Lana Del Rey Announces New ‘Freestyle Poetry’ Spoken Word Album

Lana Del Rey has announced she will be releasing a new spoken word album on January 4th. The singer said that half of the LP’s proceeds will benefit Native American organizations.

In an Instagram video, she explained that her upcoming book of poetry, Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass, is taking a while to hand bind, and also announced the new LP. “I knew I wanted the album to be around a dollar because I just love the idea that thoughts are meant to be shared and that they were priceless in some way,” she said. “And there was a second part that I had been thinking of before releasing it, which was that I wanted half of what the spoken word album was going for to benefit Native American organizations around the country, whether it was for preserving their rights or trying to help keep their land intact.

“I had wanted to do it because in doing my own work in connecting to my own family lineage I was encouraged to also try to connect to the country’s lineage,” she continued. “This was a while ago, and it kind of informed the next album that I’d been working on. And I just really wanted to sort of pay homage to the country that I love so much by doing my own reparation, I guess I would say, my own reparative act. And so I know it’s a bit of an unusual choice and I have no reasoning for it other than it just feels right to me. And so for as long as my album, my spoken word album is distributed, half of it will be going to Native American organizations across America.”

She described the album as being a bit “more gritty” and likened it to “freestyle poetry.” The singer added that a different organization will benefit from the proceeds each year that the album remains on sale.