Kendrick Lamar Thinks Outside the Box on the Big Steppers Tour

Kendrick Lamar in Dallas on The Big Steppers Tour. Photo by Greg Noire

The show in Dallas was the third of the tour so far, following stops in Austin and a tour opener in Oklahoma City, a possible nod to his alias Oklama, which means “people” in Chahta Anumpa, the language of the Choctaw indigenous people (who have a large population in Oklahoma).

Saturday night’s set, which began at a startlingly as-promised 9:00 PM, began with the opening lyrics from “Count Me Out:” “I hope you find some peace of mind, in this lifetime.” Several suit-clad dancers—men wearing black, women wearing white—walked onstage from the side, shoulder-shimmying and dancing in the walking path between the two ends of the long stage, while strings blared through the speakers. The main portion of the stage was covered with a giant white drape, and once it was raised, the men in Black fled to the back and the women in white stood firm in the walking path. Already, the set was thought-provoking. As I pondered the thematic meaning of the Black-clad crew leaving the stage, Kendrick started reciting “United In Grief,’ sitting at a piano with a small Kendrick puppet dressed as himself. The doll was attached to the front of Kendrick like a baby harness throughout “United In Grief,” but it didn’t have as much of a presence in the show as I thought it would, based on the pre-tour promo. Perhaps it was a sly reference to his inner demons or inner voice.

The set’s opening sequence set off a night of constant movement. The genius of Kendrick’s live show is how he maneuvers the stage with no wasted motion. While some MCs continuously run from side to side, jumping around the stage, Kendrick moves methodically. At the beginning of the set, giant thuds reverberated through the arena with his every step, cuing to the album’s “big stepper” theme. Kendrick, wearing a glittery Michael Jackson-esque glove and suit, knew all eyes were on him, and he did exactly what it took to keep it that way, all without over-exerting himself during the marathon set. Even when he was two-stepping, you soon realized he was just stylishly moving to another part of the stage for the next song. On this tour, Kendrick is a stoic performer, leaning on the full scope of the live show to keep fans entertained.

His rendition of “Count Me Out” encapsulated the breadth of the experience. Hunched over, he steadily bounced along with his large shadow cast against the stage’s giant white drape. (Whenever he dropped the drape over the main portion of the stage, it became another canvas to convey the song’s tone.) There were arrows in the back of the shadow figure, a visual representation of the album’s musings on how critics, fans, and others in Kendrick’s life take turns sniping at him. The verse is a plea for understanding, so it’s fitting that he spent most of the performance hunched over, almost on his knees. But he rose at the end of the verse, along with the drape, revealing dancers who performed their routine as the song picked up tempo. Even within a song, the set design was changing. 

The night was defined not just by Kendrick’s stellar, mood-spanning catalog, but in the meticulousness of the set design. You could see it in the many ways he used the jumbotron and the stage’s side panel screens. During “United In Grief,” one side screen was focused on him, while the other showed his mini-Kendrick doll (whose mouth actually moved during the verses). But during “Don’t Kill My Vibe,” both side panels were dark, encouraging you to focus on the red moon in the middle of the jumbotron, building on the pensive feeling of the song. 

When he performed “Worldwide Steppers,” the three sides of the stage-covering drape acted as one, as visuals of bugs crawled from one side to the other. During “Money Trees,” a visual of trees swaying in hurricane-like winds adorned the drape. His brief F-word clad clip of “We Cry Together” was paired by shadows of him and a woman arguing on the drape, and their shadows stayed up during “Purple Hearts,” hinting at the interconnectedness of the two tracks. Once he finished “Purple Hearts,” the couple hugged. It was one of the few moments of the night that offered a new conclusion about the track. And when it comes to lighting, he had a range of square panels that periodically dropped down from the rafters and hovered directly over him. The panels would change colors, but often stayed a pale white, which alluded to one of the album’s main themes: therapy.

Just about every song had its own stage design, a demonstration of Kendrick’s effort to match Mr. Morale’s profundity with an ornate set. His comeback performance at last year’s Day N Vegas festival was rousing, but the added set design made his tour feel even more immersive. The best festival artists are creative with their jumbotron usage (and in Tyler’s case, the set design onstage) but nothing compares to a full arena show where an artist can use the entire floor. Kendrick, like Tyler during his tour, interacted with fans on two stages. But instead of “sailing” between stages on a mechanical boat, Kendrick used his dancers to help him shimmy along a walkway from stage to stage.

A gentle, Siri-esque voice narrated portions of the show, offering Kendrick advice and admonishment that served as the catalyst for some songs. When the bellowing voice told Kendrick, “Once again, you’ve let your ego get the best of you,” he started “Humble.” When it said, “You did this to yourself, you forget who you are,” “DNA” dropped. At another juncture, the voice asked, “Dallas, are you not entertained?” before telling Mr. Morale he’d been “contaminated.”

During that portion of the show, roughly two-thirds in, Kendrick was in a plastic bubble that elevated throughout several songs, while four men in hazmat suits stood in the corner of the box as he rhymed in the middle. There didn’t seem to be a rhyme or reason for which songs he played while quarantined, though he did comically get a “covid test” while in the box. Another MC may have explained the symbolism, but Kendrick left it open to interpretation. 

The tagline for the tour is “Come Help Mr. Morale Get Out Of The Box,” and the quarantine bubble was the most literal visual representation of Kendrick inside the box. But the box imagery was present throughout the night, and a good deal of the stage design was square. The white drape over the main part of the stage made a big box, and the light panels were square, creating a box of light over him when they hovered down. He never mentioned “the box,” or asked the crowd to help him get “out of the box,” but the narrator congratulated him for making it out of the box at the end of the show, notably after “Savior.” Instead, he opted to subtly reference the idea of “the box” through the set design, while performing Mr. Morale songs that depicted him rejecting figurative boxes like lust, hypermasculinity, people-pleasing, and saviordom.

Kendrick’s thoughtfulness wasn’t just in the set design, but the actual song choices as well. He didn’t play “Auntie Diaries,” the controversial song with the F-word interspersed in his verses. After performing the last verse of the song in Oklahoma, he completely abstained in Dallas. During “Worldwide Steppers,” he rapped what sounded like “cut a white sitch” instead of “fucked a white bitch.” And during “Father Time,” he refrained from saying Kanye or Drake’s names in the “I was slightly confused” line. While he sidestepped controversy in key moments, he did play Kodak Black’s full verse on “Silent Hill” (while not playing Summer Walker or Ghostface’s “Purple Hearts” verses). Most of the crowd recited Kodak’s verse, but there were likely people there, like in other cities, who weren’t excited to hear the controversial Kodak. 

But as Kendrick has continuously expressed, he doesn’t care what his naysayers think. A good portion of Mr. Morale consists of him asking fans to let him simply be a rapper. Set-ender “Savior” espoused that, with his continued refrain, “I am not your savior.” And he’s right. He’s not our savior, and we shouldn’t expect him or any other recording artist to be. But he’s an incredible showman, and The Big Steppers tour is a damn good way to spend a night out.