While Denzel Curry was touring for his 2018 project Ta13oo, his manager Mark Maturah, expressed interest in pairing Curry in a recording booth with Kenny Beats. Over a few sessions, the two made 2 to 4 songs, but none of the material stood out to Curry or Beats. Curry recalled that "We had a song called 'Spade' that was hard but it wasn’t breaking any boundaries or setting any trends." The two had a feud over one of these beats being used by another artist, after it was supposed to be featured on Curry's Zuu album, causing Curry to hate Beats for "months." After some time, people reached out to Curry to have him watch Freddie Gibbs' appearance on The Cave, a bi-weekly freestyle series hosted by and uploaded onto YouTube by Beats. Curry had a positive reaction to the episode's freestyle section and called Beats, prompting their first dialogue since their aforementioned feud. In August 2019, Denzel Curry appeared on an episode of The Cave, immediately followed by the pair recording Unlocked. Stereogum and Complex reported that the recording session lasted three days. However, Pitchfork and Consequence of Sound reported that the EP's recording took place over a 24-hour period. In an interview with Pigeons & Planes, Beats mentioned the three day frame of the project's recording, stating "72 hours sounds crazy when you're working at a normal pace but that can happen when someone works as hard as ." Curry mentioned that " cancelled everybody else’s sessions to dedicate time to this. When you get to studio, it's a real vibe. Ain't no fuckery gonna go down in there. He's on go on the keyboard and the pads, and I'm on go with my vocals." In the Pigeons & Planes interview, the duo mentioned Madlib, Stones Throw Records, and the Wu-Tang Clan as influences on the project's sound. Beats' production on the project was noted by multiple outlets for its inclusion of samples.
Release and promotion
The EP was released on February 7, 2020. While there were no singles released prior to the EP, an accompanying short film was released on February 6. Curry and Beats intentionally chose to have a lack of singles for the project. Curry stated in a video interview, "there's no singles, like, the project is the single." Going along with this creative choice led the two to develop the concept of an accompanying short film for the project. Deciding on no singles for the project, but still needing to "figure out a way to get people to tune into something long-form", the two engaged in a fake online beef on Instagram Live and Twitter in order to build hype.
Reception
Unlocked was met with critical acclaim. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received an average score of 81, based on 7 reviews. Trey Alston of MTV wrote that "Unlocked has eight tracks that range from angry, futuristic screaming bars to mid-'90s, boom-bap, DMX-like snarling that Curry's clearly having a good time doing." Salvatore Maicki of The Fader wrote that Unlocked is "a frenetic and saturated endeavor into two minds at the top of their game," singling out the track "DIET_" as the EP's "most savage peak." Neil Z. Yeung of AllMusic stated that, "the set is a thrill to experience and begs for further collaboration." Alphonse Pierre of Pitchfork commended Curry's contributions but wrote that Kenny Beats' production work on the EP was "too neat." Pierre added:
Unlocked feels like it was made out of convenience—like going toChipotle instead of the corner Mexican spot because it'll save you 20 minutes. It's good, sure. Curry is rapping his ass off. But Kenny Beats' production isn't anything new. There are no imperfections, no colors outside of the lines, and with that, it misses some of the heart that makes regional rap special.
Accolades
Accompanying short film
The EP was accompanied by a 24-minute short film, which follows the rapper/producer duo on their journey to retrieve the missingUnlockedaudio files after they are leaked. Each track from the EP is represented by a different visually stylized world in the short film. The film featured both live-action and animated segments. Portions of the animated visuals were done in claymation. Curry stated that he was influenced by various media from his childhood; he expressed wanting to do something "Gorillaz style" for "DIET_". Curry went on to state that Cowboy Bebop served as the base inspiration for the "'Cosmic'.m4a", and that the horror mangaUzumaki influenced the style for "Take_it_Back_v2".
Track listing
All tracks written by Denzel Curry, and produced by Kenny Beats.
