Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers
“I hope you find some peace of mind in this lifetime…”
This is how Kung Fu Kenny a.k.a. Kendrick Lamar opens Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers, his first studio album in five years. He had been away for 1855 days (much like myself going through this shitty writer's block for so long), a number he mentions right at the beginning and which also becomes part of the storytelling during his tour. His previous album, DAMN., had won the Pulitzer Prize for Music and received widespread critical acclaim. His earlier works were equally remarkable, and I hope to write about them one day.
Until then, much of Kendrick's music had focused on the world around the struggles of the Black community in America, systemic racism, gang violence, drugs, and the many ways society fails people. Then, in May 2022, he returned with an album that felt rather unexpected, even though fans had been waiting for years, wondering what he had been working on all this while.
And what a return it was.
This wasn't an album chasing radio hits, commercial success, or music to make people dance at parties. Of course, there are some aura-farming type of beats on it that make you C-walk on a random Tuesday in the lab (no, I've never done it okay?). But "heavy" is the word I keep coming back to. Heavy in its subject matter, heavy in its honesty, and heavy in the way it makes you think about things you might otherwise prefer not to think about.
The album begins with United in Grief, and I find the title itself fascinating. I have thought about it quite a bit, and I keep coming back to the idea that grief might be one of the few human experiences that genuinely unites us.
Think about it. Happiness looks different for everyone. One person might celebrate by going out, meeting friends, and partying all night. Another might be perfectly happy sitting at home with a cup of coffee, enjoying their own company. Anger, love, excitement, and even the way we express affection can vary enormously from one person to another. Our personalities, experiences, and circumstances shape how we experience and express these emotions.
Grief is different, at least in the way I see it. Yes, everyone grieves differently. Some people cry, some withdraw, some keep themselves busy, and others don't know how to process what they're feeling. But beneath those differences, there seems to be a shared human experience. Whether it is the loss of a loved one, a relationship, a dream, or a part of ourselves, there is something deeply familiar about that pain.
Perhaps we don't experience grief in exactly the same way, but we recognise something of ourselves in another person's suffering. And that, to me, makes United in Grief a brilliant way to begin an album that spends so much time exploring our emotional and psychological struggles. It starts with something universal before taking us into the deeply personal.
And this is just the beginning.
The second track, N95, takes a different approach. It's an absolute banger, but beneath the beat, Kendrick is asking some uncomfortable questions about the things we use to define ourselves. Take off the designer clothes, the luxury accessories, the status symbols, the things you've accumulated to show the world who you are. Strip all of that away, and what are you left with? Who are you when you can no longer hide behind the things you own or the image you've built for yourself?
It's a simple question, but a difficult one to answer honestly. We spend so much time trying to look successful, desirable, or important that we rarely stop to ask whether any of those things actually define us. What remains when the performance ends? (ooof dark one, I know, but keep going). N95 makes you want to dance while asking you to question the very things you might be dancing for. Classic Kendrick.
Take Father Time next. This song is the one that motivated me to write about this album here. In a single song, Kendrick opens up an entire conversation about masculinity, emotional repression, parenting, and generational trauma. He talks about the lessons he learned growing up, particularly the idea that men should suppress their emotions, toughen up, and get on with life.
One of the moments that struck me most is when Kendrick recalls his own mother's death and how his father reacted to it. His father went to the funeral, then returned to work the very next day. There was no time to stop and grieve. "The bills ain't got no silver spoon", he says in the song. It is a heartbreaking example of how deeply ingrained the idea of emotional suppression can be, even when someone is dealing with the loss of a loved one.
It is such a familiar idea. Many of us have seen men (humans, generally but this song is about toxic masculinity, don't cancel me) in our lives behave this way, whether they are our fathers, grandfathers, or someone else we grew up around. Something terrible happens, but there is little room to grieve. There is work to do, money to earn, responsibilities to fulfil. The world doesn't stop, so neither can you.
But who is really responsible for this? Is it the men who were taught to bury their emotions? Is it the generations before them who passed down the same lessons? Or is it a society that leaves so little room for people to stop, grieve, and recover without worrying about what happens to their livelihood?
Perhaps it is a combination of all three.
What I love about this song is that Kendrick doesn't simply point fingers. He examines the consequences of these inherited attitudes and asks us to do better. Just because our parents and grandparents lived a certain way doesn't mean we must repeat it. We can learn from them without carrying every burden they carried. We can be stronger by being vulnerable, better parents by being emotionally available, and better human beings by recognising that the cycle has to end somewhere.
Kendrick covers a variety of issues throughout this album, and one of them is the experience of his transgender relatives, which he explores in Auntie Diaries. It's almost as if he opens up his auntie's diary and lets us in on his own journey of understanding her identity. What's particularly interesting is how you can hear his understanding change throughout the song. He begins with the language and assumptions he grew up with, stumbling through his understanding of his uncle becoming his aunt, and gradually moves towards accepting his relatives for who they are.
His use of language is deliberate, and it isn't always comfortable to listen to. The song has also attracted criticism for its use of slurs and its portrayal of transgender experiences. But at its heart, it raises a question that I think is particularly important today: what happens when the beliefs we inherit conflict with the humanity of the people around us?
