It has been just over a month since Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers dropped into our laps, and the discourse surrounding the album’s release has troubled me in a lot of ways, those of which I will go into detail later in this piece. The album has proven to be the most divisive project that Kendrick has ever released, as many people outright dislike it or think it was flop for Kendrick. Those are not opinions that I hold, although I won’t pretend that the album didn’t take some listens for me to really appreciate its beauty, but that’s the thing. With Kendrick albums, they take a lot of time and patience and mindfulness to appreciate and understand, and a lot of Kendrick’s fanbase, especially his newer fanbase post DAMN. release, don’t really expect that. They have Kendrick in the same bucket as Drake or Lil Baby, when they don’t make the same kinds of album. That was not a dig at either artist by the way, I enjoy both of their music to great lengths, but I don’t go to their music for the same reason as I go to Kendrick’s music. I think a lot of the people that got put onto Kendrick’s music post DAMN. don’t realize that most of his discography is not like the hit singles like HUMBLE., LOVE., or LOYALTY. None of those songs are bad in my opinion, just not as deep or conceptual as most Kendrick songs. On the other hand, you have Kendrick listeners that go too far in the opposite direction. Instead of being disappointed that the album isn’t full of radio hits, you have people that either overanalyze each song to death or put Kendrick on a high ideological pedestal, so much so to the point where they are disappointed with the content present in a lot of these songs.
This is where this gets complicated on my end since there’s a slippery slope when regarding this issue. That slippery slope comes in acknowledging that this album was made by a black man addressing his black trauma for a black audience (even if a lot of Kendrick fans are white), and that I, as a white man, have no say on how people, specifically black people, should take or receive this album. All that being said, the reason why I said I wasn’t bothered or shocked by what Kendrick said on this album is because there isn’t much here that surprises me (there is some stuff that does admittedly, and I’ll address it when I get there). Kendrick has said questionable things on his records prior. Like on FEAR., with the whole Israelite motif that culminated in that off-putting theory about why black people have suffered in the world for so long. Despite what people have tried to say or portray Kendrick as, he has never been an ideologically pure rapper or a savior or even a revolutionary, and that’s okay. Kendrick is through with trying to save the world and is choosing to save himself on this album and that’s okay, at least for me. The point of this article is to dissect what makes MM&TBS click for me, what are the ideological cracks in the album and how they make the album stronger, and how the general public’s consumption of this album has been annoying at best and outright inhumane at worst.
Part 1: The Misdirection & Signs of The Heart Part 5
On May 8th, The Heart Part 5 was dropped without warning, along with an accompanying music video. It may seem easy in hindsight to label this song as misleading for the direction that MM&TBS went in, musically and topically. After all, the song uses an old sample of I Want You by Marvin Gaye as its backdrop, and that song has a very different vibe sonically compared to what would drop soon after it. I truly believe that The Heart Part 5 was part of why the album had such mixed reactions at first, simply because people were expecting something way different than what they got. That being said, as far as the content goes, The Heart Part 5 is a very good teaser for what MM&TBS tackles. We didn’t really see it at the time, because Kendrick hadn’t fully disbanded that savior persona. It’s interesting because a lot of the subject matter and issues that he addressed on the song either appear later on the album or have already been addressed prior. One of the biggest examples is when he brings up the cycle of black people killing each other in reference to Nipsey Hussle’s murder. Kendrick has already had bars and verses addressing the issue of “black on black crime”, most notably on The Blacker the Berry.
Kendrick would preview a lot of his critiques for hip hop and black culture on this song that would later appear on this album, such as his bar about the difficulty of dealing with pain when you are sober, which goes on to have a completely different context on the album itself rather than sobriety being associated with just drugs or alcohol. I also think The Heart Part 5 is good as a teaser for the album because of how uncompromising Kendrick is in his critiques of the culture, which is something that he dives headfirst into on the album, although maybe not to same degree of rawness or abrasiveness compared to the album. Even with all that, I can still see why people were expecting something different content wise from MM&TBS, and it’s for a pretty simple reason; a lot of Kendrick’s fanbase wanted TPAB 2. The Heart Part 5, despite sharing a decent number of thematic qualities with MM&TBS, I can see snugly fitting more into a TPAB frame of reference. The lush and grand production certainly helps with this perception, but also due to the fact that TPAB is Kendrick’s most macro-focused album by far, and that The Heart Part 5 is an extremely macro-focused song. It has nothing to do with Kendrick’s personal demons and traumas, which would be highly explored in graphic detail on the album, and instead has more to do with commentating on hip hop and black culture as a whole, which is something TPAB indulged in more heavily than just about any other Kendrick project.
