After five long years, Kendrick Lamar returned to deliver Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, a double album that depicts himself and those in his world assuming facades as “big steppers” to mask the inner trauma that they’re tap-dancing around.
“We Cry Together” captures a lay-it-all-out argument between Kendrick Lamar and Taylour Paige that devolves into a gender war and abruptly pivots into sex. Their happy ending may feel good, but it shows them sidestepping the issues they just leveled at each other. The 2022 successor to RZA’s “Domestic Violence” veers from Alchemist’s moody piano loop into tap dancing, before Kendrick’s fiancée Whitney Alford tells him, “Stop tap dancing around the conversation.” The moral of the track is lobbed at our head like an errant tennis ball after Kendrick and Taylour’s incendiary back and forth.
On “Father Time,” which starts with Whitney urging Kendrick to get therapy, he raps about how his “daddy issues” imbued him with a “foolish pride” that he conflated with masculinity. On “Mother I Sober,” he asserts, “Every other rapper sexually abused/ I see ‘em daily buryin’ they pain in chains and tattoos.” And the crux of “Mother I Sober” explores how the shame of his mother thinking he was abused as a five-year-old eventually led to “seven years of tour, chasin’ manhood,” which turned into family-threatening infidelity that he divulges numerous times, including on “Worldwide Steppers.” Throughout the 18-track album, Kendrick analyzes his own life experiences, asking society if we champion toxic behaviors because deep down, we feel inadequate.
The album’s thesis statement has drawn praise from many, including Quality Control CEO Pee, who tweeted, “Kendrick album makes you really look in the mirror and question yourself.” But other junctures of Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers have critics questioning Kendrick about the presence of accused rapist Kodak Black, his crusade against so-called “cancel culture,” and misgendering on “Auntie Diaries,” a song about trans acceptance. Kendrick falters when he steps out of his world and offers larger social commentary on Mr. Morale, representing the faults of an otherwise phenomenal album. As he rhymes on “Crown,” however, he’s accepted that he “can’t please everybody,” and for better or worse, he’s not interested in trying. As he says to open “Savior,” “Kendrick made you think about it, but he is not your savior.”
As always, Kendrick is a masterful vocalist, unfurling myriad flows and phrases with a quirkiness that glues them to your psyche, like his unconventional enunciation of “yeah baby” on “Purple Hearts” and “brother” on “Rich Spirit.” On “Worldwide Steppers” he veers through reflections on infidelity and dalliance with white women through a monotone, rapid-fire delivery that sounds like he’s warping through a binary field, emphasizing the headrush he’s feeling as qualms and memories whirl through his mind. On songs like “Father Time,” he rhymes with trademark ferocity, while on “Mother I Sober,” he traverses from a gentle whisper into empowered theatrics, vocally symbolizing the song’s ascent from despair into awakening. Yet again, Kendrick’s verses are compelling from an audial standpoint.
“Cancel culture” is Kendrick’s second-biggest opp on Mr. Morale, after his own demons. On “N95,” he questions, “What the fuck is cancel culture, dawg? Say what I want about you niggas, I’m like Oprah, dawg.” Then he proclaims, “The industry has killed the creators, I’ll be the first to say” on “Worldwide Steppers,” also suggesting that “cancel culture” has affected the artistry of his peers, rhyming, “Bite they tongues in rap lyrics/ Scared to be crucified about a song, but they won’t admit it.” Tellingly, “Savior” is the first moment where he explicitly opposes himself from the tiptoers:
Two times center codefendant judging my life
Back pedaler, what they say? You do the cha-cha
I’ma stand on it, 6’5” from 5’5”
Fun fact, I ain’t taking shit back
Like it when they pro-Black, but I’m more Kodak Black
Kendrick tears through the experimental production on “Savior,” chastising listeners who look for entertainers as guides. “Cole made you feel empowered, but he is not your savior/ Future said, ‘Get a money counter,’ but he is not your savior,” he raps in the song’s intro. Could Mr. Morale be a snarky nickname that he gave himself to reference the weight that he feels people put on him to be their moral compass? At the end of the first verse, he questions, “meditating in silence made you wanna tell on me?” as a retort to consumers who criticized his 2020 silence during a worldwide anti-police uprising. The line could have been sharper than the imprecise “tell on me,” which doesn’t accurately represent the dynamic (who were we” telling on” him to?) but his sentiment still radiates. He’s asking why he was put on front street and expected to speak out while he was processing the tragedy just like us. The knee-jerk reaction is for fans to mention him being lauded as the voice of a generation, but he’s declining that responsibility throughout the album. On “Savior,” and the rest of the album, he’s proposing that perhaps he’s not the voice of a generation, and he simply made songs that a generation relates to. What about him poetically encapsulating our collective despair suggests that he has the answer to it?
Elsewhere on “Savior,” Kendrick incisively explores how putting too much faith in one man is tenuous, as he notes, “Seen a Christian say the vaccine mark of the beast/ Then he caught COVID and prayed to Pfizer for relief,” and rhymes, “I rubbed elbows with people that was for the people/ They all greedy, I don’t care for no public speaking.” While the “Tupac is dead, think for yourself” line is a clunker, “Savior” is nonetheless a worthwhile critique on our expectations of celebrities.
Curiously, Kendrick is reticent to lead the masses against the powers that be, but adamantly places himself against us when deriding “cancel culture” on the album. “The industry has killed the creators, I’ll be the first to say,” he volunteers on “Worldwide Steppers.” But his assertions ring hollow, as few men in entertainment have had their career “killed” by questionable statements or behavior. In 2015, Kendrick upset many by opining, “When we don’t have respect for ourselves, how do we expect them to respect us?” following Mike Brown’s police killing. But two years later, DAMN broke sales records. And months after that, he leveraged his power to get XXXTentacion placed back on Spotify playlists after they removed him for allegedly abusing his ex-girlfriend. Polarizing artists like Kodak, Chris Brown, DaBaby, Tory Lanez and more still have careers as long as men like him are around to overlook a peer’s misdeeds. And while he may think he’s protecting “free speech,” that perspective always overlooks the victims and accusers of these men.
No artist in America is banned from expressing what they want in their music. But more artists simply have to accept that if their content riles marginalized groups, they will speak up, because they have a bigger voice now. Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers’ anti-”cancel culture” moments hint that it may be time to retire the notion of “conscious rap” once and for all. The phrase made sense when being progressive and conscious of hip-hop listeners’ needs was as simple as highlighting the toll of gun violence, systemic oppression, and extolling the benefits of spirituality. But time has exposed “conscious” rap’s patriarchal roots, and too few rappers are truly conscious of how to reach a consumer base that’s more diverse, and vocal, than ever.