Kendrick Lamar Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers
Internal conflict has long been the crux of Kendrick Lamar’s music. His best work is tangled in layers of contradiction and dissonance, as unvarnished in its transparency as it is scrupulous in its articulation. Previous efforts have painted staggering, textured portraits of internalized racism and generational trauma, all colored with the toxic allure of institutionalized violence. This emotional push-and-pull is Lamar’s bread and butter, so when he deadpans “I been going through something” in the early moments of his fifth album, it feels like an intentional oversimplification.
Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers is the rapper’s most explicit exercise in duality, structured in two distinct halves. It’s an ambitious concept; in the era of the long hip hop album, a throughly engaging double-length project is an imposing task. Lamar has shown us he’s capable of captivating for imposing stretches of time - his 2015 classic To Pimp a Butterfly surpasses Mr. Morale’s runtime by only a few minutes. That album’s indulgent, overflowing brilliance left ample room for excess, but here, nothing feels gratuitous or out of place - each element is carefully placed, every interlude an essential piece of scenery. The record’s first half is tougher, more confrontational, often brimming with hubris - single “N95” seethes with understated aggression, one of the least transparent moments here. Its latter half, however, is softer by design, searching and open-ended, seeking closure but reaching no easy conclusions.
Lamar is arguably the greatest rapper of his time, an accolade that has graced his standing for so long as to be uncontroversial. He’s respected by diehards and casual listeners alike, famously garnering hip hop’s first Pulitzer Prize for his standing opus, 2017’s DAMN. His albums are structured with the artful hand of a novelist, skillful at foreshadowing and interweaving coexisting themes and motifs. This is his most thematically complex and morally complicated work to date, rewarding deep focus and repeated listens - even at its daunting length, the details whiz by, and intricate patterns float just out of focus. In between its labyrinthine rhyme schemes and dynamic instrumentation, Kendrick grapples with attitudes towards therapy and emotional hygiene, the ramifications of abandonment, misogyny, “lust addiction,” and transphobia. All of it gushes forth in overwhelming volume - “writer’s block for two years, nothing moved me,” he confides on “Worldwide Steppers,” “[I] asked God to speak through me.”
He often approaches thorny topics from polar perspectives, not so much playing devil’s advocate as he is navigating the struggle to do right. In the period since his last effort, Kendrick has gotten engaged and fathered two children, an evolution that imbues Mr. Morale with an increased urgency. He spends much of the album deconstructing his own evolving attitudes towards women, acknowledging and working through his prejudices. “We Cry Together” is an unsettling listen, a harrowing screaming match between Lamar and actress Taylour Paige that grapples with generations of unhealthy gender dynamics. It’s one of the few moments in which Lamar employs a woman’s perspective to amplify his own distortions, a welcome shift away from his pointedly masculine point of view.
The confounding presence of Florida rapper and abuser Kodak Black adds an extra layer of discomfort to the album’s narrative - he appears here three separate times, an uneasy specter of misogynistic violence. Assuming Lamar’s best intent, he’s meant as a moral foil, but on an album that name checks Harvey Weinstein and R. Kelly as notable perpetrators of abuse, Kodak’s involvement is curious. On “Mr. Morale,” Kendrick muses out loud, “I think about Robert Kelly / if he wasn’t molested, I wonder if life’ll fail him,” which might register as a defense if not followed by a moment of greater empathy: “I wonder if Oprah found closure / the way that she postered the hurt that a woman carries.” The rapper’s fiancée Whitney is a guiding force here, empowering him to unpack years of trauma. This dynamic runs the risk of enabling the black woman savior complex - see Jay-Z’s 4:44, which transferred the weight of the rapper’s guilt to Beyoncé. But Lamar makes no qualms about owning his shit; “some people put it on the devil when they fall short,” he raps on “Count Me Out,” “put it on my ego, lord of all lords.”
Kendrick takes great pride in his newfound stability, emerging with a series of moving personal truths: “I grieve different,” “I can’t please everybody,” “I choose me, I’m sorry.” It’s a fundamental shift from his early work, replacing the bottled, misdirected rage of good kid, mA.A.d city with patience and self-respect. He extends this compassion to the women in his life, reckoning with resentment towards his father and his own patterns of abuse in order to take accountability and make amends. The much-discussed “Auntie Diaries” is the most affecting self-critique here, a deeply complicated love letter to two transgender family members that tussles with his own misconceptions, inching from denial to acceptance, from acceptance to protective embrace. The frequent misgendering and liberal use of the “f-bomb” is unnerving, and many in the queer community have take taken objection. Ultimately, black trans voices should control the conversation about its impact, and his delivery is subject to criticism, regardless of its intention. But “Auntie Diaries” is most striking for its vulnerable, imperfect execution, allowing him the freedom to make mistakes and learn from them.
More direct but no less nuanced is “Mother I Sober,” the record’s emotional peak and consummate breakthrough. Here Kendrick peels back layers of anguish, denial, and repressed hurt, unearthing generations’ worth of trauma. He combs back through the ways in which sexual abuse has haunted his family lineage, bearing the weight of his mother’s own abuse since his childhood. Her misguided attempt at protection instills in him a searing self-doubt; “they accused my cousin,” he recalls, “‘did he touch you, Kendrick?’ / never lied / but no one believed me / when I said he didn’t.” Familial trauma has a way of burrowing itself deep into the psyche, manifesting through addiction, depression, and self-destructive behavior; on “Mother I Sober,” Lamar contextualizes his ugliest inclinations, intoxicating diversions from his darkest fears and insecurities. This the bravest, most immersive piece of music he’s ever made, and in its unflinching honesty, Mr. Morale’s message finally takes shape.
The pantheon of hip hop masterpieces is littered with flawless records - think Biggie’s Ready to Die, Nas’s Illmatic, or, more recently, Kanye’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Mr. Morale is not flawless, but willfully imperfect; perhaps greater artistic forebears are 2Pac’s scattered All Eyez on Me or the Beatles’ spastic White Album, ambitious double albums that succeed not in spite of their messiness and missteps, but because of them. In its warts-and-all presentation of its star, Mr. Morale becomes a necessary addition to Lamar’s catalogue, a deconstruction of his larger-than-life persona, and a flawed, deeply human piece of art. A-
(Note: portions of this review have been rewritten since its initial publication, corrections to a fundamental misreading of “Mother I Sober.”)