kendrick lamar - mr. morale & the big steppers (2022)

kinda cool that we have no conception of what this might possibly sound like

big boi-ass album name

the whole thing is actually a collab with inflo.

one song includes tony allen's final performance.

there's a spoken word cameo from bill withers.

a significant part of the album is just kendrick reading the constitution in a real whiny, mocking voice over "more bounce to the ounce."

it's only about twenty minutes long.

^Big if true

I'm actually surprised that this was announced with still about a month to go. His last few albums were announced two weeks or less in advanced of their release date. Granted, To Pimp a Butterfly was pushed up from it's initial announced release date, and that could still possibly happen.

This name is still hilarious to me

he's a troll haha: https://oklama.com/theheart

huh.

in any case, this is an exciting time to be a hiphop fan.

new song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAPUkgeiFVY

So this is maybe/probably not on the album, right? Great track either way.

well my eyes sure bugged out!

almost definitely not gonna be on the album, if he follows the pattern of the previous “the heart” releases. they’re the amuse bouche

also ??? at him thanking the South Park dudes in the notes

he announced he's making a film with them earlier in the year

kendrick lamar - mr. morale & the big steppers (2022)

but we should use the new album thread

― ufo, Monday, 9 May 2022 03:35 (one hour ago) link

also learned earlier that the deepfake tech in the video is from the SP dudes

glad that it seems to be a double after getting us to wait so long

new song is really great, very promising if the album's vibes are anything like this

I'm looking forward to the album and looking forward to dissecting it with my son. Kendrick is one of our biggest shared enthusiasms, we went together to see him in 2018 in Atlanta. He's the one who came bounding down the stairs last night going "There's a new Kendrick track!"

so this is gonna be a return to the adventurous jazz-ish rap of Butterfly, right?

More U2 collabs please

I've held off on saying anything about this so far because what can you say? The expectation going in is that possibly the best rapper of all time is about to make his most important statement yet — and the new song is right in line with that.

Having difficulty putting the magnitude of my excitement into words at this point.

possibly the best rapper of all time is about to make his most important statement yet

fucking hell

do people really think that?

you don't understand, there is music and then there is music royalty

easy to forget as well that this is a classic rock forum, and that kendrick is classic rock

(he's great though so I am excited to hear it, just as I am unexcited by ILM's response to it)

I'm sure some people think so, and in general I'm very happy for the phenomenon of Kendrick Lamar, wish him all the best, great that he's getting so many young people into rap. Tipsy's story really made me smile.

But just to balance the thread a bit, I've never really loved his style, and I don't find the single amazing.

I did find this couplet witty:
I said I'd do this for my culture
To let y'all know what a n**** look like in a bulletproof Rover

I think I'd be more excited for a Kendrick Lamar album if I was still listening to any new hip hop, which I have stopped about the time of Untitled Unmastered. I don't think I remember anything from Damn except the annoying "Bitch, be humble" line. His number of features was also ridiculous at some point. But will be happy to listen to the new one about 15 weeks after everyone else because I still love everything he did up to TPAB.

“I did find this couplet witty:
I said I'd do this for my culture
To let y'all know what a n**** look like in a bulletproof Rover”

This is a Jay-Z verse originally, I think.

yeah, from Izzo - just a funny interpolation

He's verging on becoming Too Important. I miss the fun, a little.

yeah that 3rd verse is---not my kinda conscious

it's not that it's pretentious but more that it's vague, abstract, generalistic, missing the quotidian profundities that would make it fun and real

I think I'd be more excited for a Kendrick Lamar album if I was still listening to any new hip hop

good news, that’s a quality you share with a large percentage of the people who are excited for this album

I am excited to hear it, just as I am unexcited by ILM's response to it

this is so dumb lol, if you think that ilm is gonna be unduly hyped about this album, then i invite you look literally anywhere else on the internet and see what hot air really looks like

“this has nothing on the new quelle chris album” - imago, in two days

quelle chris is mad underpraised!! but this will probably be better, let's see lol

within seconds of release other parts of the internet will be picking apart lyrics for clues and easter eggs like it was a season one episode of True Detective

do people really think that?

― groovemaaan, Tuesday, May 10, 2022 10:55 PM

do people really not think that?

it's not that it's pretentious but more that it's vague, abstract, generalistic, missing the quotidian profundities that would make it fun and real

― corrs unplugged, Wednesday, May 11, 2022 5:30 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

the video helps–he's rapping from nipsey hussle's perspective and forgiving the man who killed him.

additionally, there's a ton of references to nipsey's neighborhood.

also it's funny to me-

(lifelong hiphop fan gets excited to hear highly anticipated new material by one of the music's acknowledged virtuosos.)

some of ya'll: ABSOLUTELY NOT

the collective listening experience is overvalued and if you've lost your enthusiasm for an event album like this, well . . . as a smarter person than myself once said: i can't do nothin' for ya, man.

He's verging on becoming Too Important. I miss the fun, a little.

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, May 11, 2022 6:07 AM (seven hours ago)

i think this is the discourse suffocating the actual art a bit. damn had some fun moments! "loyalty" was a great pop single, "DNA" and "element" are banger type songs. i don't love "humble" but it's a pretty fun single. he's obviously a serious and ponderous artist at his core but there's always a balance w/ his albums, even to pimp a butterfly there's "king kunta," "alright," "hood politics" etc. i wouldn't necessarily take the new song as some sort of strong indicator of where the album is going to go

his guest verses on the baby keem album were definitely offbeat, and "range brothers" especially had lots of goofy moments ("top of da mornin'", k dot's ad-libs)

A crown or frickin’ thorns?

possibly the best rapper of all time is about to make his most important statement yet

Wait is this the Jack Harlow thread?

i like how the cover echoes good kid maad city. he was the baby then, the father now.

kinda cool this hasn't leaked (or if it has don't tell me)

we don't even have a track list & he only just revealed the cover art

i'm sure it'll leak whenever ufo and the rest of the aussies get it in full

Billy Woods has been my go to rapper since DAMN along with Ka. Very much looking forward to this, but indeed Kendrick is considered royalty, and the expectations had on this record and anything he drops is going to be up there with pre Yeezus Kanye or any other all timer you can name.

