Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers - Kendrick Lamar

REVIEWED: August 12, 2022

Of course, after a five-year hiatus, I was excited to listen to whatever Kendrick dropped; I would have been willing to listen to an hour of static noise at this point. I feel that calling this album anything short of an artistic masterpiece wouldn't be doing it justice. I am incredibly biased when reviewing artists who are my favourites, and any reviewer will be that way. I think I owe part of my experience of the album in such an immersive way to the fact that I watched most of it performed live at the Big Steppers Tour. Like what everyone says about this project, it feels and sounds like a therapy session. It is cathartic in a way. Generally, there were not any major "misses," but naturally, I am going to like some songs more than others. I enjoyed the background vocals on tracks like Count Me Out and United in Grief. The features truly fit the theme of the project, like Baby Keem and Tanna Leone. Most importantly, very important themes and topics were discussed, such as idolization, homophobia, abuse, and racism. There aren't really any negative aspects I can think of, but one thing I would point out is that some of the songs were just longer than I usually enjoy listening to, but it's not too much of an issue. I really liked the album sequencing. In particular, I was fond of the tap dancing motif which symbolized, quite literally, "tap dancing around the conversation," as explained at the end of We Cry Together. Additionally, I felt that the separation of the project into two discs was a smart decision. You could certainly feel his character progression as the project went on. I think the album gives listeners a chance to be introspective. They are given the chance to look within themselves and grapple with the gut-wrenching questions that Kendrick presents. One of the points I found particularly important was that of idolization, specifically of celebrities, as discussed on Savior. Kendrick was very successful in getting me to feel something with this project. While listening for the first time, I was mindlessly tapping away at my keyboard, and there were many times during this listen when I was legitimately taken aback. The project is not something I find you can listen to only once; I needed to listen to it in its entirety multiple times to really digest and process the content. The rollout was actually very minimal--he dropped The Heart Part 5 which officially brought him out of his music hiatus (his features on family ties and range brothers were more unofficial signs). This release made me excited for what else he had up his sleeve, but there wasn't anything like crazy single drops left and right. I honestly preferred this tactic, because some artists drop really good singles in anticipation of the album, and then those end up being the best songs. This is disappointing because it can feel like the wait was for nothing. My friends and I were very excited about the album, and we were even ready to throw a listening party. Despite there being very little to hold onto, we, and many other fans of Kendrick, created our own album rollout hype. Because he was coming out of a five-year hiatus, the rollout created itself, if I'm being honest. Someone who doesn't like spoken word poetry probably won't enjoy this album, and Kendrick's music in general. To me, a lot of songs had replayability, but that is because I generally enjoy all sub-genres of rap music. The fact that heavy subject matter was being discussed did not deter me from replaying the songs I enjoyed. Despite the consensus being that this album did not produce as many hits as prior projects from Kendrick, I believe it produced just as many, if not more. Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers is a contender for Album of The Year in my books. I hope you enjoyed reading this review, I'll see you next Monday! Feel free to check out my other reviews in the meantime, and have a great day!