***ALBUM OF THE MONTH | May 2022***
Kendrick Lamar
Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers
PGLang/Top Dawg/Aftermath/Interscope
Buy via Official Store | Listen Below
The past few years have been tough on all of us…so why on Earth would that be different for Kendrick Lamar Duckworth? Since his last album, it’s been one-thousand, eight-hundred, and fifty-five days…but who’s counting? Besides the aforementioned Lamar, those that know and love him, countless fans counting on him, and all of the bean-counters collecting on the count he brings in.
“I been going through somethin’” are the first words we hear spoken, over piano stabs that could double as the beating pulse to a nah-don’t-go-in-there theme from a scary movie scene. “I been going through somethin.’” I believe him. Me too, in fact, no hashtag. Who listening to or reading this hasn’t been? As our returning hero takes great pains here to explain, he is not your “Savior.” For those who see these past few seasons in the abyss differently, to quote some word from this non-savior from his last time out, “America…God bless ya if it’s good to ya.”
That’s a line from DAMN., an album hailed right here as an instant-classic in April 2017. It went on to become the highest-selling album of the next two years, plus it became the first pop album of any kind (non-jazz/classical) awarded the Pulitzer Prize. DAMN. dropped on Good Friday. A taut body of musicology tucked inside an air-tight narrative with death and resurrection bookends, depending on which order you listen in. It was accompanied by an Easter weekend California-desert coronating Coachella set that holds up as one of the two-decades-and-counting festival’s very best.
May 2022 brings the sprawling, purposefully murkier follow-up Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers. It’s a “double-album” in the tradition of Ice Cube’s two-sided Death Certificate LP released in 1991 (Life and Death sides then, Big Steppers and Mr. Morale sides now) that was released this past Friday the 13th. A day/date combination synonymous with campy horror flicks about a half-dead masked man haunting his old summer camp. This contrast is no coincidence.
Living in a world rationally seen as increasingly irrational, veering towards dystopian…this Earthly space, at least for the non-billion-dollar-babies cashing in while steadily making plans to leave this place, is going through something. In the short time since the clock struck twelve on Friday the 13th, as an orange-moon from a lunar-eclipse lent astral aesthetics to the closing-credits of the past weekend, America more witness to six more mass shootings.
Who can expect even our best artists—Kendrick Lamar being the greatest musical artist to debut this millennium so far—to make any sense of this? Who could ever find a new spin, or provide an emotional salve to stave off this madness? Bagmen or Bag Ladies…you’re gone hurt your back…dragging around all ‘em bags like that. Who can you help if you can’t save yourself? In the word so the now-thirtysomething Kenny, “You can’t please everybody.”
Parts of Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers feel like an awkwardly gifted artist attempting to shake that load off. Or, to borrow the two-word title of an all-but-forgotten 1990 Everlast song, “Fuck Everyone.” Here, that applies to: religious/political/thought leaders, family members, friends, fans, media narratives, toxic-romances, non-romantic entanglements, pseudo-scientists, therapists, the record business, himself. To take a two-word title by one of the many great artists taken by COVID-19, Frederick “Toots” Hibbert (reggae pioneer who passed on September 11, 2020), “Time Tough.”
While attempting to keep in step during these increasingly tough times, an artist fairly unconcerned about temporally stepping steps into the fray to bless/curse us with a body of work that feels like his most time-sensitive yet.
Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers is, at times, a tough listen. Sure, you can appreciate the artistry of “We Cry Together,” a domestic squabble duet over a minor key piano loop by Alchemist. But this also borrows a blueprint RZA-as-Bobby-Digital’s 1998 deep-cut/cult classic “Domestic Violence,” but without the over-the-top cartoonishly humorous ridiculousness that grants us permission to revel in its toxic-ness. Once the initial shock begins to wear thin, is this one that you’re gonna wanna hear “again and again and again?” Meanwhile, if you’re in the headspace to truly identify with the sentiments expressed by either party in this, please do everyone a favor by taking K.Dot’s real-life partner Whitney’s advice in seeking a therapist.