I mean the dude won a Pulitzer ffs

i'm sure it'll leak whenever ufo and the rest of the aussies get it in full

idk sometimes with these very big albums they hold them back for a worldwide release aligned with the usa

xps we’re not sharing

It’s one thing to come into an album thread after listening to it and saying “eh, I’m not feeling it” but the mad dash a couple of you are making to let everyone know how over this as-yet-unreleased album you are is virtuosic ass-showing

otm. also maybe kendrick is having tons of fun. sure sounds inspired on the new track.

Has Kendrick done anything to make people acknowledge key hostile to him? I get why people can be annoyed by fan’s love, but they are fans. They’re excited.

Omg, my autocorrect is a monster. I meant “has Kendrick done anything to have people low key hostile?” I apologize for the errors.

Afaik he has nailed it in every step he has made. Also compared to other artists (ahem, Kanye) I appreciate how private he is about his personal life. I wasn’t even aware he had two children until I saw the new album cover.

Only “controversial” bit I can remember is him threatening to leave Spotify if XXXtentacion music was removed.

many xps had not gotten the Nipsey Hussle references, that may open the song for me, thx

that baby keem song still sounds great to me - prefer it to the new heart song thing

idk sometimes with these very big albums they hold them back for a worldwide release aligned with the usa

It doesn't seem to be on Spotify in New Zealand yet.

Kendrick is so wild because he's the only rappity-rap-rap rapper that cool-kid discourse hasn't completely abandoned or deemed an anachronism

freddie gibbs? earl?

earl is kind of a avant-garde dude now but Gibbs is a good one

What about Tyler the Creator? Or does he not really fit in a box?

i think what you guys are forgetting is that kendrick's "rappity raps" are better than anybody else's.

it's like daryl dawkins breaking backboards; lots of folks have done it, nobody rained glass down on people like him tho.

Tyler did like a whole album with no rapping on it that won a Grammy

Pusha?

pathetic pusha t moments

Tyler did like a whole album with no rapping on it that won a Grammy

― Whiney G. Weingarten, Thursday, May 12, 2022 1:05 PM

tyler fucked lucy for a grammy.

yeah, but Pusha just got a 7.8 in p4k. Not sure if that's cool kid discourse anymore tho.

Tyler did like a whole album with no rapping on it that won a Grammy
― Whiney G. Weingarten, Thursday, May 12, 2022 1:05 PM

Yes, and then he put out an album last year that did have rapping on it, and also won a Grammy.

Unless, winning a Grammy disqualifies you from being part of the Cool Kid conversation, which is understandable. Grammys are for old out of touch folks.

kendrick has more grammys than tyler has albums.

should've made that a link to dawkins shattering the backboard.

not that grammys mean a fucking thing. but if that's the scoreboard we're going by . . .

not sure how legit this is.

Bad Bunny’s release followed that same schedule so it was a surprise release worldwide so I think it could be true.

can a mod lock this thread if anyone else mentions the grammy awards?

make me mod and i'll lock every thread except this one. literal #onethread now what?

LEVITATE
LEVITATE
LEVITATE

okay, i'll stop now.

his new song is really refreshing. i see what whiney is saying, and my thought is that rappity-rap-rap should come back in vogue.

How many rappity-rap-rappers must get dissed?

Kendrick is so wild because he's the only rappity-rap-rap rapper that cool-kid discourse hasn't completely abandoned or deemed an anachronism

doesn't that make him something of an anachronism anyway or just that the others have been deemed more explicitly retro-throwback acts etc.

Kendrick has never really seemed like a throwback though. When he did his Compton album it didn’t sound like gangsta rap, his jazzy album didn’t sound Soulquarian.

there is realism at the center of his work which makes it contemporary no matter what sounds he is working with.

it also sets him apart from many other rappers on the radio who trade in fantasy.

oh yeah i shouldn't have said 'explicitly', he's not a throwback, just still very distinct in the current landscape

what i was trying to say more is that 'if he's the only one of those left isn't that in itself something of an anachronism'

18 songs, 73 minutes, let’s do this

Quickly glanced the track list to see what kind of wild guests would be on this

And motherfucking Beth Gibbons is on the penultimate track

oh it's shorter than TPAB lol

about the same if you chop off that tupac “interview”

yeah just funny bc this is the one that's being presented as a double, just shows how meaningless the distinction can be

GFK :)

good kid was a double cd in its bonus track version, like 90 plus minutes

first two tracks sound excellent

gonna have to listen twice to actually process this. mostly just processing the decisions he made right now lol

kodak the last poet, ok, sure

hmm "auntie diaries" is well-meaning but a real fucking mess

yah there are some real o_0 moments on the album, but that’s the one that just 100% totally misses the mark for me

i can at least grant that it's well-intentioned just like... totally naive still and he'd rightfully never give some well-meaning-but-naive white person a pass for taking the same approach re: race

https://i.imgur.com/vwzCXPo.jpg

"rich spirit" instant classic

he sounds more conflicted than ever. the way it ends is brilliant. a lot to process on one listen, but it immediately hits me as his most consistently personal work. oh, it's good tho.

it’s very heavy and very busy and much too much for me to process at 1:45am lol

the beat on “silent hill” is sooooo good. and im comfortable saying that the first, penultimate, and final tracks on here are career highlights

there's a lot to take in but i'm a bit underwhelmed overall on first listen idk

those three are certainly highlights yeah

"Rich Spirit" brilliant, agreed. It's gonna take some time to dig in.