This is where I should probably get into the meaning of the faces used in the music video. Granted, knowing Kendrick, there could be/probably are multiple meanings as to why these faces in particular were displayed, but nevertheless, here’s my take. The first face, O.J. Simpson, is meant to represent black wealth and the highest stage of black capitalism in the US. In the bars referencing O.J., Kendrick also references the first bars of the second verse of Jay Z’s hit song, Izzo (H.O.V.A.). Given that Jay has made a song called The Story of OJ, I can’t imagine this to be a coincidence on Kendrick’s part. All this to say, the reason I interpret the lines this way is because Kendrick is emphasizing that O.J.’s ultimate purpose in black culture was to showcase the financial heights that black people could reach, specifically in reference to the bulletproof Rover. The second face, Kanye West, is meant to show the inherent distrust among people within the black community, specifically in reference to friends being bipolar and not hesitating to switch up on you in order to get an upper hand in the world. The third face, Jussie Smollett, is meant to represent one of two things; the first is either the violence inflicted on black people from within their community, or how a false incident of violence can negatively impact the black community and its perception, and there’s evidence on both sides for this. For one, Kendrick makes a reference to the statement Smollett made after his alleged attack, when he compared himself to Tupac, so that can definitely be interpreted as a dig. On the other hand, he goes on to reference his reaction to Nipsey’s death back in 2019, and ties that into his reference to “black and black crime” that I mentioned prior. I could also see Smollett being used as a parallel between the costs of fake violence and real violence and how both have their consequences.
As for the fourth face, Will Smith, this is pretty self-explanatory, as his face pops up when Kendrick references hurt people hurting other people. I especially like the usage of describing Will Smith as a “hurt person” as it digs a little bit onto how we transfer our traumas and pains onto other people. It’s especially fitting for Smith as he grew up in a rough household and has had his masculinity thoroughly and publicly shamed for his marriage to Jada Pinkett Smith. F.D. Signifier actually has an amazing video that sort of addresses the Will Smith situation but is ultimately more about the trauma and pain that black boys are subjugated to and how that translates into adulthood. The fifth face, Kobe Bryant, is by far the hardest to come up with a direct meaning for, as none of the lyrics in the third verse are meant to directly reference Kobe. That being said, I think Kobe is meant to represent the stress that black people go through in making it to the top and the effort that is required of them to get there in a white supremacist society. I think this because Kobe was known for his outrageous work ethic on the basketball court. I also think Kendrick could’ve been using Kobe as a representation for how one slipup can permanently damage your reputation, evidence be damned, although that might be a reach. Lastly, the sixth face, Nipsey Hussle, is meant to represent the positivity of black and hip-hop culture. A man who was a role model for his community, someone who gave back and dedicated his life to the culture, only for it to be snatched away in an instant. I’ve always found it fascinating that Kendrick chose to rap from Nipsey’s perspective in heaven, as in my opinion, there’s pretty much no other rapper right now that could get away with doing that without being called insensitive. And yet, Kendrick proves why he’s that one guy that could do that. The last verse on this song is truly beautiful, from how he describes the pain in Nipsey’s killer’s eyes, to how his impact will live on, to what his people should do going forward in the wake of the tragedy. His body may not reap the benefits of success, fortune, fame, and notoriety, but the presence and legacy he left behind will live on. Kendrick’s last words for the song are “I want you”, the name of the song he sampled for The Heart Part 5, and the call for unity and harmony within the black community.
And with that, the prodigal son of rap had returned. He surely had returned to teach and to prophesize and to preach to us about the ills of the world again. At least, that’s what the world expected.
Part 2: The Surface
Before I get into the perception of MM&TBS, I feel it is necessary for me to establish my thoughts on the album as a whole, good and bad, and to dissect the nuances that come with it. For me, there are two types of issues that Kendrick addresses on this album: issues deemed acceptable, and issues deemed unacceptable. There are a lot of themes imbedded into this album that are incorporated and addressed within the album in a lot of different ways. There are five central issues and/or issues that Kendrick tackles on Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers that people either wouldn’t be surprised of being addressed on a Kendrick album or would be happy to see Kendrick have and/or address (sidenote, the issue of people policing what issues Kendrick should or shouldn’t bring up on an album and even the issue of people policing what issues Kendrick should or shouldn’t have on an album will be brought up later in this article). Those five issues are grief, daddy issues, relationship problems, therapy, and his lack of fulfillment through material objects.
Grief
Kendrick struggles with his grief throughout the entirety of the album, right from the opening track, aptly titled United In Grief. The track in question is all about how Kendrick’s unaddressed traumas have caused him to be unable to really express grief in a healthy way. Instead of properly grieving over the things and people he lost, he channels that grief into buying material objects like cars, houses, swimming pools, etc. United In Grief is the perfect intro for this album simply because it expertly introduces us to the main theme of the album; that being Kendrick’s inability to process his trauma causing him to cope with it in destructive ways that further hurt other people he cares about in his life. It’s a skill he learned from his father which was mentioned on Father Time, when Kendrick’s dad explained to Kendrick the reason why he went back to work so soon after his mother’s death. Simply put, the world doesn’t run on your grief, and you just have to keep going. Drudging along aimlessly and shoving down your emotions and you just keep doing this, all the way until you die, courtesy of the capitalist and consumerist machine we are all fed to. And who is left to pick up the pieces? Your children, of course, all for them to repeat the cycle once more. Kendrick’s lack of healthy coping mechanisms is put front and center throughout the entire album, and how all of those coping mechanisms proved to be ineffective for him. From his cars to his mansions to sex addiction to his savior complex, none of these things were able to quench his thirst, if you will. If anything, they added more pain and sadness into his life, with the burdened expectations of a rich and famous rap superstar wrapped in a Christ figurine, filled to the brim with outlets for his vices.
