Released on May 13, Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers represents a moment in Kendrick Lamar’s discography where he has yet again repelled the notion someone of his fame can no longer find ample adversity to wax poetic about.
Outside of the obligatory racial tensions that have informed the bulk of his better work from Good Kid, m.A.A.D City (2012), To Pimp a Butterfly (2015) and DAMN. (2017), he has Covid-19 to thank for shattering his glass house of writer’s block; and he’s not alone.
“Count Me Out” is sure to transform into a chip on his shoulder-requiring ballplayer’s dream-sent walk-up song delight. It calls for Kendrick to wrestle with the “millionaires who feel alone,” – i.e., himself – with and for the public. After all, most of us did too, granted without the millions, during the pandemic.
Though it’s not the most lyrically Covid-devoted on the 18-track double record, Kendrick’s meditations on regret through a mad-but-contained sea of key changes suggest a man speaking more than he’s singing to “everybody fighting through the stress.” He breaks the fourth wall of his internalized-no-more grief in ways Bo Burnham and Taylor Swift too profoundly accomplished on Inside and Folklore, respectively.
Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers has “Count Me Out” to thank for keeping worldly resonate matters light as they are dark with never-surrendered catchiness, when it could have traveled into unbounded Kanye territory with the wrong producers.
“N95”, on title alone, is obviously more consumed with directly addressing the mask-torn world. By layering in laughs to undercut the languish, he’s recycling “don’t sweat it” party rhetoric last scene in m.A.A.D City’s “Swimming Pools (Drank)” before he turned his attention to more prescient and socio-politically guided follow-up albums.
On playback, “N95” spiritually sequelizes his breakout hit; you could just picture it playing in a Kendrick-issued or Kendrick-inspired music video where someone jumps into a pool and recognizes absolutely no one when they swim back up to the surface. Such is the ripple effect of Covid America, where we’ve all learned who our real friends are; and also chlorine’s tendency to obscure figures into silhouettes when your head was too underwater to process what was happening all around you. But, as Kendrick mightily decrees, better late than never to get involved in the conversation. Because talking begets healing. And healing begets change.
“Crown” is another vessel Kendrick utilizes for acceptance. Here, he checks hip hop at the door and tries a psychedelic jazz hat on for size. The Cranberries once asked, “do you have to let it linger?” When we ask Kendrick, everyone knows the answer is very much yes. That’s what constitutes a work of art that truly is of and beyond its times: the ability to channel hyper-repetition on the road to a crescendo without soon fading from the moved listener’s mind.
On Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, a good kid declares himself an even madder adult — still unshy in his knack for ruffling the feathers of those who just don’t get it. Recalling your past lack of a perspective is not ignorance; it’s outlining this thing called “character growth” people will try to convince you is unattainable in the year 2022.
But Kendrick says change your ways while you still can, stick to you as best you can as well, and to forget all those who tell you otherwise. Although he uses a stronger word than forget, and often. Heavy is the crown on the head of someone who could have been a preacher but stirs the pot his way, on his terms, instead.
