Six years after his last LP, It Is What It Is, Thundercat will release his fifth studio album, Distracted, on April 3. The new album features contributions from A$AP Rocky, WILLOW, Tame Impala, Channel Tres, and a previously unreleased collaboration with Mac Miller, who passed away in 2018.
“The reality of what life has been for me is that I have never really stopped working,” Thundercat says in a statement. “So I know this is not inherently the reason why my album has taken so long. But I feel like it’s more indicative of how things feel right now.”
For the past decade, Thundercat has worked with numerous artists and producers who embrace the same sense of looseness in their music. Whether it’s an unorthodox bass line or a spoken passage delivered through layered instrumentation, his playing often pushes beyond the usual role of the bass. His work with Kendrick Lamar on To Pimp a Butterfly in 2015 positioned him as a key part of the album’s jazz backbone. Collaborations with Tame Impala, Gorillaz, and Flying Lotus followed, where his approach to the instrument consistently stretched what it could do within a song.
In Distracted, Thundercat reflects on the current state of the world, creating an album that asks listeners to stay present with both its sound and its ideas. The record zeroes in on the tension of constant information, where attention itself becomes harder to hold.
“You have the world at your fingertips with the phone and everything, on a daily basis, you process way too much information,” he says. “It’s very hard to differentiate the difference between things that are very important versus things that are just stuff and things. And the things that are of great importance are also made to seem very muddled. And, you know, I mean, just kind of take a look at what’s going on socially politically in the world. You know, it’s a really messy place right now.”
Habits of Distraction
For Thundercat, the essential things and priorities start to blur when everything is delivered at a chaotic pace. The constant stream of updates, reactions, and noise flattens what should feel urgent. In that environment, even music risks being treated the same way, reduced to something more passive. What Distracted pushes against is that habit. It asks for time and attention, even when the instinct is to move on quickly to the next thing.
“I think that the important things in life right now are very mixed in with a lot of the insanity of the internet,” he says. “And it’s really messed up in the actual level of injustice going on in the world, as we can see, on a global scale and also on a national scale. But it also shows up the same as a meme, you know, a lot of people are trying to grab ahold of anything, you know, it’s almost like you have to put your phone down, but you can’t.”
On a lighter note, the album’s overall package goes into a more playful energy, something Thundercat says listeners can still enjoy despite its heavier themes.
“I’m going to have acrobats and I’m going to bring a juggling bear, and I’m going to do some sword swallowing,” he says. “And… no [laughs] I’m gonna go, man, just try to have a good time, you know what I mean? I think it’ll be fun.”