Daddy Issues
Kendrick’s issues with his father and the way he raised him are primarily addressed on Father Time. He gives you the runaround on all the ways that his father stunted his growth emotionally. What I find most interesting about this song is how it ties in with the rest of the album. With Kendrick’s limited emotional development and inability to truly address his trauma being the primary focus of this album, Father Time takes on a particularly important role in giving us context as to why Kendrick had struggled with coping for as long as he did. Like all the songs on this album, it addresses one piece of the large and ever-expanding pie of Kendrick’s troubles that plague his mind, but much like with his inability to handle his grief, his inability to handle his emotions in general is a huge reason why he is the way he is. It was why he was emotionally closed off with women and why he couldn’t express himself in a healthy way on songs like We Cry Together. It’s why he felt the need to overcompensate himself as a dominant alpha male, hence his initial confusion as to Drake and Kanye’s reunion. It’s why he convinced himself that people wanted to see him fail and fall off on Count Me Out. And it’s why he bottled in all these deep-seeded traumas, with some being for over 20 years, just for it all to come pouring out on this album.
Relationship Problems
Kendrick has made relationship-driven tracks in the past, namely songs like LOVE., These Walls, and Poetic Justice, but I can’t recall an album from him that had this many songs about his relationships. There are at least three tracks on this album dedicated to his relationship with his wife, Whitney, and even if some of them aren’t my favorites on the album, they are still important in terms of addressing the big picture of the album. Whitney is presented as the victim of the album in some ways, as the emotional punching bag for Kendrick to inflict his trauma onto, whether it be through emotional unavailability, arguments, or cheating (which I will get to later). Kendrick’s lack of emotional availability for his partner is the main topic of choice for the song, Die Hard. Due to a lifetime of distrust that he holds for the people around him and in the world at large, he cannot fully give himself to a relationship, even with someone that he clearly has a deep love for. We Cry Together is the next song about relationships, specifically toxic relationships, but I’ll actually address this song later in part three. After that. we have Purple Hearts, which is a straight up love song with some beautiful instrumentation. Even if it may be the simplest song on the album in terms of content, it’s still one of my favorites cause of how amazing it sounds, and it sure helps to have one of the best Ghostface Killah features in ages on it. Also, sidenote, Summer Walker did her thing on it, in my opinion at least, but that just seems to be me. The last song I’ll address in terms of Kendrick’s relationship issues is with the opener for side B of the album, Count Me Out, which is honestly in my top three favorite songs of the whole album. Everything about this song is just mesmerizing to me, but especially the lyrics. It just has so many of my favorite lines here, with some standouts being, “It’s rare when somebody take your dreams back”, “I fought like a pit bull terrier, Blood I shed could fill up aquariums”, “You said I’d feel better if I just worked hard without liftin’ my head up, That left me fed up”, and “Some put it on the Devil when they fall short, I put it on my ego, lord of all lords”. My favorite is when he does the whole Miss Regret motif at the end of the song and says he’s got deep regrets, and it’s simply for how hard it hits me every time I listen to it. Kendrick uses this song to explore a relationship entirely kept alive by sex, as the relationship he created for himself, and his partner leaves them both emotionally stunted.
Therapy
Kendrick’s emotional growth that he went through between DAMN. and MM&TBS seems to have come from the results of him seeking therapy. Now, I don’t know if Eckhart Tolle is Kendrick’s personal therapist or just a representation of therapy as a whole on the album, but either way, it’s crucial to bring up his involvement in the record as a vehicle for Kendrick’s breakthroughs. The first time he is mentioned is when Kodak Black namedrops him on Worldwide Steppers, but the first time we hear him speak is on Count Me Out, which is described as a “breakthrough” by Kendrick’s wife, Whitney. Tolle is a German spiritual teacher most famous for his book, The Power of Now. Tolle’s presence on the album is particularly important given how strongly Kendrick is tied to his faith across his entire discography, and yet this is album where his faith is brought up the least (aside from maybe Section.80). The point is Tolle being on the album allows for Kendrick to truly open himself up and dissect his traumas for the first time. Mr. Morale is the biggest example of this, as Kendrick openly discusses his triggers and the representations of those triggers in his culture, specifically R. Kelly and Tyler Perry (believe me, I’ll get to that later). Therapy is also used as a vehicle for Kendrick to prioritize himself on this album, with him firmly disavowing his savior complex and refusing to be that messiah that so many want him to be — the embodiment of black trauma that rolls the boulder up the hill until it falls back down on the next generation, repeating the cycle. Lastly, Tolle appears on Savior-Interlude to emphasize how people are defined by the bad things that happened to them in childhood. Also, shoutout to Baby Keem for the verse on that song because that was great.