Holy fuck

Lol at “beth gibbons from portishead”

Not gonna lie a bit disappointed about the aesthetic

… misdirect on “the heart pt. 5”

oof, "Auntie Diaries" is a hard no

and the first three notes of "Mother I Sober" are irresistibly Vince Guaraldi

featuring Kodak Black is definitely a choice

argh what's the sample on "Mirror" ? I can't remember where it comes from !

"the heart part 5" is a fair bit better than anything on this

👀

« We cry together » is… something. 5.30min of love and tenderness to share in a family setting !

I know I’m shallow, but

where are the bangers?

lmao the RYM shoutbox has already been deleted

Britishes aside, don't you people sleep?!

it was the absolute worst comments section i have ever seen on rym

"we cry together" would have been bad as a minute-long skit and yet it's the second longest track here

Not sure I'll ever willingly listen to We Cry Together again.

featuring Kodak Black is definitely a choice

― papal hotwife (milo z), Friday, May 13, 2022 3:04 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

he’s been on every major rap album this year, so it’s a choice many have made.

there’s definitely something “uncanceling the canceled” about his prominence tho, that’s for sure

yeah it certainly feels like he's going for something like that but it also wildly clashes with "mother i sober"

I’m not surprised by the messiness, hypocrisy, and complexity of this album. Kendrick has been on this tip for awhile. The album hit me personally being a black male. So I won’t engage in the ILM snark. I think it’s great art. I will say it challenges the idea that seemingly conscious African-Americans are supposed to lead and have the answers. That’s been so ingrained in American culture that if the trope is challenged then the pitchforks come out.

I’m not surprised by the messiness, hypocrisy, and complexity of this album. Kendrick has been on this tip for awhile. The album hit me personally being a black male. So I won’t engage in the ILM snark. I think it’s great art. I will say it challenges the idea that seemingly conscious African-Americans are supposed to lead and have the answers. That’s been so ingrained in American culture that if the trope is challenged then the pitchforks come out.

Has Lamar ever mentioned is a trans male?

*his aunt

Not that I’m aware of. He seems to reveal things about them little by little in interviews.

After one listen, the best things on here are "We Cry Together," "Purple Hearts" and "Auntie Tales." The tap dancing is a really fascinating metaphor — made me think of Bamboozled.

real question: would the folks that have discrepancies with "auntie diaries" prefer he had said nothing? or rather: what did you want his view on trans acceptance to be and how did you want him to articulate that?

otherwise, lilsoulbrother fiercely otm. second listen this morning and i stand by my perfect rating.

Albums need not be perfect to be wonderful, though.

I'm cis & straight and only listened once, but the repeating slurs aspect struck me as, at the very least, an odd approach to take, and I can see why people would recoil from a straight man doing that without nec unpacking the entire song. I'm not sure what I think about that last line apart from being w(e)ary of these kinds of comparisons.

Beyond that, I don't like the binary of "say this or say nothing," but the way he mis/genders & deadnames the presumably real people he's talking about does raise questions about the representation of marginalized (an overly anodyne word) people by others...not that I have any immediate answers, but there's an idea in academic circles about the difference between speaking for and speaking with that I think is relevant here?

real question: would the folks that have discrepancies with "auntie diaries" prefer he had said nothing? or rather: what did you want his view on trans acceptance to be and how did you want him to articulate that?

my disappointment with "auntie diaries" doesn't really have anything to do with the views expressed within. it's clumsy, overly didactic, overlong, and generally lacks the sparkle of his best work.

i did like "we cry together" tho lol

I found "We Cry Together" unbearable, actually, and I queued three times to ensure the fuck-you-bitch thing hit me every time.

the alchemist snapped, though

i dont mind auntie diaries but his epiphany about slurs at the end is very clunky & anticlimactic. like i'm glad he's thinking about that but i didnt exactly need him to hold my hand through the whole song if thats where we were going. but alfred otm, on first listen i'm digging this despite the occasional clumsiness or misstep.

i feel like i've been harping on the negative a bit, but i definitely think that the album as a whole is incredibly impressive on a technical and artistic level. i appreciate the raw nerve, therapeutic aspect of it all and the bulk of it *sounds* fantastic.

On first pass this feels like a good album by a great artist — which for Kendrick makes it probably his weakest since his first, but that’s only a relative measure. (I think it’s kind of a classic case of the dreaded 3 1/2-star Rolling Stone review.) To my ears so far, it doesn’t advance anything much, it’s mostly him doing things we already know he can do, and with more moodiness and less verve than last time out. I think that is mostly a function of the things that have been occupying him, which are mostly internal and personal, and he has every right to his own occupations. Just because I don’t necessarily want to listen to a lot of introspection about his infidelity doesn’t mean that it’s not important for him to do. I agree that “Auntie Diaries” is a misfire but it seems well intended and it might actually reach some people, so I’ll just put it on my skip list and leave it be. “We Cry Together” is a plausible lovers’ quarrel but not an illuminating one, also on the skip list.

I just got to the beginning of "Mr. Morale" and this entire album is glorious

"mr. morale" is very "black skinhead"

Wasn’t expecting Pharrell to deliver that kind of track.

Great guest spots all over this

even beyond all the lyrical issues this is relatively boring musically for the most part & would be firmly his worst for that alone

I don’t think we are listening to the same album. At a minimum I am not processing it the way you are.

I wish this thread would shut down for at least two days to let ILM absorb it.

Should we meet back here Sunday?

Cool.

I'm still processing it, but I think it's really good. As someone mentioned, he's not so arrogant that he thinks he's wiser or more infallible than anyone else and he puts himself at the audience's level, but he doesn't pander either - it's honest and self-interrogating.

Haven't heard it yet (will do so tonight) but the polarized opinions around it so far both here and elsewhere are fascinating, and only seem to make me more intrigued. Can't wait.

As ever.

love the use of duval timothy and his piano throughout, his playing is mesmerizing

First listen and am trying to get past all the two-dimensional “bitches.”

