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Kendrick Lamar And The Weeknd Team Up For 'Pray For Me'

Kendrick Lamar joins The Weeknd on stage during the "Legends of The Fall Tour" in 2017.
Rich Fury
/
Getty Images
Kendrick Lamar joins The Weeknd on stage during the "Legends of The Fall Tour" in 2017.

Just days after Kendrick Lamar shared the official tracklist to Marvel's Black Panthersoundtrack, the rapper and Toronto R&B star The Weeknd unleash their collaboration from the album, "Pray For Me."

"Tell me who's goin' save me from myself / When this life is all I know? / Tell me / Who's goin' save me from this hell? / Without you, I'm all alone," croons Weeknd over the analog, quasi-dance beat.

"Pray For Me," produced by Sounwave, CuBeatz, Cardo and Matt Schaeffer, sounds like a bonus track off Weeknd's 2016 album Starboy:futuristic and fast-paced. Though Kendrick lends his talents by adding in a rap verse, this song was clearly made for The Weeknd to run with. The Weeknd and K. Dot have been mutual fans of one another for years and "Pray For Me" marks the second time the two chart-toppers have collaborated, following their 2016 track "Sidewalks" off Starboy.

Other famous features on the Kendrick Lamar and TDE-curated soundtrack range from Travis Scott and 2 Chainz to James Blake and Jorja Smith. "Pray For Me" is the third official preview off the album following "All The Stars" and "King's Dead." Fans now know that this cut appears as the last song on Black Panther: The Album and it closes out the project on a menacing note.


Black Panther: The Album drops Feb. 9 via Interscope Records.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Sidney Madden is a reporter and editor for NPR Music. As someone who always gravitated towards the artforms of music, prose and dance to communicate, Madden entered the world of music journalism as a means to authentically marry her passions and platform marginalized voices who do the same.