Kendrick Lamar: ‘Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers’ Review
9.0
GENRE: Rap
YEAR OF RELEASE: 2022Hailed as the “savior of hip-hop” and the “greatest rapper of his generation,” Kendrick Lamar returns to the podium after five long years, beginning his long-awaited fifth studio album, Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, with a simple phrase: “I’ve been going through something.” After a hiatus of one thousand eight hundred fifty-five days, he sits us down with this double album to present us his views, ask us his questions, and re-establish his identity; not as the savior of hip-hop, but as a man with flaws and a deep resolve to understand and hopefully overcome those flaws.
Kendrick jumps at us right from the start, with brisk piano strikes shaping his bouncy triplet flow as he ponders the world around him and his sacrifices to get to his place. Suddenly, as if he becomes self-aware of his rambling, he yells at us, proclaiming, “I went and got me a therapist, I can debate on my theories and sharing it.” After talking a bit more about the world around him, his frustration with his status, his world being a “cul-de-sac,” we are interrupted by a rushed drum break. He’s back to his daily life, indulging in excess to suppress negative emotions, and he can do it to the maximum with his status as the world’s greatest rapper. These lines, on the surface, seem braggadocious, but his delivery screams with the intention of seeking help—verses such as “bought a couple of mansions, just for practice” and “I bought a Rolex watch, I only wore it once; I bought infinity pools, I never swam in” are followed abruptly by Kendrick saying in a defeated voice, “I grieve different.” This is where we receive the answer for his excess, the understanding of trauma, and the realization that the rapper has been bottled in a lot of pain over the years just to keep climbing the mountain of rap stardom.
The rest of the album, with the movement of a Broadway play, ties in more and more stories that help us understand the man behind the microphone and give us another look at societal understandings of dealing with trauma, mental health issues, and loss. Kendrick offers himself up on the platter to be stripped down to his very core on songs such as “Father Time,” where his voice chokes back tears as he speaks about toxic masculinity being passed down from father to son; about choking back the same tears as a child because it was an indication of weakness. On the other side, we see the ugliest forms that love can take on the song “We Cry Together,” where Kendrick and Taylour Paige scream tightly-delivered lines laced with toxicity at each other over an ominous piano backing that screams influence from “Kim” by Eminem. He doesn’t try to clean up any of the mess in these moments or any of the scrutiny that the words may bring upon him; this is Kendrick unfiltered and uncensored for 78 minutes. The songs throughout the project, no matter how difficult the words may be to hear, are easy on the ears, never jarring or disconcerting, but adding to the discombobulation and feeling of being scrambled that Kendrick feels.
For fans of old Kenny, however, don’t fret—we still get the bangers that Kendrick is so good at delivering. “N95” has been on rotation in many people’s playlists for months, with Kendrick’s intense and aggressive flow bouncing over a beat laced with beautiful piano keys, trap-inspired hi-hats, and synths that scream “Baby Keem was here” all over them; there’s also “Silent Hill,” where Kendrick raps about the age-old “snakes in the grass” with a hook that’s funny as hell and a Kodak Black assist that’s controversial at worst and equally humorous at best.
Kendrick is answering some of the most critical questions of present-day life. In attempting to relay the truth about himself and his own thoughts, he forces the listener to take a good look at themselves as well—songs like “Die Hard” touch on trust issues and go with things like drugs and sex to alleviate the emotional pressure many feel. Confronting your feelings after running from them for so long is difficult, and that’s the same thing Kendrick challenges us to confront as he confronts it himself on this album.
These topics are indicative of the larger struggle that people like Kendrick face as well; rappers from low-income backgrounds suddenly running into money and fame happens all the time, and yet no one sits down and asks why they have so many problems with the law and leaving the streets even after making it. The inclusion of Kodak Black and Baby Keem is used to present two different case studies of that as well; Kodak, with his various run-ins with the law and controversial past, pleads for understanding as he races for redemption on this album. Baby Keem, on the other hand, plays out the role of breaking generational curses, using the taste of success to ensure that same success for his children and grandchildren to stay in the green forever and never have to worry about falling back down. Through this dichotomy, we are presented with the two sides of Kendrick—what could’ve been versus what actually happened.
As strong of a showing as this is, Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers does not come without weaknesses. The feeling of togetherness and epic scale that we expected after To Pimp a Butterfly and excused on DAMN is still absent on this album, and it is further deconstructed as Kendrick further moves past grandiose instrumental production and narrative story-telling that I personally fell in love with with “GKMC.” The need to label this a double album is also a loss, as, with only 78 minutes of runtime, the “double album” status seems to have been billed purely to establish the narrative of the album. The same could have been accomplished without a double album status, even without changing the tracklist, as the song “Count Me Out” plays as a beautiful transition into the rest of the album. I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention that the use of the f slur in “Auntie Diaries” took away my taste for what is otherwise a truly beautiful song about breaking the generational understanding of the LGBTQ+ community; that’s one that I just can’t come back to unless I have to for the purpose of writing this review.
None of this, however, means that this is in any way a bad album. It is just…different. This isn’t the Kendrick who’s known for telling you you’re gonna be alright or the one that’s telling you to sit down and be humble. No. This is a Kendrick soberly asking himself if everything he’s done is worth being the man that he is now, confronting that he may not be the man he thinks he is, and accepting that he cannot be the man that everyone wants him to be. And while he opts for more experimental production in the lane of a Yeezus—with more than his usual boundary-pushing jazz/hip-hop infusion—he still manages to bring a unique piece of music that is unmistakably his to the table.
Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers is beautifully painful and terrifyingly real. Whether he’s whispering with a crooning Beth Gibbons on “Mother, I Sober” or urgently rapping with aggressive yelps to accompany him on “Mr. Morale,” he refuses to play any character but himself and present any perspective other than his own. He chooses himself as he sings with some proper release and joy on the outro track, “Mirror.” Stepping down from the mantle that an entire culture has agreed to hand to him, and returning to his family and God, Kendrick tells us that he cannot be anyone’s savior but his own. By choosing himself, he asks us to choose ourselves as well. Tie it all together, and you have what may be the most important hip-hop album of 2022.
Listen to Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers:
Tove Lo’s fifth studio album is a kick in the head: blunt lyricism, ‘80s synth-pop, ‘70s glam and disco, femininity, heartbreak, and sex. Take it all in.