The stereogum review of this calls it a therapy album, which feels very accurate

Honorable entry in the “working through some shit” canon.

tbf he does open track 1 with "I've been goin' through somethin' / Be afraid"

On my third listen now and I'd probably rank it above DAMN or at least at the same level.

Breihan's review is really good. I think he likes it more than me, but I agree with his overall sense of it.

This record has me reminiscing about the first time I fucked a white bitch.

re: "auntie diaries"

the song details how he now understands saying faggot is bad but there's no similar revelation regarding the misgendering or anything. there's only a single line where he uses 'she' for his cousin near the end so it's much harder to get the sense that he actually really does 'get' trans people now, it's not very effective even as the corny didactic "look i've grown" thing that it wants to be.

that kendrick song kinda brings up complicated feelings for me cause it reminds me of the way i got certain family members who “accept” me yet still see me as my old self. like they “trying” and i appreciate that much but they still dont actually *see* me if that makes sense

— Sage 💕 (@_introspekt) May 13, 2022

^this is still how it comes across overall

& his usage of "faggot" is absolutely excessive to make his point about saying it being bad, on top of all the misgendering which again isn't addressed in the same way. i'd be hesistant to grant it to him even once - maybe he could have gotten away with it once if the song was much better executed - but he goes well beyond that anyway. macklemore certainly did not deserve the pass he got from straight liberals for saying it on "same love" and i don't anyone much would be defending him if he did the same thing with the n-word.

"clumsy, overly didactic, overlong, and generally lacks the sparkle of his best work" is all otm

i hope kendrick will take some of the criticism floating around to heart & not react badly, which is unfortunately often what happens when there's pushback to these sort of well-meaning but very clumsy & misguided gestures

My son, fwiw, thinks the album is great and is exhorting me to listen to it and pay more attention to the music and production, so I will.

so i listened to the record and since there is Discourse about "auntie diaries" - also hi, i'm doing really shitty right now but a new kendrick album dropped

i don't get it, he does a whole album calling out rape culture and Black trauma and people are like "oh wait he said faggot in a tremendously self-lacerating context, what a Bad Ally"

not saying anybody shouldn't be offended by this, maybe i'm just jaded, i've been at this three years, my friends keep getting called fucking "groomers" by their close family members and being told they should be in fucking death camps. maybe i'm just setting the bar too low, maybe i should be holding him to a higher standard

it's been three years, i get junkmail to my deadname every day and will every day for the rest of my life, my mom has never once called me "she", and cis people are here walking around eggshells around me like i'm this fragile little delicate flower and that anybody misgendering a trans person is setting a Bad Example

am i worried that people are going to start walking up to me on the street and calling me "faggot" because kendrick lamar used that word in a song? not really. i don't think this is gonna be like when dave chappelle put out that special and a couple weeks later i'm walking around with a couple of my gender non-conforming friends and some guys start "hitting on us" by talking about how they want to breed us and saying that they are "down with dave chappelle". that bothered me. kendrick lamar saying "boy it sure was dumb of me to go around saying 'faggot' all the time" hits me a little different.

the record didn't really click with me too much but 1) i'm very much a white girl and 2) kind of a lot has changed for me since lamar's last album came out.

it sounds like lamar has a really good therapist and is working through some of his trauma issues and i'm super happy for him! but therapy albums for me kinda hit me like those fantasy novels that are clearly just people writing up their d&d campaigns.

that said i literally wrote a 60,000 word transition memoir, which isn't exactly that different from a therapy album, so i guess i can't criticize too much!

no one's saying it's anywhere near as bad as chappelle's shit, this isn't "kendrick should be cancelled!", this is frustration and critique (i'm trans too!), and over more than just him saying faggot. if the bar for giving someone a free pass as an ally is just that they're not encouraging hate crimes you're setting it way too low.

he does a whole album calling out rape culture and Black trauma

and others have already raised the issues around this with kodak black being all over the album, the album's much more of a mess on that front

thought: he's a pretty smart guy. maybe he's done it on purpose. one more tour, cash tf out.

doesn't excuse him.

but i think his experience with the use of that word growing up as portrayed in the song is representative for a lot of boys. i wish i couldn't relate with it. but it was just so prevalent. i don't know. . . it's not supposed to have an easy answer and he knows it.

i like the intent and the beat.

i probably am setting the bar too low. i mean, "allyship" too, i set that bar really fucking low. i don't really view "ally" as a compliment. three years watching my straight friends try and find a man who doesn't treat them like shit, watching lesbians talking on their dating profiles about all of the people who "go to the front of the line", seeing how far that shit actually gets any of us. this old dude saying, what the fuck is he saying, that white girls like me should get n-word privileges because he did a song where he says "faggot faggot faggot" like he's michael richards or some shit? honestly that is classic Allyship with a capital fucking a. and that doesn't interest me, but the differences he shows off in how trans men and trans women get treated? to me that's way more interesting than most of the shit cis people say about us.

my read was he was saying that the comparison to the white fan n-word incident helped him understand that faggot is bad, not that everyone should be able to say whatever slurs they want

It's really funny to me that the big Kendrick discourse for this album cycle is basically the Louie poker episode discourse from 12 years ago

One of the more popular and respected left trans twitter people has a perspective that has some similarities with Kate’s

So I’m just gonna say Auntie Diaries goes

— Autogyniphiles_Anonymous (@autogyniphiles) May 13, 2022

musically this album is very convincing, and obv there's almost nothing kendrick can't do technically (but then he was almost fully formed from the get go, the incredible cadence in rigamortis is what immediately got me interested when he was coming up)

not sure what to make of the whiny voice he applies at times - do some people love it?

in the end too self-important for me, and the casual misogyny, however confessional, is off-putting ("first time I fucked a white bitch" could really have used some editing)

but a bold statement for sure

my read was he was saying that the comparison to the white fan n-word incident helped him understand that faggot is bad, not that everyone should be able to say whatever slurs they want

