Kendrick Lamar’s Mysterious ‘Damn’ Collaborator Bēkon Has Been Revealed

Kendrick Lamar‘s new album Damn is stacked with enviable guest appearances and proven producers. Rihanna, U2, James Blake, Thundercat, and Kaytranada all show up with memorable contributions, but one mysterious name had fans scratching their heads: Bēkon.

Bēkon has a producer credit on Damn tracks “Blood,” “Yah,” “Element,” “Pride,” “XXX,” “Fear,” “God,” and “Duckworth.” Bēkon is also credited with additional vocals on each of those tracks, sans “Element.” But who the hell is Bēkon? Assuming you’re not already overwhelmed with Easter Sunday x Damn sequel speculation, let’s take a look at some of the early (i.e. wrong) Bēkon identity theories that briefly persisted following Damn‘s release.

At least one person posited that Bēkon could simply be a production pseudonym for Lamar:

But would this explain Bēkon’s vocal credits? Not exactly, which is where another fan’s guess came in:

Of course, Thundercat already has a bass credit on “Feel.” So maybe the (jokingly suggested) bacon/Bēkon mini-investigation below made more sense?

Or maybe Bēkon could have been Jesus?

Or Taylor Swift?

Thankfully, those guesses are both extremely doubtful. Also, they’re totally wrong. A response to Pitchfork‘s questioning of Bēkon, however, presented the genuinely interesting possibility that Bēkon was none other than Danny Keyz:

The @iambekon Instagram account’s most recent post is a photo of Kendrick recording vocals:

On Friday afternoon, Pitchfork confirmed that Bēkon is indeed the producer formerly known as Danny Keyz. Previously, Keyz Bēkon’s work has appeared on albums from Emile Haynie, Dr. Dre, and Eminem.