AZ Chike’s Major-Label Debut Has Tyler, the Creator, Pharrell and Kendrick Lamar’s Fingerprints, but No Kendrick Verse

AZ Chike spent two years as the guy who stole “Peekaboo,” and the first thing his debut album does is say so. No Rest for the Wicked arrived Friday (Sept. 18) via Warner Records, 14 tracks long, with Tyler, the Creator on two songs, production from Pharrell Williams, Hit-Boy, Sounwave, Terrace Martin and Tyler, and a very visible Kendrick Lamar influence. Kendrick himself doesn't rap on it.

That last point was the pre-release question. Chike had teased online that his GNX collaborator might appear, and posted photos of them in the studio. HotNewHipHop says a Bootleg Kev interview clears it up. Asked whether Kendrick was on the record, Chike said: “That's my boy... That's all I'ma say,” and described Kendrick and Sounwave as hands-on with the whole project. He also recalled the advice Kendrick gave him on sequencing.

You know how many 'Money Trees' and 'Cartoons & Cereal' I had to take off my album?

AZ Chike, relaying advice from Kendrick Lamar, to Bootleg Kev, HotNewHipHop

He told Kev that Kendrick moved “God's Favorite” up to track three after hearing it, per HotNewHipHop. Pitchfork agrees the sequencing shows: the opening run, from “Mercy” through “Look Like My Mama,” is where the album best shows off his range.

What it sounds like

Pitchfork calls the record a “something for everybody” rap album, with L.A. gangster-rap swing on “God's Favorite” and “Hateful + Grateful,” a mainstream polish on “Lamb Truck Keys” and “Negative,” and two Tyler-produced synth-heavy detours. Complex points to “Uncomfortable Conversations,” where he addresses being enlisted for “Peekaboo,” which peaked at No. 13 on the Hot 100, and Pitchfork singles out “Rock Bottom,” a Hit-Boy production on which he gets vulnerable over an upbeat beat. The Tyler collaborations include “The World Is Ours” and “Look Like My Mama,” whose video recreates scenes from Napoleon Dynamite, Sinners and Men in Black.

AZ Chike - Look Like My Mama ft. Tyler, The CreatorAz Chike · Watch on YouTube ↗

Why it matters

The stakes are a jump from collaborator to headliner. Chike first stepped into the national spotlight at Kendrick's Juneteenth Pop Out in 2024, and, per Pitchfork, had been rapping since 2013 with eight projects before that. Billboard named him its Hip-Hop Up-and-Comer for September and describes a record that mixes “braggadocio” with “introspection and vulnerability.” (The album also survived a leak last November, which he says came the same week Tyler and Kendrick reached out.)

This is me carving my way into hip-hop history.

AZ Chike, to Billboard, Billboard

What's next: his first solo headlining tour, sponsored by Monster Energy, opens Oct. 5 at White Oak Music Hall in Houston and runs through Dallas, Atlanta, New York, Philadelphia, Las Vegas and Berkeley, among others. A deluxe edition of the album is also coming, Billboard reports. For how Kendrick's September has gone otherwise, see Jhené Aiko's No. 1, where he's a guest, and our earlier report on that song.

Added to the High Grailed archive on October 12, 2026.