Details are emerging slowly but surely about Kendrick Lamar’s new album. Even when speaking to his close homie and longtime supporter Big Boy earlier this week, Kendrick would not say much about his sophomore major label release. Swearing that Top Dawg would “kill him” if he spilled the beans on the title, Monday (March 9)’s 92.3FM appearance in Los Angeles, California came approximately 36 hours before the TDE star did reveal the title, To Pimp A Butterfly.

Twelve days from the March 23 release date, K-Dot quenched some curiosity—only slightly, in a conversation with Rolling Stone, on which he is the cover subject. “That will be taught in college courses someday,” said the MC about the title and the album’s contents. The album—which he says is both “fearful” and “unapologetic” deals greatly with race. Lamar explained, “You take a Black kid out of Compton and put him in the limelight, and you find answers about yourself you never knew you were searching for.”

Rolling Stone also reported this about the making of To Pimp A Butterfly:

“Sonically, Lamar’s new album is adventurous, incorporating elements of funk, spoken-word poetry, and free-jazz, augmented by lots of live playing. (Lamar says he was listening to a lot of Miles Davis and Parliament while making it.) “It’s a unique sound,” says Sounwave. “Every producer I’ve ever met was sending me stuff [for the album], but there was a one-in-a-million chance you could send a beat that actually fit what we were doing.” Lamar’s longtime engineer, Derek “MixedByAli” Ali, says the rapper would often talk in moods: “He would say, ‘I want it to sound eerie,’ or ‘I want it to sound like you’re driving past something.’ Or he talks in colors: ‘Make it sound purple. Make it sound light green.’”

Quite cleverly, Rolling Stone is holding their complete Kendrick cover story for the newstands on March 13, and iTunes customers.

Related: Is Kendrick Lamar’s “Butterfly” Artwork The Next Classic Hip-Hop Image?