Kendrick Lamar Scores New Chanel Film The Button

The first new music from Kendrick Lamar since 2022 has arrived in the form of a score for a new short film titled The Button, celebrating the Chanel Spring-Summer 2024 Haute Couture show next week.

At “the invitation of” Chanel’s creative director, Virginie Viard, The Button is a collaborative project between the brand and Lamar’s media company with Dave Free, pgLang. The three-minute, black-and-white short film was written by Free, and stars Margaret Qualley, Anna Mouglalis, and supermodel Naomi Campbell.

Following the arc of The Button’s plot, Lamar’s score — itself possibly a snippet of an unreleased song — is built around a driving beat, and features a subdued verse from the rapper, as well as a brief vocal hook. Check it out below.

pgLang first hinted at a collaboration with Chanel in the summer of 2023, and Lamar was seen donning Chanel at last year’s Paris Couture Week. Now, The Button arrives ahead of the brand’s Spring-Summer 2024 Haute Couture show, with a message at the end of the three-minute video reading: “The film of the show will be revealed on Tuesday, January 23rd, 2024 at 2 p.m., Paris time.”

This is the first new music we’ve heard from Lamar since 2022’s Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, other than a few appearances, including a feature on Baby Keem’s “The Hillbillies” and a newly-recorded verse on “Bad Blood” for Taylor Swift’s 1989 (Taylor’s Version).