led to the birth of the title track, “Drones”.

To further bring this unrest to sound, Martin called on friends, neighbors, and collaborators to have long conversations about the environment, technology, the state of the world, and more. Drones was crafted in an effort to balance an unmasking and celebration of the lived Black American experience in what Martin describes as a “Black Disneyland”. The star-studded effort features collaborations with Lamar, Snoop Dogg, Leon Bridges, Cordae, Ty Dolla$ign, Robert Glasper, Kamasi Washington, YG, James Fauntleroy, D Smoke, Channel Tres, Smino, Celeste, Malaya, Kim Burrell and Hit-Boy, as well as Martin on sax, keys, vocals and more.

“There are touches of R&B, touches of jazz, touches of hip-hop, touches of classical, Cuban music, West African music, house music,” says Martin. “You’re going to hear all elements of Black music within this record. It’s not one element I can leave out if I call myself a true Black artist.”