Kendrick Lamar

Kendrick Lamar is back with an absolute shoe-in for album of the year 2022 with 18 tracks that are like nothing we've ever heard before.

On opener “United In Grief”, Lamar goes deep on his post-fame spending habits. Which might explain why Kendrick seems to be confused that Kanye deigned to make up with Drake, rather than the other way round… Just when you thought King Kendrick wasn’t paying any attention to the wider rap game, he goes and namechecks the most contentious beef of the past few years.

On his new album release, Kendrick Lamar explores therapy, grief and masculinity.

If he did step away, this would be the perfect time; he has his money, he has his awards, but most of all he has his family. Kendrick has helped countless people to heal during his passage through fame and into legend, but most importantly, he sounds as if he has gone no small way to healing himself. Broadly speaking, good kid, m.A.A.d city was Kendrick’s feature film; To Pimp a Butterfly was his manifesto; Untitled Unmastered was his jazz album; Damn was his pop album; and Mr Morale and the Big Steppers is his one-man stage play. Kendrick has given us a journey — his journey — through therapy, through grief and through some of the most damaging aspects of traditional masculinity. Mr Morale and the Big Steppers sounds like it could easily be the final record in Kendrick Lamar’s discography: not because he has no more to say, but because it has the sense of completion, of being the last type of album he had not yet made. After releasing this, his first record after five years of near-silence, he promptly went off to Ghana, a good way to avoid the avalanche of media attention heaped on the record in the US. On the album, he tells us he was so uninspired that he had writers’ block for two years.

Rapper's first album in five years is a haunting and surprising meditation on fatherhood and family.

It is anchored in Lamar’s own life, right down to a cover that features the first confirmation of the birth of his second child, Enoch. He has earned this moment of reflection. “Purple Hearts” has a Ghostface Killah guest verse and a typically lush, languid appearance from R&B singer Summer Walker. “Shut the f*** up when you hear love talking,” sings Lamar. It’s a prelude to follow-up “Count Me Out”, which rejects fame: “Done every magazine, what’s fame to me?/ It’s a game to me, where the bedroom at?/ Sleep, I ain’t had to flex with that.” The return to what’s real – family, love, friendship – is the thread that ties the album together. Those same themes are refracted through the eyes of a parent in “Worldwide Steppers”, an exploration of fatherhood that is one of Mr Morale’s most interesting and haunting songs. It’s true that he namechecks Kanye and Drake here, but it’s only to say that he was “slightly confused” by their reconciliation, concluding that all of them are “grown men with daddy issues”. Mr Morale calls to mind 2013’s “Cartoons and Cereal” – a leaked cut that never made it onto any of Lamar’s albums because of sample clearance issues, yet remains one of his most touching (and loved) songs. Because of this, Mr Morale and The Big Steppers is most redolent of Lamar’s second album good kid, m.A.A.d city, which remains one of his most personal records.

On his fifth record, Lamar combines relentlessly clever and thoughtful rhymes with perfectly tessellated production.

By the end of the song, and the album, he feels absolved, that he has broken a cycle of abuse. It’s not a perfect record – “We Cry Together” is like listening to a couple you don’t know argue on the table next to you at dinner – but it’s damn near. As the song winds on, he discovers that she herself is a survivor and her constant suspicions over his safety came from a place of love and fear. It’s nice to think that everyone listening to this song will find the nuances and intention behind it, but there will no doubt be a large swathe of listeners who simply see it as an excuse to scream forbidden and offensive words with abandon. The racing “United in Grief”, with its chaotic beat and jazz-time piano and strings, has him reflecting on his success. The rapper, who notes helpfully that it has been 1,855 days since his last album, has been doing a lot of thinking.

Since his 2017 album, “DAMN.,” the California rapper has won seven Grammys and the Pulitzer Prize for music. “Mr. Morale,” his fifth LP, is expected to make ...

To some extent, those may also serve as clues for the next stage of Lamar’s career. Even after Lamar’s extended absence, “Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers” is expected to make a sizable opening-week splash on the Billboard albums chart. “DAMN.” was cited in 2018 as “a virtuosic song collection unified by its vernacular authenticity and rhythmic dynamism that offers affecting vignettes capturing the complexity of modern African-American life.” Lamar embraced the accolade, appearing in concert with a “Pulitzer Kenny” banner behind him. “Mr. Morale,” his fifth LP, is expected to make a big splash on the charts. The visual artist Lina Iris Viktor sued, saying her work was used without permission in the track’s video; the lawsuit was settled in late 2018. His 2017 album, “DAMN.,” won five Grammy Awards, though it lost album of the year to Bruno Mars’s “24K Magic.” (The rapper has 14 total Grammy wins.) Lamar, who grew up in Compton, Calif., and has made that area’s culture and struggles a central part of his music, also became the first rapper to receive the Pulitzer Prize for music.

