The five-year wait for a new album by Kendrick Lamar — the Pulitzer-anointed, voice-of-a-generation rapper — is finally over.

“Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers,” Lamar’s fifth studio LP and one of the most ardently anticipated new albums in years,

was released overnight on digital services, with big hopes from fans and big questions looming about his next career steps.

The album arrived divided into two nine-track sides and features production from a wide array of musicians across sounds and genres, including Lamar’s frequent collaborators Sounwave and Dahi

the songwriting trio Beach Noise, the veteran hip-hop beatmaker the Alchemist, Pharrell Williams and more.

Featured guests include Beth Gibbons of Portishead, Sampha, Ghostface Killah, Baby Keem, Summer Walker and repeat appearances from the controversial rapper Kodak Black.

Typically dense, introspective, confessional and self-lacerating, “Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers” includes recurring mentions of therapy, “cancel culture”, “daddy issues” and tumultuous romance.

“We Cry Together,” which incorporates a Florence + the Machine sample, takes the form of an argument between Lamar and a woman