Material Objects
Even on his earlier albums, Kendrick never really presented himself as much of a materialistic guy, but that gets amplified tenfold on this album. Kendrick reveals to buying infinity pools he never ended up swimming in, a representation of the hole in his soul that those possessions were meant to fill. He mentions that his cousin, Baby Keem, is repeating those decisions that Kendrick made at a young age, showcasing the culture of materialism, and how it’s all about temporary fulfillment. He mentions this on Crown when he talks about buying a new car to please himself, but it ended up getting old for him and he moved on to the next thing, repeating the cycle. He mentions it once more on Rich Spirit when talking about his broke phone, and how it made him a more spiritually fulfilled person, exemplified when he says, “Thoughts and prayers, way better off timelines”. Above all else, the most important role that material objects play on this album is how they’re used as a surrogate for trauma. It’s not just something that’s meant to fill a hole of boredom or fulfillment in their life, it’s meant to substitute as a therapeutic release from or a direct replacement of trauma. Kendrick brings this up on Silent Hill when says, “Peek-a-boo, can’t hide behind your money, dawg”, and further dives into it when referencing Tyler Perry on Mr. Morale. In the end, Kendrick sees material possessions being used as comfort for rappers and just for flash and show.
Even with all that said, I have only scratched the surface on Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, so we’ll address almost everything else I have to personally say about this album in part 3.
Part 3: Kendrick’s Ideological Cracks
Now that we’ve scratched the surface, it’s time to dig into the real meat of this album, and why people have had issues with it. I think what makes this album so divisive among people has a lot to do with how confrontational it is. MM&TBS is Kendrick’s most uncompromising album by far, specifically in terms of content and the way that content is conveyed. People don’t like how brutally honest Kendrick gets about his issues on this album, at least not the kind of brutally honest that actually challenges you. There’s a specific brand of honesty that Kendrick had on his previous records, in that while he was truly speaking from his heart, he wasn’t able or wasn’t willing to go as deep as we thought he did initially. I also think that’s why this album has been so mixed to some people because in a way, they feel what Kendrick is saying about himself on this album contradicts, undermines, or eradicates the image of Kendrick that these people had in their minds for so long. But, above all else, MM&TBS is a controversial record because it forces the audience listening to confront the deeply uncomfortable parts about themselves, and rather than try to honestly engage with the material, or even just acknowledge that they aren’t in the right headspace to do something that intense, they dismiss the record entirely.
One of the issues of this album that caused people to raise concerns almost immediately was with the concept of “masks” that Kendrick consistently brings up on the album, specifically on songs like N95 and Count Me Out. However, I feel like a lot of the concern about that concept should be put aside once you dive into what “masks” Kendrick is actually referring to. A huge theme of this album is Kendrick hiding to shield himself from pain. Dare I say, it’s the other part of the biggest sentiment of the album, that being since Kendrick is unable to deal with his traumas in a healthy way, he instead hides or distracts himself from trauma with jewelry, money, clout, sex, etc. He’s still clinging onto those toxic old friends as a means of stability in his life. Kendrick, for a lot of this album, is afraid of being exposed or stating that all of those aforementioned things used to cover up trauma won’t prevent his true self from emerging, hence the sentiment on Count Me Out with “…mask won’t hide who you are inside” line. Honestly, I think the main reason why people take issue with Kendrick addressing this is either because they took the “masks” literal and assumed Kendrick was referencing COVID, or they just don’t like being reminded of the masks they wear every day to cover up the traumas they have.
Speaking of COVID, Kendrick’s line about questioning Kyrie on Savior is indicative of how people expect their idols to align with them on everything, or even be at the same stage of political development they are at. This is particularly common among white liberals, who expect people to be “enlightened” almost immediately, while oftentimes either ignoring how long it took them to get to where they are at or how they have a lot of introspection and growing to do themselves while putting themselves at the top of the moral pedestal. Yes, Kendrick Lamar at one point was skeptical about COVID-19 and while I’m not a fan of that, I can respect the fact that he grew from that experience and came out of it differently. I wish he didn’t catch COVID in order to question it in the first place, but that’s not really my point. My point is to have respect for the journey of growth and change everyone undergoes and to not exclude others based on them not “growing fast enough” for your standards when, more often than not, you still have room to grow and improve.
Now out of all the controversies to address on this album, the one that I am the most cautious about is in regard to Kendrick’s addiction to sex, specifically referring to fucking white women on Worldwide Steppers. I’ve seen a lot of critique from people who either expected “better” of someone like Kendrick or just didn’t want to hear those kinds of lyrics in a song. To be clear, as a white man, I have no say on how black people should feel about a black man having sex with white women, especially considering the messy, complicated, and fucked up history in America with black men and white women. With that said, I think it’s important to analyze why Kendrick would rap about something like this, because it ties in with the biggest theme of the album: distracting yourself from trauma through your vices. Kendrick admits to a twisted sense of revenge he got from fucking these white women, ranging from a specific incident with his uncle to the generational burden black people have had to carry since slavery and even before. Kendrick is simultaneously using sex with white women as an escape from reality and as a way to inflict the trauma, generational and otherwise, that he experienced onto others. So, no, this isn’t a vain brag on Kendrick’s part like some might think on first listen, if anything it’s quite the opposite.
