Flying Lotus Says The Next Captain Murphy Album Is Coming Soon

It’s almost two years since Flying Lotus released Duality, his project under his rap alter ego Captain Murphy. There have been subtle hints that new material from Captain Murphy is on its way with “Between Villains”, and "Cosplay," as well as an epic origin story on Adult Swim. Even on FlyLo’s upcoming album You’re Dead!, he’s making an appearance as Captain Murphy too. What looks like a reemergence of hip-hop’s favorite mysterious character is more of reminder that he’s coming back sooner than you’d imagine.

Recently, Flying Lotus revealed that Kendrick Lamar rapped over beats that were set aside for his Captain Murphy album. Speaking with XXL, the Los Angeles native confirms he’s still working on it despite having to essentially start over again. When asked if he plans to go “darker” for the second go-around, he says he wants to focus on more storytelling.

“When I mean darker, I meant deeper. I wanted to be more storytelling. I feel like I haven’t found the space that I want to create from just yet. It’s around the corner, but it might sound different. I recorded a bunch of stuff,” he says. “I was in a weird place when I did [“Between Villians”] and I thought that was gonna be the kick off for the rest of it. I did like another song and I haven’t done one in quite a while. I did one recently. I would like to do it soon.”

Back in January 2013, Flying Lotus told XXL that he’s enjoying the freedom of putting out the project on his terms. “I’m not in any rush to finish it. But I love doing it. I am having so much fun doing this new character thing,” he said. “It’s just the thing to do when I got words to write. Because of that buzz that is there and it's building, it’s really encouraging. I feel like a new artist again.”

Even though Flying Lotus has confirmed Captain Murphy’s identity, day one fans are curious to learn about the character’s past. A petition created by Matthew Martin this month has been circulating the Internet that pushes Adult Swim to create The Birth Of Captain Murphy into an animated series. Flying Lotus is aware of it as well, but wants a proper narrative before moving things forward. He also sees an animated series tying into his next Captain Murphy album.

“To me, I’m more interested in getting a good story first before anything. I want the story to be interesting and engaging to people. I want to try something that will inspire the music, which will inspire the show and make it more cyclical in that way than being an offshoot idea.”

He continued, “I’m just taking it easy and let it happen naturally. I don’t want to force [the Captain Murphy album] one out. I didn’t expect anything to happen with the last one. I thought that it was going to be my little secret forever. It was supposed to be something that I did that didn’t have pressure on it. But now its like, 'Aw, shit.' [Laughs] And every year that I don’t do something, there’s more pressure on it. I don’t want it to be like Detox or something. [Laughs] ‘Yeah, it’s coming out! Someday, sometime!’”—Eric Diep