In a Dickensian novel, what yours truly said a few years ago would have been and served as a perfect foreshadowing of the Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers project.
This was around that time Chicago-based rapper No Name made public statements about how the so-called conscious rappers weren’t speaking up or making public efforts against the injustices of black people with police brutality and all that jazz and yet this is the very same culture that they benefit and profit off of. And at that point I guess everybody (I included) was expecting that such kind of bold provocation and incitement would not only incite but elicit a response out of K.dot, considering No Name even called out these so-called self-righteous rappers in a verse on the song 33.
“Kendrick’s probably going through
something(some shit)” said this almost-six-feet-bold brown loc’d and brown-skinned girl (more on the caramel side if I’m to be honest).
That is ME. Because one thing I’ve come to know about him through his music is he makes a lot of mistakes and he has a particular sensitivity to detail and events of his life as he goes through them. He’s as human as a human gets. He has flaws and weaknesses. He’s imperfect, he too has had his character challenged by the world just like the rest of us which is perhaps what makes him such great an artist being able to paint vivid visual pictures through verses. That’s that k.dot effect.
At the end of the day, listeners tend to neglect to appreciate the fact that as artists, we paint vivid pictures of pages of our diary, we draw from personal experience and reach because you ought to be about what you know about. Am I right or, am I right?
Anyways, back to this makeshift Dickensian novel. My above quote serves as a forecast to the opening of the new project on United in grief, which partly consists of a probing to ‘tell them the truth’ almost as if we’ve been singing Hey Mr Duckworth where’ve you been, like Lil Wayne’s Mr Carter, to which he starts “I been going through something…”.
Now you may believe me, you may not, still doesn’t change the fact that this
indeed(shit) happened.
“Now about this project”, she writes as this article arcs and gets into perspective. Once again, we have Kendrick Lamar to thank for drawing attention and opening up a once slightly ajar door of a new section of frequently used words and terms in the history of pop culture and hip hop history, though more on the latter than the former.
The release of the album prompted me to dig deeper in hopes of unearthing some hidden diamond-crusted hummock at the butt of the iceberg. And I kid you not, it’s a long way down from the top (or should I say tip), and I haven’t even hit the base yet. In order to even begin to attempt to dissect and digest this album, I figured I ought to start scraping off the surface first before getting to the nitty gritty of the rusty layers underneath by taking apart the title.
Now deducing from the Grammy award-winning, and Pulitzer conquering emcee, he’s inactively I imagine, grown to acquaint himself with the almost mythical phenomenon of ‘moral rap’ and ‘moral rappers’, and this is not a reputation he has amassed of his own doing and accord, but rather this is what his listeners have seemingly translated from the energy waves bouncing off his music, through the ear and straight to one’s heart.
Lamar has never been one to shy away from his past transgressions, being so open about his unfiltered experiences as a young black man living in a world run by seagulls called Sam and his struggles with the forces of the world and life as a whole.
And perhaps that’s partly what is refreshing about this project and him as an artist, the fact that despite having been in the limelight for about a decade now, he can still paint vivid candid pictures of his life experiences over drum breaks as movingly concise and surreal as the kid did on Good Kid Maad City, that despite having attained A-list celebrity, GOAT status, he may not still be doing dumb shit like folding under pressure with the homies and foaming at the mouth, and he may be over the smoke weed by the white house attitude/phase because mans’ BEEN signed, but he’ll call you out for publicly bashing R. Kelly and still be bumping to the Ignition remix, leave and go for his therapy session and try to unpack the fuckery that is his life.
And this album feels like 2 free giveaway tickets to just pull up and watch the screening. One is the ticket for the opening night, and the other acting as a Netflix subscription so that you can watch it as many times as you, whenever you want.
2022 presents to us Mr. Morale, not Mr. Moral. The difference being one refers more to a set-in system of beliefs that can either be characterized as either right or wrong. And the other refers to a state of mind, a feeling. Despite the similarity in these terms, they are not the same. Now, how it all ties in I’m still to understand, but I’ll tell you what I do know, and that’s that this project oozes candour woven in and out of the tracklist.