Cribbing a line from one of the greatest rap verses of all-time, Cee-Lo’s opening salvo from 1994’s “Git Up, Git Out” OutKast collabo, “times is tough.” Indeed. Lamar’s auntie-turned-unc got problems of his own while his adult nephew is still trying to get grown. So, while we salute the vulnerability, as critical masses undoubtedly wax poetically on the topicality of “Auntie Diaries,” destined to soon become the trans version of that Macklemore hit about his uncle being gay (no shade), it may not be the stand-alone-song that gets the most replay, as time marches along. But I am glad for its existence, especially if it’s cathartic for Lamar, or lives on to help others feel safe, loved, and okay.
Beth Gibbons’ spectral-like vocal tone has haunted me beautifully since before the term “trip-hop” first appeared in print. With her band Portishead (three albums since 1994) coming out to play even less than K.Dot or Sade, just seeing her name featured on the credits of “Mother I Sober” is a gift. But with that said, the slow-waltzing struggles of being a straight edge sentiments of “you ain’t felt grief, until you’ve done it sober” is a tier of enlightenment I haven’t reached yet.
Speaking of features, Lamar’s album guest list outside of the extended camp (Thundercat, Black Hippy, Bilal, Anna Wise…where you at?) is usually purposeful: Compton’s Most Wanted OG MC Eiht on good kid, m.A.A.d city’s title-track, P-Funk Mothership Captain George Clinton on a record about battling the tax-man on “Wesley’s Theory,” the unforgettable-esque Tupac/K.Dot convo coda ending To Pimp A Butterfly, or the rap experimenting of a one-time active R&B/pop-superstar/turned-Fenty-CEO affectionately known as RiRi on “Loyalty.”
In preparation for writing these words you’re reading, this author did his best to avoid social media discussion, nor consume other outlets’ critiques prior to publishing in order to maintain this review’s authenticity before belatedly sending it to the Albumism editor. That being said, I can already picture the prospective think-piece barrage in my head regarding this album’s most prominent feature with the accompanying baggage of his highly publicized and politicized record.
While that’s a sidebar discussion for a different day, here’s one thing we can say: On Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, Kendrick Lamar knows what to do with Kodak Black better than Kodak Black knows what to do with himself. At first glance, his presence here feels weird, a la Master P’s spoken-word interludes on Solange’s A Seat At The Table (2016). In both cases, once the initial surprise abates, it makes sense. Kendrick Lamar diehards may recall another Miami-adjacent-housing-project-raised rapper with a dicey past, Gunplay, being right at home on what was to be one of GKMC’s best records, the unreleased-due-to-sample-clearance-issues “Cartoons & Cereal.” You can hear how well that one would have fit, as a cross-country convo about growing up, consuming bowls filled with sugar rush, while watching animated shoot ‘em ups as real bullets flew outside. Kodak’s presence here, in an album detailing a good-kid’s evolution into it-ain’t-all-good rap star, antes up. And if you don’t like it, all involved are way past the point of giving a fuck. Not to mention, that Sudafed-Southern-drawl kills on “Silent Hill,” while rapping about making calls off a Google app and how he had to survive off a tuna pack.
That song, by my tough grader immediate reaction standards, is one of four tracks that hit me immediately. Which, you might ask, are the other three?
“Rich Spirit,” a lack-of-engagement anthem about the mental-preservationist benefits of putting down your phone that you’re likely reading about right now on your phone. “Purple Hearts,” with a Souwave soundscape of replayed or sample-source-I-can’t-place reminiscent (in a good way) of NxWorries’ “Scared Money,” had us doing the tippy-toe-two-step even before Ghostface steps into the place. If The God be The Source than this is the Plug Talkin’. Last but not least, “Die Hard,” featuring Rihanna-stamped-fellow-Bajan Amanda Reifer, formerly of the band Cover Drive. Reifer’s island-lilt somehow comes out sounding a bit like Lamar’s Jersey-bred TDE labelmate SZA here, while her cooing chorus of “Shimmy-Shimmy-Cocoa-Puff, Serafina, Flame In Us” (or is it Sarafina! the South African Apartheid-era play? It works either way) provides a needed dose of sweetly delivered transcendent joyfulness.
Putting on my unsolicited A&R cap, “Die Hard” should be the next single. The lead single “N95” splits the difference between De La Soul’s “Take It Off” from 1989’s 3 Feet High And Rising (kids, one day you might be able to stream them to get this reference) with Lamar’s last album opener “DNA,” accompanied by a new video filled with strikingly frenetic visuals to boot.
