We’re about to make it to the end of a calendar year in which none of the Black Hippy dudes released a new album even though they seemed to dominate rap in some very important ways. And now Kendrick Lamar has ascended to the place where he shows up in TV commercials, which is good for him and maybe good for rap. In a new ad for Beats By Dre, Kendrick and Dr. Dre work on a new track, and we get to hear a few crucial seconds of it. It’s hard to divine much future direction from something this brief, but if I were to speculate, I’d say that Kendrick is working on translating his tourettic fast-rap style to a bigger stadium-friendly production style. Check it out below.

Good Kid, m.A.A.d. City is more than a year old now, and I, for one, would very much like to hear a new Kendrick album in 2014.