I want to quickly address We Cry Together in this part as well, since while it may not be controversial for any nefarious reasons, it is a polarizing song nonetheless due to its abrasiveness and just how far it’s willing to go with its premise. I won’t deny it’s not an easy song to revisit as the incessant “Fuck You’s” can be hard to bump at times. That being said, I love how uncomfortable this song is and how brazen it’s willing to be in its portrayal of a toxic black relationship. People have been quick to point out the potential influences of the song, such as Eminem’s Kim, or the argument scene between Jodie and Yvette in Baby Boy. However, I think it most prominently takes its influence from the argument scene between 2Pac and Janet Jackson in Poetic Justice. I also want to shoutout RZA’s Domestic Violence as a potential influence for this song, as it was one of the first hip hop songs to truly display an ugly relationship as a song, and given the Ghostface feature on MM&TBS, I don't think it’s an astronomical stretch. This song is also key to the album’s theme as it ends with the violently dysfunctional couple having sex as a remedy to their problems, as a means to “tap dance around the conversation” if you will.
Speaking of tap dancing around the convo, now is the time to address one of the biggest elephants in the room — Auntie Diaries. I said earlier in this piece that there wasn’t a lot of what Kendrick said on this album that legitimately surprised me, but this was one of them. I was not expecting Kendrick to use the f slur in 2022 in any context whatsoever. I was also not expecting him to essentially make a trans rights song. Auntie Diaries is the kind of song that if done badly can devastate an entire career, especially if you fuck it up massively. A subject this sensitive in our culture ought to be done with care, grace, and nuance. So, how did Kendrick do on Auntie Diaries? Well, truth be told, my opinion on this song is pretty much moot. I guess I can say is that I’m glad a rapper on the mainstream level that Kendrick is at is even willing to make a song like this. I guess I can command him for the effort and acknowledge and applaud the growth he displayed on the song. All that being said, if you are not in the LGBTQ community or black, your opinion on the portrayal of black trans people in this song or how Kendrick displayed his message on this song is irrelevant, and that goes for me as well. I will defend one thing on this song no matter what though. Admittedly, this is kind of my fault, as I should’ve known better than to scan the Twitter timeline before listening to the song, but nonetheless I was seeing comments about how Kendrick is homophobic, or Kendrick is transphobic. If what you took away from that song was Kendrick trying to be homophobic or transphobic, then you just didn’t listen to the song closely enough, I’m sorry.
Now for the other huge elephant in the room when it comes to MM&TBS, that being Kodak Black. This was the other thing I was not expecting coming into this album. I didn’t think Kodak would actually be on this album when the rumors started swirling but alas, he did appear on this album, multiple times actually. To go through with putting a convicted rapist on the album was not something I anticipated nor wanted Kendrick to do. I won’t even try to defend Kendrick for putting Kodak on this album, as I think there were, unfortunately (this’ll make sense later), a ton of rappers Kendrick could’ve used to illustrate his point that he was using Kodak for. Once again, my goal with this section is not to justify Kendrick’s decision, but rather explain it because something like this demands an explanation. I will say this right off the bat; Kendrick knows exactly what he’s doing in regard to what Kodak’s purpose on this album is. Kodak is meant to represent a couple things but primarily rappers using unhealthy coping mechanisms to conceal their pain, and how that unaddressed trauma gets passed onto other people, specifically black people. Unfortunately, there are a lot of rappers in the mainstream that have admitted to being sexually abused as children such as Lil Wayne, Common, Polo G, Denzel Curry, Kevin Gates, the list goes on. As far as I’m aware, none of these rappers listed were convicted rapists, so why didn’t Kendrick go with any of these options?
Well, I think the reason he didn’t is because he wanted to highlight something about abusers and why this cycle of abuse happens. It goes back to what Kendrick said on Mr. Morale when referring to R. Kelly and questioning how things would be if he never was molested. And this is where we get into the discussion of victims. I’ve seen a lot of justifiable criticism leveled at Kendrick for his lack of mention towards the victims of guys like Kodak and R. Kelly. In my opinion, Kendrick does this for two reasons: he’s more concerned about getting to the root cause of abuse and how to stop the cycle from continuing rather than a micro-level interaction between abusers and their victims, and how trauma is passed on from person to person. One of Kendrick’s biggest talking points on Worldwide Steppers is how everyone is a killer, a zombie scratching an itch. While it certainly has to do with cancel culture and how flawed self-hating people will project all their hatred on others for missteps, it’s also a means of addressing that we all have “blood” on our hands in terms of trauma. We’ve all inflicted trauma onto other people at some point in our lives, so in that sense, no one is innocent. We are all killers. Now, even if I think this talking point has merit to it, I won’t pretend that this line of thinking isn’t flawed. Kendrick fails to address how there are key differences in the amount of trauma one has caused onto another. Like there’s a gigantic difference between screaming at your child once versus raping someone. I normally don’t like comparing traumas like that, but once we’ve entered this kind of discussion it is unavoidable, in my opinion. Lastly, I will say Kodak may represent Kendrick himself, and how Kendrick feels a kindred spirit in Kodak for their sexual traumas (presuming Kodak has those traumas, which I honestly hope he doesn’t). Obviously, Kendrick’s experiences projecting his pain onto others through sex isn’t on the same level as forcing oneself onto someone against their will, but I digress. For what it’s worth, Kodak’s appearances on Rich — Interlude and Silent Hill aren’t deal breakers.