― ufo

you're probably right! and in some ways i think lamar kind of sells himself short by making that his conclusion. like, if that was all he was saying, i'd be pissed about the song too. "saying faggot is bad" is a pretty weaksauce conclusion - a swede once told me there's a Swedish word for it, "pekoral". like "war is bad" or the classic ilx punching bag "i just shot john lennon" by the cranberries.

so i got a brother, right, and ever since i came out to him he's been supportive of me, in the sense that it's been kate, she/her, no problems, no slip-ups, not like my mom. but like that's all it is to him. i'm the same person to him that i was at 21, like he just does a global search and replace on my name and pronouns in his brain and that's it. i start telling him about the house music i'm into and he says that just because i'm trans doesn't mean i have to start listening to that stuff. i start complaining about frank zappa's misogyny and he talks about how obsessed i was with zappa in my 20s. i love my brother, i care about him, but i told him a couple weeks ago that i just couldn't be talking to him right now. i don't think i could explain to him why in a way that he would understand.

shit _changed_ for me when i transitioned. when i say i've always been a woman, i'm not making some universal axiomatic statement - that's not what i _do_ as a queer person. i'm responding to a specific prevalent variety of cis bullshit, the way cis people will say that i "used to be a man". it doesn't mean that i'm the same person now.

to me, i hear that song, and i hear someone who _gets it_ in a way that the brother i can't bear to talk to doesn't. i hear someone who's aware of all the bullshit cis people say about us and doesn't buy it. the stuff about how mary-ann played with barbies as a child, for instance. you can see that as a superficial and hackneyed view of gender roles, you can see that in terms of "wait, i played with he-man as a child, does that mean i'm _not_ really a woman?"

if a trans person hears "auntie diaries" and that's their reaction, that's how they read the song, i think that's a valid read. if a trans person is pissed at lamar for saying that, i'm not going to police that, call them a "tenderqueer" or say they're secretly racist or any of that shit. that's just not my personal read.

my personal read is that, again, he's responding to a specific variety of cis bullshit, the "there were no signs" denial response so many of us get from cis relatives, this idea that we have this obligation to be visibly trans to them in certain culturally approved ways, that we have to _prove_ to them that we're _really trans_. which is a big part of why, as best i can tell, every single goddamn one of us has imposter syndrome, every single goddamn one of us struggles with the idea that we're somehow not _really_ trans. i read that as lamar saying "fuck you, 'there were no signs', you saw what you fucking wanted to see, that's all".

What's the whiny/weird vocals ratio on this album?

From my first listen and also from what I’ve been reading, Kate’s points also seems to relate to the way that Blackness itself is treated on the record— that is, not as an easily consumable and legible identity without contradictions and internal dissonances. Obviously I think Kendrick’s work has been doing this kind of thing to some degree since the beginning, but this record seems to bring that to the fore in a way.

i don't really get a strong sense that he does fully 'get it' from the song, especially with stuff like deadnaming caitlyn jenner which isn't even really relevant to the storytelling & the very inconsistent pronouns for his uncle - there's not the same past/present distinction that mary-ann gets, it just feels muddled to me. he's well-meaning and clearly trying to be supportive and i do appreciate that he is trying but that doesn't mean i have to be grateful for the end result or think it's good art, i'm not really a huge fan of someone cis weighing in in this muddled way. in terms of impact i think it's pretty mixed - sure i hope the message reaches people but you also see a bunch of cis/straight people totally baffled that anyone queer could not love it and getting extremely defensive, bc he's well-meaning you see.

& idk that's reading a lot into that one line about him seeing the signs with his cousin. if anything to me it's still reinforcing the 'signs'/'proof' narrative bc his cousin's transition made sense to him because he did see signs even if others didn't - i'd personally reject the whole idea of of there needing to be signs at all.

booming posts, all.

Just going to note that this album came out the day after Ethel Cain's (very ambitious and imo very good) album, which feels like it's from a world that "Auntie's Diaries" can only dimly perceive. There are more edifying voices than Kendrick's out there, certainly in this instance.

Ethel Cain album is great!

to me, i hear that song, and i hear someone who _gets it_ in a way that the brother i can't bear to talk to doesn't. i hear someone who's aware of all the bullshit cis people say about us and doesn't buy it.

otm.

strong example in "auntie diaries" of tolerate vs accept in action.

Yep, some really great posts above, thanks all and especially Kate and UFO.

I processed “Auntie Diaries” as ultimately being about the realisation of not having a monopoly on righteousness - the realisation that you’ve been protesting against others punching down while participating in a culture of punching down yourself. For me the closing lines are more powerful than just “the use of these terms is functionality equivalent” - they’re trying to capture the difficulty of seeing that, of realising that your own struggle and someone else’s struggle are intertwined, at the level if loved experience - especially and in particular when you are not part of a community which prioritises the drawing of particular connections.

I’m reminded of the Upton Sinclair quote, “ It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” That insight could be extended to culture - it’s difficult to get a person to understand something when their membership within a community depends on their not understanding it.” This terrain is what I think the song grapples with: the ethical demand “don’t punch down” will tend to founder on our cultural blindspots, which in turn we are reluctant to confront. IDK maybe I am overthinking it.

I’m still stuck on Rich Spirit. Bumps like a Too Short song

i don't really get a strong sense that he does fully 'get it' from the song, especially with stuff like deadnaming caitlyn jenner which isn't even really relevant to the storytelling & the very inconsistent pronouns for his uncle - there's not the same past/present distinction that mary-ann gets, it just feels muddled to me. he's well-meaning and clearly trying to be supportive and i do appreciate that he is trying but that doesn't mean i have to be grateful for the end result or think it's good art, i'm not really a huge fan of someone cis weighing in in this muddled way. in terms of impact i think it's pretty mixed - sure i hope the message reaches people but you also see a bunch of cis/straight people totally baffled that anyone queer could not love it and getting extremely defensive, bc he's well-meaning you see.

