Kendrick Lamar's last album, DAMN., not only topped the charts, but also won a Pulitzer Prize. Before him, only classical and jazz musicians were favored by the award. The conservative elite tastes Lamar broke are not limited to Pulitzers and Grammys. He was drawn to heavy topics, with race, guns, religion, family history rhyming away. The water trails rose up into mountains, setting up a high threshold for the next album.
The new album "Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers" is Lamar's fifth solo album and the breakup from his old club Top Dawg Entertainment. The seventy-three-minute long novel is not inferior to the expansiveness of "DAMN." and its predecessor "To Pimp a Butterfly" (2015), with a large number of guest guests. Like a salon owner, Lamar initiates difficult conversations and asks unanswered questions.
He managed to make the possibility of God's existence manifest in the music. The endless African rhythm in Worldwide Steppers is interrupted by neuralgia, and the R&B-shaped mermaid rises to the surface to take a breath and sink back into the murky water. In "N95", Lamar's characters are changeable, and one voice enters the body of different people, urging you to return to the state of naked innocence when you were born, and a hundred cheering villains celebrate your birthday. "We Cry Together" shows the essence of the quarrel between the two in-laws - the sting of the cocoon, the beating, the merciless, the blood flowing into the river. Lamar and Taylor Paige rummage through stale quilts, unearth Trump and Harvey Weinstein, and unravel the tangled past behind the bitter conflict over gender equality. When dealing with heavier topics, he sometimes dwells on the history of black people and individuals, and sometimes he floats like a ghost, who is no one, and no one is spared.
Before you start your 73-minute surf, a little homework can help you improve your surfing experience.
1. Rich
Patriarchy, materialism, cell phone addiction, skin color, religion, ancestry, adultery, addiction, queerness, sexual assault… Lamar seems to find solace in the rapid flow of topics. The nasal voice sings Wet Hands Love ("Purple Hearts") in a sticky rhythm. Love echoes, and the mirror reflects the past in the past. The aunt who turned into a man hugs a girl on a dark street corner, and the little boy repeats the shameful words to the paper cup and the wall: Faggot, faggot, faggot... Until he grows up, the vision of childhood still stings in his eyes.
Most of the songs on the album have at least three producers. In the opening song "United in Grief", the staccato piano appears from the horizon, the drums are like red shoes that can't stop, and the double bass is like a cold wind sweeping the back of the head. Lamar and the producers made the listening experience as rich as possible, in order to mask the bitterness.
2. 9+9 double album
Length-wise, the album was a few minutes shorter than To Pimp a Butterfly, but it was released as Lamar's debut double album. CD1 is cathartic (Mr. "Big Bang"), CD2 (Mr. "Mr. Morality") switches to a sober and distant personality, and the first song reveals the Lamar family's surname - Duckworth. He rejected the identities of "savior" and "prophet", and just fulfilled his duty as a storyteller, holding up a mirror to look at the world with dazzling light spots.
3. Why is Korda Black there?
Florida rapper Korda Black, the least famous and disgraced member of the guest list, has just been convicted of first-degree wounding. His monologue in "Silent Hill" is like a tissue wet with a remorseful snot, lying on the ground so hard to take your eyes off. His presence must be more than just his voice. He plays a major role in this play about abuse and trauma, directed by Lamar. He also starred in love with R. Kelly and Harvey Weinstein.
4. So, who is "Mr. Moral"?
Who is he? Is it Lamar's psychiatrist incarnation, or is he some sort of personality that deals with grief and remorse, or is it a code name for God? Is he an unfortunate memory that happened within the family and cannot be washed away by growth?
Problems are tricky, and memory never lets go. Memories can be re-examined, but experiences cannot be repeated, but why are similar stories repeated over and over again? Lamar was sexually assaulted by family members as a child, and his mother had the same experience. He can't wait to break free from the body of a little boy and grow up to experience the lives of generations of black Americans. Now that he has successfully lived to the age of 34, he can summon up the courage to take a look at his own ethnic group.