I feel as though deep down, people really did not want Kendrick to shed his savior complex. Like on the surface, a song like Crown where Kendrick isn’t saying anything more damning than admitting his shortcomings in terms of pleasing everyone, people didn’t take issue with that. I think it’s the implications of him shedding the savior complex that has really gotten under people’s skin, specifically on the song, Savior. Kendrick was seen as a beacon of hope for many people, a representation of all the trauma black people endured for centuries and the carrier of all that generational weight on his back. People genuinely looked to Kendrick for guidance and validation of themselves and when he finally stopped playing that game on MM&TBS people got upset. Kendrick is done being the person to hold onto that trauma for people, and I actually think that’s quite admirable of him to be frank. No one person, especially not a black person, should be forced into this role of bearing trauma for the people. Shawn Cee’s take on Savior honestly does the song a lot more justice than I ever could so I’d recommend you go check out his review of the album. What I will say is that Kendrick is through trying to fight to be on the “right side of history”, simply because the people who write history are more often than not terrible people with no one’s best interest in mind but the ruling class. Kendrick’s last statement about losing the savior complex is on the final track, Mirror, as he simply states, “I chose me, I’m sorry”. Kendrick’s reference to Noname on the third verse is interesting to me, especially when you compare it to J. Cole’s response from 2020, Snow on the Bluff. Unlike Cole, who uses the song as a means to deflect the criticism leveled against him by questioning the “queen tone” of Noname, Kendrick responds by framing this in the instance of his personal growth as a man, and how it made him realize where he needed to go in his life.
In the end, even if I have some issues with this album, Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers is an album that has led to me respecting Kendrick as an artist and a man even more than I did before. I respect how far Kendrick was willing to go into his traumas for this album and how he was unafraid to reveal the ugliest sides of him. It’s an album made stronger by the fact that he’s willing to address everything about himself, despite not all of those things painting him in the best light. Unfortunately, a lot of people have taken an album filled with these revelations and expected something cleaner, both musically and thematically, and thus, have attacked this album and Kendrick as a person.
Part 4: In a land where hurt people hurt more people…
Before I go, I want to say this first: do not harass or attack any of the accounts that may be featured in this part of the article (some of the accounts featured are mutuals so lay off). I shouldn’t have to say something like that, but you never know. The night MM&TBS dropped and the subsequent days after produced a lot of reactions, but the most prevalent out of all the takes I’ve seen is bewilderment. People were shocked and appalled that their savior, their messiah, admitted to being a mortal man. They were stunned to find out he was a regular black man just like anyone else. Most of all, they were stunned to realize that their savior still had some growing and healing to do himself, and people did not like it. The minute they heard the words “cancel culture” or “fucking white women” or “COVID” their ears perked up and tuned out all the noise. Questions of Kendrick being washed circulated through the timeline.
And this is where I address the people that are trying to police what Kendrick can and cannot rap about, and even what Kendrick can and cannot have trauma with or what kind of healing he still has to do. I’ve seen people on my timeline upset that Kendrick still has growing and healing to do even after he made it clear that he was not your savior and that he’s just a man. Twitter as a whole is a cesspool of self-righteous people who expect everyone else to be on the same emotional and political level as them, even if they haven’t had anywhere near the amount of time to go through that change as they did. What they don’t understand is that Kendrick isn’t asking for a medal or a reward for sharing his trauma and overcoming it. He’s not asking to be glorified or anything of that sort. He’s ultimately asking for people to engage with the art in good faith. And I’m not trying to absolve myself from this either because I’m a regular on Twitter, and I can easily indulge in that behavior from time to time. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve had to learn to not see a group of people as a monolith, as in something that everyone has agreement on no matter what. Unfortunately, a lot of people on Twitter see people, specifically black people, as a monolith, as this ideal of humanity that has to be lived up to at all times, which leads me to the expectations placed on black entertainers, specifically rappers. The fact that people, especially white people, feel so comfortable with tearing down black artists for the smallest transgressions and disagreements is extremely weird to me. It’s giving off the impression that you see black artists as nothing more than commodities, and when they are no longer useful for your function, you dump them. Ironically enough, despite many of these people claiming the anti-capitalist struggle, they themselves are formulating a capitalist frame of mind, in regard to not allowing these artists to grow as people.