& idk that's reading a lot into that one line about him seeing the signs with his cousin. if anything to me it's still reinforcing the 'signs'/'proof' narrative bc his cousin's transition made sense to him because he did see signs even if others didn't - i'd personally reject the whole idea of of there needing to be signs at all.

― ufo

that's one of the things that's most interesting to me about "auntie diaries", yeah, i don't know for sure that he "gets it". it is messy, it is ambiguous, it is inconsistent, and it's all these things in a way that feels true to the way cis people experience my gender transition, the way in some senses i have experienced my own gender. he's inconsistent in a way that people are in _person_ with me, but he's not freestyling this, he _wrote_ these lyrics. the sense i get from _mr. morale_ is that it's a _meticulous_ album, a _deliberate_ album.

one of the things i struggle with is the question of how _much_ to show my own ass, talking about this stuff. because of the hyper-judgemental climate around these things. becuse it's normal and typical for popular and respected left trans twitter people to just blithely say that trans people who are offended by lamar saying "faggot faggot faggot" are "tenderqueers" and probably racist. because whenever the Discourse starts up around trans people somehow trans folks wind up being carrying the most hot allostatic load. something is really wrong here, something is really fucking wrong, and it's not any of _us_.

i think i will, in fact, show my ass here. this isn't the Dearborn Birdsite, it's a message board for a smattering of middle-aged trauma-informed mostly queer music nerds, and this week i'm really leaning into the "poor life decisions" thing.

i was driving a few weeks ago down a busy suburban thoroughfare near my home and some jerk cut me off. I muttered "fucking faggot" under my breath - i think the car had all kinds of rainbow shit and furry trash on the back. it took a couple seconds and i remembered that i had a trans flag sticker on my own bumper, and i remember literally saying aloud "wait a second, _i'm_ a fucking faggot!" and laughing. the idea hadn't occurred to me before. like lamar says about his "auntie", he wasn't gay, he ate pussy. growing up i fucking wished i could be gay, i wished it could be that easy. we, not he, we didn't know any better.

this cis people want me to justify it, want me to say "oh i always knew", but i didn't, a lot of us didn't. i gotta pretend like i don't still wonder, sometimes, "yeah, but am i _really_ trans?", can't be vulnerable, can't be weak, can't be a fucking _tenderqueer_ even though, like a lot of us, i'm basically a big fucking wad of trauma, because if i do, the assholes who made me this way, the assholes who, like my friend just wrote to her (should i mention that i wrote "his" and backspaced over it?) mom, "wield a dagger and name it love", will fucking eat us alive.

one of the most important experiences of my coming out, of my coming to understand myself, was seeing my own experiences reflected in others. of hearing people talk about things i'd been too ashamed to tell anybody, hearing them talk about it openly and being amazed, because i thought it was just me. that's what i get from hearing lamar say "faggot faggot faggot". are you going to learn anything about being trans from kendrick lamar? hell no. lamar doesn't know shit about being trans. he grieves _different_ from us. that's fine, we all got our own voices. maybe you hear it from ethel cain, maybe you hear it from tami t, maybe you hear it from... you know. there's a lot of us.

maybe i'm hearing what i want to hear in "auntie diaries", just like the people who tell us "there were no signs" are seeing what they want to see. i just... i need to hear that so fucking much right now, you know? if i have to pretend lamar _gets it_, if i have to lie to myself to get through the rest of this week, you know, i'll fucking do that. i made my peace with that hears ago. whatever i need to do to survive. no guilt. no shame.

My new favorite thread. Thanks, Kate.

more i read kate's posts, more i like the song.

obviously identify with it from one of the other sides. i knew i wasn't gay but i definitely wasn't sure i liked girls either. i liked slow jams, not all that rah rah shit. but the word still got used growing up. a lot. an ongoing theme in kendrick's music: you did it to fit in, not because you wanted to. i'm not ashamed to admit that because of my mental health issues, i have voices that use extremely offensive language in my head, constantly. at some point, it stops becoming about attacking someone because of who they might be and starts to become a form of establishing dominance.

(reminded here of the outstanding byron hurt doc hiphop: beyond beats and rhymes from maybe late 2000s? he talks about how it became more of a casual thing by using it / other lgbtq+ slurs interchangeably with "bitch." that becomes "bitch n___" and "bitch ass n___" and yeah. breaks it tf down. busta rhymes walks out of his interview. talks to gay rappers. interviews trans woman at a hiphop festival. makes a lot of people uncomfortable. highly recommended.)

was outside last night, doing the most middle aged white man thing to do on a friday evening: smoking a bowl and watching the sunset while listening to the new album. a group of teenage boys drove past, blaring "united in grief" and they were into it; waving their arms around, bobbing their heads out the window, being kids. i laughed and waved peace to them and my mind immediately went to that moment when they would hear that song.

i wish i had someone like kendrick at that age. instead i had common talkin`bout "in a circle of f___s yo name is mentioned!" just repeating the cycle.

i wish i had someone like kendrick at that age. instead i had common talkin`bout "in a circle of f___s yo name is mentioned!" just repeating the cycle.

Remember when there was repeated/constant discussion in the hip-hop press about The Gay Rapper? Like, there was a rumor there was one? I can't even remember who all was suspected of being The Gay Rapper (Q-Tip was mentioned for sure).

It's very interesting to observe the simultaneous "this is so much better than it was when I was a teenager" and "NOT GOOD ENOUGH" discourse taking place in so many different areas these days.

oh god the gay rapper! i just remember thinking "who cares i wanna hear the gay rapper's response record you he got dirty laundry on everybody"

byron hurt doc was 2006 watch it.

I wanted to wait a week for the fervor to die down, but my son insists I hear this now, so -

also thank you everyone for answering my initial question. this is exactly why i asked. i need to hear all perspectives. just because i am more in step with the narrator's pov in this scenario doesn't mean it's the most productive.