Somewhere it says that the record is set up like therapy sessions, Lamar achieving his breakthrough on COUNT ME OUT. A trappy-bumpy song midsection to close, opened by an acoustic choir-like symphony. Even though he loves it when out count him out and it incites a ravenous drive in him, he’s also quick to probe your mental, asking you where the hoes/(streets) where at when you were at your lowest. Lamar manages to uncannily interweave thematic points and concerns in a project easily, but for him to singlehandedly do it in one breath, in one bar, that’s artistry.
In as much as I ought to be wrapping this article up, I couldn’t possibly do so without going over the ‘familial series’, as I call it, which pretty much consists of Father time, Auntie Diaries, Mother I Sober. These songs have significant familial and parental themes emanating from what once was a childhood perspective, told from a mature perspective attempting to make sense of the present by digging through the mud for the roots, the genesis.
DISCLAIMER: HE MADE YOU THINK ABOUT IT BUT HE IS NOT YOUR SAVIOR
Tracks from the familial series are heavily charged with emotion and candour easily being traceable through the tone and tempo of the track. From the Mother I Sober he makes no bush beating about it when he recounts memories of his mother probing him about whether his cousin abused him, to which we learn that he harbours some childhood trauma from his mother’s relentless inquisitions to which she didn’t believe it when he told her ‘no’.
Years later, Kendrick seemingly has a lustful nature which is his vice. The truth presented in this project and let alone in this song extends beyond being Kendrick’s, but also encroaches into the lives of his parents, his wife, and his kids.
He’s not just putting out bars about him, he has everyone and everything on there. On this track, he reveals that his mother’s disbelief when he denied that his cousin touched him stemmed from her insecurities once being a victim and a survivor of physical violation. Generational trauma is inherited from the pain and endurance of past generations. Sometimes we carry the pain of our ancestors with us, and because often we don’t know how to cope with such a deep magnitude of emotion, we adopt coping mechanisms that affect and impact our environment, the people around us, our family, our children, sort of like a curse, a generational curse.
YOU HAVEN’T FELT GRIEF, TILL YOU DID IT SOBER. YOU HAVEN’T FELT GUILT, TILL YOU DID IT SOBER.
Sometimes we drink to loosen up. More times than not, the average human settles on a drink after a hard day, going through a hard time, or being stuck in an emotional mumbo jumbo, an argument, grief, guilt, respectively. Kendrick doesn’t have the luxury to indulge in substances. He’s no longer the Kendrick that’s usually drug-free until he’s with the homies or rather doesn’t allow himself the indulgence having grown up around a lot of swimming pools, and so in his sensitive skin, he goes through the fires of grief, the fires of guilt, without so much as the shield of the bottom of a whisky bottle, or the butt of a stub.
The song ends on a crescendo. As Kendrick frees himself, his mother, his cousin, Whitney, his children, and an outro of Whitney telling her daughter she’s proud of her for breaking a generational curse.
If you’ve ever needed proof or reason not to ever listen to leaked music again this is it. This song is it.
On Father time adorned with a hook by Sampha, Kendrick addresses issues of daddy issues, interestingly from a male perspective, uniquely so I’d say, and listening to it, it’s bound to dawn on you that the lack thereof a relationship between a mother and daughter is just as sad as between a father and son. The song has the weavings of verses embodying the masculine teachings a father pass onto his son, its detriments and its effect on him and any other comparable black man.
For instance, he raps;
“A Child That Grew Accustomed, Jumping Up When I Scraped My Knee
’cause if I Cried About It, He’d Surely Tell Me Not to Be Weak
Daddy Issues, Hid My Emotions, Never Expressed Myself
Men Should Never Show Feelings, Being Sensitive Never Helped
His Momma Died, I Asked Him Why He Goin’ Back to Work So Soon?