Then I started seeing takes about the album as a whole once the first week sales dropped. You had these weird Drake fans coming out the woodworks talking shit about the album since it didn’t sell like crazy. So, let me get this straight? Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers is an album with almost no radio hits, maybe N95, Rich Spirit, or Silent Hill but that’s about it. It’s an album that’s about a man exploring his deep-seeded traumas and pain that go all the way back to childhood. It has deeply uncomfortable revelations about the man and the culture he was raised in throughout the album. And you mean to tell me that you expect this album to one, sell like crazy, and two, have the same amount of replay value as something that didn’t take 1/10th the amount of emotional energy to unpack? These kinds of takes tell me a couple of things. You inherently view art as a product, as a means of quick fulfillment and nothing else. Due to this line of thinking, you see no issue with comparing two albums and artists that are not trying to do anywhere near the same thing. And you’ve come to expect an artist’s trauma to be profitable. And with a new Drake album dropping soon, I only expect this discourse to get worse.
This is where we get into how people fetishize the trauma of black artists in hip hop. You could make a case that the entire industry of mainstream hip hop is built off of the back of black trauma. You got people like Chief Keef, Polo G, Lil Baby, and Young Thug who come from rough backgrounds, the type of environments that’ll give you PTSD. And what do they rap about at the end of the day? They rap about what they did in the ghetto or the hood, oftentimes involving the traumatic shit they had to do to survive, and we eat it up. I’m not trying to give an “anti-mumble rap, support real rap” kind of message here because ultimately, it’s not about the music in this case. It’s about how the conditions that brought about these artists are glorified and fetishized by American culture. We shortly stop seeing these artists as people and it’s sad. I think it’s also important to acknowledge that the rappers I mentioned previously aren’t framing their trauma in the same way Kendrick is on this album. They frame it in an inherently capitalist fashion, either because they feel like they have to, or they genuinely enjoy making that type of music. I also won’t pretend that I am not culpable in this because I absolutely am. I am a huge fan of trap music and I’m not trying to shame people who are. What I am trying to shame is the people that expect every mainstream artist to frame their traumas in the same way, and that just feels very wrong to me.
The last thing I want to cover in regard to the discourse surrounding the album is how I’ve seen people in the Marxist spaces reacting to this album. As someone who is very much in those spaces, I can understand the reactions to this album to a certain extent. Yes, Kendrick did garner comparisons to Tupac Shakur and maybe that was a little misguided given the differing philosophies of the two men. That being said, I think it’s flawed to assume that just because Kendrick is walking away from being that savior that so many wanted him to be, he is also glorifying a purely capitalist and selfish lifestyle. In fact, if you look into the lyrics of the album, I’d dare say it contains the most amount of anti-capitalism on any Kendrick album. I already addressed Kendrick’s disassociation with materialistic things on this album, but he is also rejecting the capitalist nature of the music industry in pursuit for his own well-being. There’s the lyrics on Savior when he says, “Capitalists posing as compassionates be offending me” and, “Heroes looking for the villains to help”. If that isn’t a clear indictment of capitalism on Kendrick’s part, I don’t know what is. There’s also the lyric on Worldwide Steppers where he says, “The noble person that goes to work and pray like they ‘posed to? Slaughter people too, your murder’s just a bit slower”. The album isn’t explicitly about capitalism and its effects on him, but I can say that the album, in nature, is anti-capitalist, which I think a lot of people missed on first or second listen.
To sum it all up, I have not been fond of the reception that MM&TBS has gotten, simply because people have taken a black man’s trauma and have tried to monetize, fetishize, and critique it. A lot of the album’s coverage has looked downright inhumane to me honestly, and it’s one of the main reasons why I wrote this article in the first place. That being said, it is not the only reason.
Part 5: Trauma Has Resurfaced
The only song I have yet to discuss is Mother I Sober and that’s for a reason. I feel it is the most pivotal song to not just understanding the album but understanding him as a man. It is the most important release of his career for him as a person. It is one of the most eye-opening and impactful tracks I’ve heard in a very long time, possibly ever. It’s a song detailing the abuse his family went through when he was a child, specifically to his mother. It recalls the guilt and pain Kendrick had for not being able to prevent his mother’s abuse. It addresses how despite him repeatedly denying that his cousin molested him, his mom still didn’t believe him. It admits why his mother persisted that Kendrick was sexually abused — because it’s what happened to her. And it addresses how this consistent questioning of whether or not he had been touched traumatized Kendrick and caused him to question everything about himself and led to this search for sexual gratification, describing what he got from sleeping with women as “superpowers”. Kendrick tackles his addiction, not to drugs or alcohol, but to sex, and how this addiction has led to his relationship with his wife, Whitney, deteriorating.