After a five-year hiatus, the Pulitzer winner returns with an exhilarating hip-hop feast that ties personal pain to collective trauma – and lets no one off ...

Tellingly, the next track begins with Tolle: “Let’s say bad things were done to you when you were a child, and you develop a sense of self that is based on the bad things that happened to you…” Mother I Sober offers a devastating series of verses that draw together slavery and sexual abuse, and deal unflinchingly with a sexual assault experienced by his mother and an episode in which a young Lamar, being questioned by his family, denied that a cousin had abused him. Elsewhere, the track turns its ire not merely on white people glomming on to the Black Lives Matter movement (“one protest for you, 365 for me”), but the black community and indeed himself. One interlude features a string quartet and 74-year-old German self-help author Eckhart Tolle discussing the perils of a victim mentality alongside Lamar’s cousin, rapper Baby Keem, whose concerns are more earthy: “White panties and minimal condoms”. On Worldwide Steppers, Lamar’s words rattle out at such a pace that they threaten to race ahead of the backing track, a muffled, dense, relentless loop of Nigerian afro-rock band the Funkees that suddenly switches to a burst of laidback 70s soul and back again. Its opening tracks don’t so much play as teem, cutting frantically from one style to another – staccato piano chords and backwards drums; a frantic, jazzy loop with a bass drum that recalls a racing heartbeat; a mass of sampled voices; thick 80s-film-soundtrack synth and trap beats.

The rapper overcomes "writer's block" to triumph with a collection on which his observational skills go into overdrive.

The Kodak Black-assisted ‘Silent Hill’, too, sees Kendrick draw on Keem’s loose rap style to have some fun, as he relays a lyrically simple tale about how his life is now. This album is as much about struggle as it is freedom, and what a beautiful sentiment that is. Sometimes he splits the difference between the two moods: ‘Die Hard’ might be a redemptive track about it never being too late to right wrongs and chase your dreams, but the clinks of cowbells in the background remind you of chinking glasses in the summertime. / Huh! You ugly as fuck / You out of pocket”. He might be a mature 34-year-old man, but it’s still good for Kendrick to cut loose and have some fun between the philosophising – particularly since, atop a muffled, ‘90s-style instrumental on ‘Worldwide Steppers’, he reveals that he had “writer’s block for two years; nothin’ moved me” and that he “asked God to speak through me – that’s what you hear now”. On the surface of his latest record, Kendrick Lamar comes off as a sort of hood messiah. As he questionably throws around the F-word, as he used it then, ‘Auntie Diaries’ is a polarising track – but an important one on this album.

On a bravura album, the Pulitzer-winner sheds egotism, incorporates many voices and opens his private world.

Kendrick Lamar has announced a huge 2022 world tour including a series of UK dates, which takes in two shows at The O2 in London.

1 – Oakland, CA – Oakland Arena 31 – Oakland, CA – Oakland Arena You can view a full list of dates below.

The rapper on Friday dropped his latest album, "Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers." It's his first studio album in five years since 2017's "Damn.".

Lamar dropped a new music video on Sunday for a song titled “The Heart Part 5." In a later verse, Lamar elaborates: "Demetrius is Mary-Ann now. Lamar is known as a virtuoso who constantly pushes musical and artistic boundaries with his projects. Lamar's new song “The Heart Part 5” is not on the album Variety called the song a "powerful, genre-shifting statement on transphobia." The rapper on Friday dropped his latest album, "Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers." It's his first studio album in five years since 2017's "Damn."

Rapper released album 'Mr Morale & The Big Steppers' earlier on Friday (13 May)

Start your Independent Premium subscription today. The Big Steppers Tour will then conclude in Australia and New Zealand in December. The dates for Kendrick Lamar’s The Big Steppers Tour have been announced.

The rapper Kendrick Lamar released what some fans are calling a "barrier-breaking song" about accepting his transgender relatives.

He stopped her after a few verses, because the woman, who was white, sang the N-word along with him. But the fan added that there are "better ways" to convey that message. "In what universe is deadnaming and misgendering remotely acceptable?" He later raps that standing up for his cousin brought his family together. / The laws of the land or the heart, what’s greater?'" But he goes on to describe how when his relative picked him up from school, his friends "stare."