Another increasingly frequent collaborator, since 2018’s Black Panther up through right now, just so happens to be Lamar’s younger cousin, Baby Keem. While the 21-year-old emcee has plenty of time to grow artistically, his presence or relative talent level (see what I did there?) here by comparison feels akin (can’t stop, won’t stop) to Q-Tip’s sudden-cousin-introduction into A Tribe Called Quest on 1996’s Beats, Rhymes and Life. More the weight of “Family Ties” than inspired.
As a long-gone Camden, NJ-bred straight-edge bodybuilder/nutritionist/Philly-talk-radio-icon named Dr. Jim Corea used to say over Philadelphia airwaves while a young kid sat rolled around as a passenger in my old man’s car, “tough times don’t last, tough people do.” Kendrick Lamar Duckworth was raised with the kind of tough-love once again well-documented in “Father Time,” a song that raises tough questions about the toughness-training necessary to face the world which often gets shouted down amid the online black-and-white reactionary moralizing that colors today’s tough but different times. When Lamar blurts “what the fuck is cancel culture, dawg?’, it’s tough to tell whether he’s asking or telling us.
Billed as his first double-album, Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers is still only Lamar’s second-longest album to date. Its run time is five minutes shy of 2015’s To Pimp A Butterfly. This feels at least that long. While as is the case with every double album in the history of hip-hop (shout-out to the homie @IkeMoses), tasteful trimming would do a double-stuffed body of work good. The “every double LP could have been a greater one” theory remains undefeated.
Beyond petty bellyaching about bloat from a great, be forewarned that this is Lamar’s prickliest album to date. Heavy is the head who wears the crown, whether “Voice Of A Generation” or “Best Rapper Alive,” and this Lamar sounds downright exhausted on “Crown” and “Mirror.” The overly dedicated 21-year-old exuberance from mixtape-independent-album Section.80 was a long-ass time ago. This site and author will in about a month pay tribute to the 10th anniversary of Lamar’s classic major-label debut. The one that followed, To Pimp A Butterfly, seared itself into public consciousness the first time you saw the cover art.
In the wake of the burgeoning protest movement post-Ferguson in August 2014, Lamar’s emphatic “Alright” became the unofficially official anthem in these righteously indignant American streets. The artist who declared seven years ago “we gon be alright” might have some wondering “is he alright?” on Mr. Morale. Hopefully. Probably. Peep him outside walking and talking happily among the people in Ghana this week. “Tippy-toeing and I’m up walkin’/rollin’ sevens, I ain’t ready for no coffin.” He’s gonna be alright. With all these issues raised back then seemingly only intensifying, increasing, or multiplying, rather than asking Kenny, it might be more pertinent to ask ourselves “are we?!?” And who is we now, anyway? Post-plague, a longtime-friend may turn fulltime-sucker any given day.
Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers ends with the phrase “I choose me, I’m sorry,” the words droningly repeated like an echoing slightly faded mantra, nearly as many times as ‘94 Kurt Cobain repeated “all in all is all we are” at the end of “All Apologies.” Neither ever owed us one. But to Kendrick Lamar Duckworth, who will never in a million years waste his time reading this, I’m grateful you were able to fight through the writer’s block and any other obstacles to give us another album of timeless material.
To anyone and everyone currently struggling, do whatever you gotta do to push through. Some say the darkest hour is before the dawn. But they can’t sell that fake-news to me, dawg. As I look out my window this morning at just after 5:30, it doesn’t take a degree in heliophysics to see they’re wrong.
The double-helping provided seems to be a heady feast that some might better digest in smaller portions. But rest assured, there’s more than enough top-shelf material and meticulously managed art here to show us Kendrick, already reserving an extended stay in the cultural zeitgeist longer than most of your all-time favorites, has still got it. And who knows, eventually…he, you, I, we might be alright.
Enjoyed this article? Read more about Kendrick Lamar here:
To Pimp A Butterfly (2015) | DAMN. (2017)
Notable Tracks: “Die Hard” | “Purple Hearts” | “Rich Spirit” | “Silent Hill”
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