Lastly, Kendrick addresses the generational cycle of trauma that has circulated through black people ever since they were enslaved and forced into traumatizing sexual acts as victims and how black people have yet to recover from this. They still live as victims in the public eye. It’s a sentiment Kendrick has been trying to destigmatize since TPAB, but unfortunately it’s still the narrative. He addresses how rappers have hid behind their material objects to cover up sexual trauma, and how it is important to empathize with how rappers cope with these traumas before passing judgement. While he is addressing the entire industry, I think it’s also safe to assume he’s indirectly addressing Kodak Black’s situation as well. If that is the case, I can see why some people may see the message of Mother I Sober as a little moot or undermined considering the point of this song is to address the cycle of abuse and the victims within it. Nevertheless, Kendrick ends the verse with releasing all the people in this sick cycle of trauma and abuse, and to begin anew. Kendrick is releasing abusers and victims, those hurting and those who were hurt, and it all crescendos into an insanely moving and powerful moment of exhale. The first time I listened to Mother I Sober; I won’t lie to you and say that I didn’t cry. It was the sheer heaviness of the song that got to me initially. It took repeated listens for me to uncover how much this song actually meant to me.
Around five years ago I was attempting to get my driver’s license. I had an old man as my driving instructor, and it was not a pleasant experience. He was an asshole to me, he made me feel uncomfortable with driving as a whole, he made me lose confidence in myself for every little mistake I made, it was just not a good experience for me. I told my mother this and she asked me a question, “Did he touch you, Joey?” I said no because he didn’t do that. For all the bad things I could say about that man, he did not molest me. She asked me that same question again whenever the subject of driving came up from time to time over the years and I continually denied it. Unlike Kendrick, I’ve never asked her why she persisted with that question, but I feel like I don’t need to. My mother came from an abusive household to the point where she and a lot of her siblings were not okay. My mother has progressed a lot since she’s became a mother and has done her best to prevent that same trauma being passed down to us. She landed a softer punch if you will, even if that means there was still a punch landed. I don’t know if the abuse she suffered was ever sexual, and I don’t really want to know. Her father has dementia, and I don’t want to potentially remind her of the pain and suffering she got from that man at this point in time. All that to say that her asking me if my driving instructor molested me was not something I thought about until now, thanks to this song.
It’s not something that’s at the forefront of my mind when I try to drive. I have numerous anxieties about driving, including the prospect of me potentially putting people’s lives at risk and general insecurities about me not being good enough in general. I will say that her words about my driving instructor probably do add a subconscious reason as to why I’ve struggled to drive and get my driver’s license over the years. Let me be clear, I am not trying to compare the traumas between me and Kendrick, because I think it’s counterproductive to do so, and I think there’s a key difference at play. Kendrick, as a black man, has to experience the generational trauma that has been forged into African Americans since slavery. I’ve never had to take on such a burden, and I’m not trying to claim that I have. What I am saying is that this culture of expecting boys to become sexually thriving men at a rapid pace doesn’t just happen in black families. It happens to all boys. We develop preconceptions around women and the expectations of sex and what it means to be sexually active as a young man, in society. It warps your mind into thinking about sex as a primary vehicle for happiness and as validation for your manhood. It is also used as a vehicle to cover up one’s trauma. Sex is not seen as unity or even as a recreational activity in American society. It is seen as a litmus test for manhood, a litmus test for your well-being and worth as a man.
I do not have a sex addiction; I’ve never had sex in my life. Do I have an addiction to porn or masturbating? Truth be told, I don’t know. I’ve been doing it for around four years now on a near daily basis as a 10–30-minute distraction from the pains and intrusive thoughts I experience daily. I don’t exactly know what qualifies as an addiction in that context because I feel like I can stop any time I want to. The problem is that I just haven’t wanted to. I think it’s also used as a coping mechanism for my sexual insecurities. I’ve been a lonely, solitary guy for years, who has been lacking in intimacy and has been uncomfortable around people probably since high school. Masturbation is used as a way to drop those preconceived worries and anxieties about myself and just focus on what’s in front of me. I use drinking for a similar purpose, to drop the insecurities and the social awkwardness I have around people and become a better version of myself. I’m going to try avoiding masturbating for a bit after this piece comes out, because I need to know if it’s truly an addiction, or it’s just a hobby. I need to replace it with something to heal.
I know how uncomfortable what I just said probably was for the reader, but that’s the point. This entire album, Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, and in particular, Mother I Sober, made me confront those ugly parts about myself I didn’t like. It made me reflect on the person I am today versus the person I was five years ago. It’s not an easy album to listen to from start to finish. It shouldn’t be easy to examine the deep-seeded traumas and pain that you hold. It shouldn’t be easy for you to look closely at the things you’ve been hiding from other people. It is not an easy process to heal. That’s why I love this album so much. It captures that process brilliantly and makes it a fulfilling listening experience. It’s an album that is not for the faint of heart. It’s not for those who are coming into it expecting a product or general musings about the world. It’s an album that stares you in the face and forces you to look back at it. Most of all, Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers is a transformational album. We can embrace the transformation or reject it; the choice is up to us.