I’ve read some people justifying the improper pronouns he uses throughout the song as something usual in his style, where he writes from different povs and different timelines, and as he starts growing and learning his modern perspective starts using proper pronouns and understanding the f-word is not for him to use.

It’s still very messy and inconsistent, reading Kate’s and ufo’s pov is very enlightening for me.

yes, thanks for these insights, much better here than the kneejerk shit I read on twitter

thats kind of how i hear the pronouns thing, him speaking in character as someone who is having a series of realizations, not speaking with wisdom from the present but as an imperfect character within the story in the past. but idk, i could be being overly generous so i dont have to be bummed about it.

I agree with OEO’s take on it.

"n95" video.

Popping in to say “Crown” is quietly stunning

thats a wow video

Quality video as usual with him.

I think someone upthread (or was it an article?) mentioned there’s no discernable radio singles but “Rich Spirit” is super addictive.

“rich spirit” is probably the song on here that most resembles/is most influenced by current sounds in l.a. street rap

it's the album highlight for me.

X2

rhetorical question: is this what we meant when we used to say "keep it real"?

Heard it, still processing the words, but the production and beats are probably my favorite so far. This run he's on is pretty incredible - I am already on the side of this being a career highlight, but that just puts it on similar terrain as everything post Section.80

Duval Timothy is to MMATBS as Thundercat was on TPAB, right?

Can we have a version of "Purple Hearts" with only Ghostface

i think "purple hearts" as a whole is one of the highlights

otm. i was so happy when ghostface showed up

Summer Walker softens the track way too much for my taste.

"purple hearts" is good. feels like a classic "chipmunk soul" beat. definitely caters to vintage ghostface / wu-tang aesthetic.

also it can be added to everyone's favorite new playlist: songs that mention anilingus.

and Elohim.

Ok “Die Hard” also has hit single potential.

yep if there's any mainstream hits from this album, it's that or "mirror."

“n95” will likely have the highest chart peak, considering that video just came out

bizarro world chart action.

re: cry together
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNpO4V57pWM

I feel like that song has a lot of antecedents in hip-hop but most reviews have acted like it's a skit

If this album had been the first three tracks, We Cry Together and the last four tracks it would have been so good. Maybe throw in one or two of the others from the middle. The big event tracks stand out so much from the others though imo

Both in terms of compelling lyrics and production

i straight up removed We Cry Together and Crown from my playlist

by far the worst thing on this album are the citations of that fraud Tolle

yeah those bits are pretty dumb

at least it wasn't Jordan Peterson

"We Cry Together" is the only misfire for me, everything else is interesting in some way. I couldn't recall many of the hooks yet, and I doubt I'll ultimately think this album as good as GKMC or Butterfly, but it has the same compelling quality those albums had. Need to listen more

we cry together is good imho

it, auntie diaries, mother i sober and mirror are the best things on here imo

purple hearts >>>

starting to come around on some of the ones i wasn't crazy about the first listen, like "savior" and "crown." "auntie diaries" and "worldwide steppers" are the only ones i'm still not feeling.

I love worldwide steppers now and auntie diaries might have been my favorite song first pass.

"It ain't love if you never eat my ass" that line still fucking keels me over when I hear it on Purple Hearts though lol

I’ve been listening to the album 4 or 5 song increments and “Crown” really jumped out at me when I listened this way. Easy to get lost amidst the bigger tracks but it’s become maybe my favorite thing here

That's how I've absorbed it too

We cry together is by far the worst thing on it, and for me will be skipped every time just like For Free was.

Tickets for the tour went on sale today. Barclays got cleaned out fast, wound up settling for the Long Island show, which was far easier to get into. Plenty of good seats available too.

Got some for Oakland. Missed out on the DAMN tour so looking forward to this

had to take a rest from this album. with some distance, i really do like it a lot more than DAMN. i love that his message to the audience is ultimately: "everyone needs to take a good, hard look at themselves." the magnified caricatures, the problematic kodak black feature, the blurred lines between is this a projection or his real feelings? — dense and summed up brilliantly in the intro on "we cry together": this is what the world sounds like. do you like what you hear?

and also the actual beats and music are fucking stellar. 4.5 mics. goat candidate status confirmed.

I know it's old news at this point, but holy shit at ticket prices.

DAMN. was an amazing tour. (I only wish I had caught the one in Chicago, just to see Chance the Rapper join him on-stage.) Considering what a shitty time it was to be in the U.S., it was probably the only concert that I saw that gave me real hope for the future. Not to hear like-minded people complain or commiserate - all things I do and all things I would have expected from a like-minded audience - but to be surrounded in an arena packed with mostly high school age and college age students going out of their minds and repeating virtually every word of Kendrick's songs. And to see one single guy all by himself on stage with that kind of command and having that effect on his audience, that was ridiculously impressive.

prepare for even more of that\m/

Hey Josh, I'm not sure if this is what you're dealing with in Chicago, but I noticed that in NY, some venues like Barclays switched to SeatGeek as their primary sales agent but kept Ticketmaster as a secondary one. That is, if you go to SeatGeek, tickets are MUCH lower than what's being displayed on Ticketmaster.

Also if you can travel away from the city (like say go to Long Island rather than Brooklyn here in NYC), they're not selling out at all - in fact, it's driven down their prices due to dynamic pricing. I got good seats for a good price at UBS Arena (which uses Ticketmaster as its primary sales agent) and prices have gone down even more since then.

and also the actual beats and music are fucking stellar. 4.5 mics. goat candidate status confirmed.

― Let's disco dance, Hammurabi! (Austin)

Agree, the beats and music on this one are probably the best he has worked with yet. The whole album sounds great on decent headphones / soundsystem.

rolling sevens i aint read for no coffin

This album is astonishing.

The track I've played most is "Rich Spirit." It's aqueous and beautiful.

3 tracks in, this glastonbury headline set is GOOD.

and crowd surprisingly not shit

3 tracks in a row from Good Kid... killing me here.