The 34-year-old Compton, California native - who earned the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2018 - will be hitting the road in support for his album Mr. Morale ...

do u see the problem here.' Boston Sports reporter Khari Thompson said: 'Yo “Auntie Diaries” could be some REAL barrier-breaking stuff in hip-hop. do u see the problem here' Boston Sports reporter Khari Thompson said: 'Yo “Auntie Diaries” could be some REAL barrier-breaking stuff in hip-hop. The tour will begin on July 19 in Oklahoma City with a date at the Paycom Center as the US leg of dates will end in his hometown of Los Angeles with two dates at the Crypto.com Arena on September 14 and 15. - The tour will begin on July 19 in Oklahoma City with a date at the Paycom Center as the US leg of dates will end in his hometown of Los Angeles with two dates at the Crypto.com Arena on September 14 and 15

Kendrick Lamar has been praised after his new album, 'Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers', contained a supportive track about the transgender members of his own ...

This is a song made for straight people to congratulate themselves for having the 'conversation'." For those who it doesn't, it's a conversation starter. At 13, my dad asked me if I was gay because I didn't agree with him that all gay people belong in jail or worse."

The Pulitzer Prize-winning rapper avoids the pressure of expectation by looking deep, deep inwards.

Here, he avoids the pressure of worldwide expectation, and all those imminent eyes on him when he finally headlines Glastonbury next month, by turning his focus deep, deep inwards. The cover, revealed on Wednesday, offered more clues to the themes: Lamar with his family (the new baby is called Enoch, he says on Worldwide Steppers), a crown of thorns on his head and a gun tucked into his trousers. The 34-year-old has been a Christian since his teens and often seems serene, monk-like, next to the jostling egos of his peers.

Worldwide Steppers Lyrics: Kodak Black, Oklama / Eckhart Tolle / And this here the big stepper / I'm a killer, he's a killer, she's a killer, ...

Later in Part 2, he regretfully recalls the harm he has indirectly inflicted on his own communities, referencing a food drive TDE held which may have contributed to heart issues among those that attended. He also references various sexual encounters he has had with white women, believing his ancestors would shame him for these relationships; They likely blame these interracial relationships for disregarding the mass incarceration that White America has imposed over black communities. Where did I come from?

Rapper also addresses his own use of homophobic slurs in the track, which features on his new album 'Mr Morale & The Big Steppers'

“We are not about to ‘cancel’ Kendrick over ‘Auntie Diaries’,” another person wrote. “Kendrick isn’t being homophobic at all, he’s speaking on his ignorance and struggles with accepting his trans auntie. “So nice to hear kdot speak on these kind of issues like religion and transphobia/homophobia. Hes really using his platform in a great way.

Lamar raps candidly on "Auntie Diaries," from his recently released album "Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers," as he discusses his journey with homophobia.

And I can't change that so do what you gotta do to be happy." "And people gonna be they own individuals and have they own worlds and I can't knock it. In a genre that has a history of homophobia, this moves the convo in the right direction." Lamar's previous album, DAMN.—featuring collaborations from Rihanna and U2—has won many awards, including a Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2018. "The most powerful man in hip-hop wrote a whole song supporting trans rights and acknowledging the homophobia he participated in. kendrick isn't being homophobic at all, he's speaking on his ignorance and struggles with accepting his trans auntie.

Kendrick Lamar, the rapper whose poignant lyricism has soundtracked the Black Lives Matter movement and compelled many to call him the voice of a generation ...

The album's cover is a photo of Lamar wearing a crown of thorns and holding a young child, while a woman who appears to be his partner Whitney Alford is in the background, holding an infant. "(He is) telling stories of his own personal struggles through his music, as well as documenting and telling the story of what is occurring in Black America, or in Compton, or in the whole Black diaspora," she said. it's an entire experience," she told AFP. The album's first track "United In Grief" opens with a choir singing the line "I hope you find some peace of mind in this lifetime," before Lamar comes in: "I've been goin' through somethin'." Following that historic win, he curated and contributed a number of songs to the soundtrack for the film "Black Panther," including his Grammy- and Oscar-nominated collaboration with SZA, "All The Stars." In 2018 Lamar became the first rapper to win the Pulitzer Prize for music, with the award's board saying his album "DAMN." was "unified by its vernacular authenticity and rhythmic dynamism that offers affecting vignettes capturing the complexity of modern African American life."