His First Reply Was, “Son, That’s Life, the Bills Got No Silver Spoon”
Daddy Issues, F^^k Everybody, Go Get Your Money, Son”
Fellas, sound familiar? Can you relate?
Interpretation: rhetoric
“Daddy issues kept me competitive, that’s a fact, nigga
I don’t give a fuck what’s the narrative, I am that nigga
When Kanye got back with Drake, I was slightly confused
Guess I’m not mature as I think, got some healin’ to do”
In this bar, Lamar brings light on how having been brought up to be insensitive and having that shield you from adversities of the world may seem cool and all but it breeds a certain callousness and unrelenting nature that in Lamar had him baffled when Drake and Kanye made up, seeing two black men come from a dispute to a stalemate and making peace because being from where he’s from disputes can only end one way if they ever do, which they never really do. He’s quick to go on and admit in his next breath that he may not be as mature and well-versed as he thought he was if the act same act of appeasement showcased is the very same unicorn solution that can also save black men from gang culture, and that has him confused. Perhaps a display of cognitive dissonance, because remember, he bleeds just like anyone does.
HE MADE YOU THINK ABOUT IT BUT HE IS NOT YOUR SAVIOR.
Auntie’s Diaries is a powerfully charged song, taking us through pages of Kendrick’s diary, taking us back to his early youngin days as a kid being introduced to the ‘they’ world of diversity. This song with an intro practically bordering on hypnotic with Eckhart Tolle, a German spiritual teacher on it, Kendrick loops heart plays in ways the mind can’t figure out. A presentation of an unbalanced paradox, when the heart reaches for something that paralyses the mind with misunderstanding. Kendrick takes us through the turmoil in a contradiction that he experiences, loving someone and experiencing discord in the misalignment of their life choices with yours, or rather a failure to understand. First, it’s his Auntie who turns into a man: ”my auntie is a man now”, and then his cousin Demetrius, Mary-Ann.
“My auntie is a man now
I think I’m old enough to understand now
Drinking Paul Masson with her hat turned backwards
Motorola pager, off-white Guess jacket
Blue Air Max’s, gold chains, and curl kits
’93 Nissan wax job, the earliest
Big social, big personality, vocal
Played the underground verbatim and stayed local”
The level of relevance in this project is damn near overwhelming as it’s unbound by borders and geography seeing as themes and matters tackled are a universal concern. We may be coloured by different paint brushes but we’re all of the same race, and that’s the human race. As African black people, we tend to like to shy away from ‘modern’ uncomfortable controversial topics of gender transition issues, or matters to do with sexuality, almost as if we’re under the impression that if we don’t talk about it enough and turn a blind eye, it won’t affect us or infiltrate into our communities, meanwhile, we allow all the other elements of modernism to trickle through like a cell-wall, but only being a membrane when it serves the pride of our egos.
The fact on the ground is that people are gay and people are born in the wrong bodies. Sometimes the heart wants what the mind just can’t figure out right? At the end of the day, these are people bashing gay people and making their lives a goddamn Friday13th nightmare won’t make them any less gayer. Just as the killing of innocent black people, exploitation, and appropriation of their culture won’t make black people any less black than they already are if anything, it’s provocative, and just gets the people going!
And so in that vein, verses crafted in this manner to assemble a song like Auntie’s Diaries are necessary because they get you thinking and make you aware of things you had never really thought about before, like what if that aggressively androgynous, free-spirited aunt of mine became a man tomorrow?
What if, your fun cousin you grew up with and never really had aligned interests with but got along with nonetheless suddenly decided to trade her pair of panties for boxers?
What if that cute, chunky guy you’ve always liked decided he’d want to trade in his fade for a weave? Would you still cast them for Nightmare on Elm Street: Makeshift Edition? Or would you?
“Take off the foo-foo, take off the clout chase, take off the Wi-Fi
Take off them fabricated streams and them microwave memes, it’s a real-world outside”