Could do with being louder tbh.

OK, I think they've sorted that.

I'm just glad people are raving over someone at Glasto who isn't Guy Garvey. Not heard the new KL album yet.

"Rich Spirit" is my favorite song in here and it's quickly becoming one of my favorite songs of him in general. Wouldn't be surprised if it ends up being my most listened song of 2022 come eoy on spotify.

I don't think I had noticed the production of his previous albums as much as this one. It might be one of my favorite produced hip hop records in years.

yep

"rich spirit" instant classic

― Let's disco dance, Hammurabi! (Austin), Thursday, May 12, 2022 10:35 PM

definitely my favorite song of the year. beat is the sci-fi synth funk of the promised land and verse 3 especially is very rhyme of the month/hiphop quotable-

Frat brother, real n/gga, that brother
We just upped the score, give me dap, brother
Spirit medium, I don't rap, brother
We headed there now, are you strapped brother?
Ayy, peacemaker, but I'm not naive, brother
Ayy, gotta watch your homies and police, brother
Ayy, clout chasing hell of a disease, brother
I'm fasting four days out the week, brother
I pray to God that you realize the entourage is dead
I pray to God that you not lackin' when you off the meds
I pray to God she know them Cabo trips don't last forever
Bet she argue with her momma, go and get them kids
I pray to God you actually pray when somebody dies
Thoughts and prayers, way better off timelines
False claimin' not cute, I'm mortified
The new Earth in hot pursuit, two-hundred lives

the little mannerism he takes on in the section i emphasized still makes me giggle. his charisma and ability to deadpan such convincing satire remain unmatched. sounds like paul mooney the rapper sometimes. love love love.

Once I took "We Cry Together" out of the track listing, this album is very very very good. "Father Time" and "Purple Hearts" probably my favorites but there's a lot of songs near that level, like "Rich Spirit"

literally just now realizing that the song is called "mother | sober" not "mother i sober"

hahaha I also thought it was mother i sober

real n/gga

flagged

Father Time is killing me tbh

I need to come back to this again soon, but right now kinda stuck in TPAB mode because of Sequoia Maner's new 33 1/3 book about it.

I have been playing this on headphones a lot and it's really, really satisfying

This often leaden mess is my favorite Kendrick release since 2015.

Basically a double LP (running over 73 minutes), at minimum there's enough for a really good 50 minute LP, maybe even a great one.

I no longer believe in trimming double albums, sorry! Keep everything.

I actually agree with that sentiment in principle - unless they were simply clearing the vaults or the scraps off the floor, an artist (usually) puts out a double album for good reason, like this is everything they want to say and every piece has its place. But in practice, that still doesn't stop me from hitting the arrow on my remote.

somebody better tell these musicians that people out here can press arrows

ghostface's verse on "purple hearts" is just too good. he's the best rapper ever.

xp for better or worse, it's like a presidential veto in button form

ghostface's verse on "purple hearts" is just too good. he's the best rapper ever.

― in places all over the world, real stuff be happening (voodoo chili),

The way he folds "Elohim" into the verse.

it's a beautiful, ecstatic moment, and ghost does the "my voice is cracking because i just can't handle all the things i'm feeling" delivery better than anyone.

otm!

This album is astonishing.

― castanuts (DJP), Tuesday, June 14, 2022 10:37 AM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

OTMFM

I am not here for any take that doesn't start with "we are lucky to be alive when a talent like Kendrick's is around"

Pretty much yeah. I haven't listened to GKMC in a couple years now, but Mr. Morale might honestly top it for me - hard to believe. Maybe it's just that I haven't played out the new one yet

this is me and i'm blessed.

anybody fightin through the stress?

I guess this isn't the thread to admit that I think the album is mostly astonishing with a few significant flaws that I'm having a hard time dismissing as easily. Will wholeheartedly cosign the "we are lucky to be alive when a talent like Kendrick is around" part though, absolutely.

jon that's disappointing that you feel like it's not appropriate to discuss music on a music discussion board. sorry if i did anything to make you feel like that.

i.e. i would like to hear your criticisms and i welcome them with open ears. i like listening.

(also: yes, this album has some major problematic elements. that's part of what makes it so engaging.)

xp - no worries, I was being a little sarcastic wet to JCLC's line drawn on takes.

This guy's run right now is like Radiohead's run from The Bends up to Amnesiac.

Which reminds me - is Radiohead the biggest, most canonical band without a double album? Kendrick joined the club with Morale... might make a good thread.

No need to be insulting.

saying "we are lucky to be alive when a talent like Kendrick's is around but this album could be edited down a bit and be better" would fit with JCLC's parameters ha

true

oh yeah, i'm total fanboy for this album but skip certain tracks every time, for reasons.

however none of those tracks has ever been, is not now, nor will ever be "rich spirit", which i find to be just as delightfully classic presently as i did the instant i heard it. i suppose you could say it was an instant classic.

It’s a double album? 78 minutes is like a Redman CD in the late 90s

yo shoutout to redman, pioneer of longass albums😄

When Helen Mirren said "you texted me at two o'clock in the morning" there were a couple ways it coulda gone and honestly I wish it'd gone the other way.

"United in Grief" is such an an amazing song

it's nice to go back to these type of "event" albums and listen to them after all the discourse is over

seemed like the discourse was over with this one a few days after release

"Rich in Spirit" is still such a jam, one of his all-timers.

yeah that's great

"Father Time" sticks out to me more now, the way that jazzy beat keeps morphing is really cool

the Kodak Black part could still go though

Man did I sleep on this. Got this email at 10:30 am but didn't see it until now:

KENDRICK LAMAR LIVE & IN PERSON AT ROXY CINEMA, TONITE!

Kendrick Lamar will be joining us TONITE for a Q&A after an exclusive screening of his documentary THE BIG STEPPERS TOUR: LIVE FROM PARIS. Get your tickets now for what promises to be an unforgettable evening!