The new album "Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers" is Lamar's fifth solo album and the breakup from his old club Top Dawg Entertainment. The seventy-three-minute long novel is not inferior to the expansiveness of "DAMN." and its predecessor "To Pimp a Butterfly" (2015), with a large number of guest guests. Like a salon owner, Lamar initiates difficult conversations and asks unanswered questions.
New album "Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers"
Five years without an album (time went by so fast), Lamar started a family and had two children (right on the album cover). During that time, he participated in a historic moment for his ethnicity, and with his compatriots appeared in the first-ever hip-hop-themed halftime show in Super Bowl history. Mental woes continued to grab his heels. He goes to a psychiatrist and pays to talk to people. He confessed in the song, and finally "God entered his body", which took him out of the two-year silent creative bottleneck.He managed to make the possibility of God's existence manifest in the music. The endless African rhythm in Worldwide Steppers is interrupted by neuralgia, and the R&B-shaped mermaid rises to the surface to take a breath and sink back into the murky water. In "N95", Lamar's characters are changeable, and one voice enters the body of different people, urging you to return to the state of naked innocence when you were born, and a hundred cheering villains celebrate your birthday. "We Cry Together" shows the essence of the quarrel between the two in-laws - the sting of the cocoon, the beating, the merciless, the blood flowing into the river. Lamar and Taylor Paige rummage through stale quilts, unearth Trump and Harvey Weinstein, and unravel the tangled past behind the bitter conflict over gender equality. When dealing with heavier topics, he sometimes dwells on the history of black people and individuals, and sometimes he floats like a ghost, who is no one, and no one is spared.
Before you start your 73-minute surf, a little homework can help you improve your surfing experience.
1. Rich
Patriarchy, materialism, cell phone addiction, skin color, religion, ancestry, adultery, addiction, queerness, sexual assault… Lamar seems to find solace in the rapid flow of topics. The nasal voice sings Wet Hands Love ("Purple Hearts") in a sticky rhythm. Love echoes, and the mirror reflects the past in the past. The aunt who turned into a man hugs a girl on a dark street corner, and the little boy repeats the shameful words to the paper cup and the wall: Faggot, faggot, faggot... Until he grows up, the vision of childhood still stings in his eyes.
Most of the songs on the album have at least three producers. In the opening song "United in Grief", the staccato piano appears from the horizon, the drums are like red shoes that can't stop, and the double bass is like a cold wind sweeping the back of the head. Lamar and the producers made the listening experience as rich as possible, in order to mask the bitterness.
2. 9+9 double album
Length-wise, the album was a few minutes shorter than To Pimp a Butterfly, but it was released as Lamar's debut double album. CD1 is cathartic (Mr. "Big Bang"), CD2 (Mr. "Mr. Morality") switches to a sober and distant personality, and the first song reveals the Lamar family's surname - Duckworth. He rejected the identities of "savior" and "prophet", and just fulfilled his duty as a storyteller, holding up a mirror to look at the world with dazzling light spots.
3. Why is Korda Black there?
Florida rapper Korda Black, the least famous and disgraced member of the guest list, has just been convicted of first-degree wounding. His monologue in "Silent Hill" is like a tissue wet with a remorseful snot, lying on the ground so hard to take your eyes off. His presence must be more than just his voice. He plays a major role in this play about abuse and trauma, directed by Lamar. He also starred in love with R. Kelly and Harvey Weinstein.
4. So, who is "Mr. Moral"?
Who is he? Is it Lamar's psychiatrist incarnation, or is he some sort of personality that deals with grief and remorse, or is it a code name for God? Is he an unfortunate memory that happened within the family and cannot be washed away by growth?
Problems are tricky, and memory never lets go. Memories can be re-examined, but experiences cannot be repeated, but why are similar stories repeated over and over again? Lamar was sexually assaulted by family members as a child, and his mother had the same experience. He can't wait to break free from the body of a little boy and grow up to experience the lives of generations of black Americans. Now that he has successfully lived to the age of 34, he can summon up the courage to take a look at his own ethnic group.
Kendrick Lamar at Super Bowl 56 halftime show Visual China data map
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