The line about "choosing humanity over religion" is especially powerful. In a world where people are constantly divided over religion, identity, and ideology, perhaps we need to remind ourselves that the person standing in front of us matters more than our assumptions about them. Faith can be meaningful, but it should never become an excuse to deny someone their dignity. We don't have to understand every aspect of another person's life to treat them with compassion. Sometimes, we simply have to be willing to listen and accept that we might have something to learn.
And then comes Mother I Sober, arguably one of the heaviest songs on the album. Kendrick explores sexual trauma, family secrets, shame, and the ways pain can travel from one generation to the next. He reflects on his mother's experience of sexual abuse and how her attempts to protect him, driven by her own trauma and fears, affected their relationship and his understanding of himself.
What makes this particularly heartbreaking is that the harm doesn't necessarily come from a lack of love. Sometimes, parents act with the best intentions but struggle to communicate their fears in a way their children can understand. Their attempts to protect can unintentionally create confusion, mistrust, and emotional distance.
Kendrick connects these experiences to his own struggles with intimacy and infidelity. He acknowledges the ways he hurt his partner and the damage his actions caused. His partner's decision to encourage him to seek therapy becomes an important part of his journey towards confronting his behaviour rather than continuing to run from it.
And that is what makes the song so powerful. Understanding where our problems come from doesn't excuse the harm we cause, but it can help us recognise what needs to change. Healing requires honesty, accountability, and the willingness to break patterns that might have existed in our families for generations. We cannot change everything that happened to us, but we can take responsibility for what we do with it.
And that's just a handful of songs. Imagine the conversations the rest of the album could inspire. I could easily spend pages writing about each track, unpacking the lyrics and exploring the different ways they make me think. Perhaps I'll do that one day. This album deserves it.
But for now, I want to talk about what it came to mean to me.
I first listened to Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers in 2022, shortly after moving to Sweden. I'm a lyrics-first listener. I want to understand what an artist is saying, what they're trying to communicate, and what lies beneath the music. I remember thinking this was a heavy album, but I didn't have much to relate to beyond the usual struggles of life. I was in a new country, exploring a new city, living independently for the first time, and enjoying the experience.
When Kendrick announced the tour, I booked the cheapest ticket I could afford as a student living on a loan. I wanted to see one of my favourite artists perform. The concert was extraordinary. The production, the storytelling, the theatricality of it all made it feel like so much more than a concert. Still, I had mostly gone to hear the classics, to sing along to DNA., HUMBLE., and the songs I already knew by heart. I came back with incredible memories, and life moved on. The album remained somewhere in my library, something I revisited occasionally without ever really sitting down to listen to it from beginning to end again.
Then came a period in my life when things became shitty in ways I hadn't quite anticipated. My career prospects, personal life, and family all seemed to be testing me at once. Nothing extraordinary, really. Life has been putting people through difficult times for generations, and everyone has their own battles to fight. What feels overwhelming to one person might seem ordinary to another, but that doesn't make it any less real when you're the one going through it. I think, more than anything, I wanted a companion during that time, someone who could make things feel a little less difficult. Instead, circumstances seemed to leave me dealing with most of it on my own.
My days gradually settled into a routine: work, gym, dinner, sleep, and then doing it all over again. After the gym, I would walk to a lake in Västerås and sit by the pier, all by myself. Somewhere along the way, I started listening to Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers there. It wasn't something I had planned, nor was I consciously looking for an album to help me through a difficult time. It just happened. I'd sit by the water, put on my headphones, and listen. And then I'd do it again the next day.
What began as an unplanned routine slowly became something I looked forward to. I started paying attention to the lyrics in a way I hadn't before. The songs I'd once thought were simply heavy began to mean something different to me. Kendrick's words became a constant companion through those quiet evenings, giving me something to sit with when I didn't quite know what to do with everything I was feeling. The album didn't change my circumstances, but it made those moments of solitude feel a little less lonely. Looking back, I'm genuinely glad that this routine found its way into my life.
By 2024, Kendrick Lamar was my most-listened-to artist on Apple Music, and Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers was my most-listened-to album. I had played it on repeat through a period of my life I wouldn't wish to relive, yet one that changed the way I understood myself and the people around me.
Eventually, things worked out, and I could finally look back at that period with some distance. I still don't know whether the album helped me through it, whether that difficult period made me understand the album, or whether I simply found it again at the moment I needed it most. Perhaps it was a combination of all three.
What I do know is that I'm grateful Kendrick made it.
There is something courageous about an artist of his stature stepping away from the role of the person with all the answers and admitting that he, too, needs help. It takes a different kind of strength to expose your shortcomings, confront your trauma, and acknowledge the ways you have hurt others. To turn that process into an album that millions of people can listen to, interpret, and find pieces of themselves in is an extraordinary thing.
And this brings me to Mirror, the song that closes the album. After taking us through grief, anger, shame, family trauma, relationships, and the difficult process of confronting himself, Kendrick arrives at a conclusion that feels both simple and profound.
The album begins with a wish for peace of mind. By the end, Kendrick has accepted that he cannot fix everything around him while neglecting the work he needs to do within himself. He cannot save everyone, solve every problem, or carry the weight of the entire world on his shoulders. At some point, he has to turn his attention towards his own life and begin rebuilding it.
The final line captures this beautifully: “Sorry I couldn't save the world, my friend. I was too busy building mine again.”
What a way to end an album.
We spend so much time worrying about the world, the people around us, and everything that seems to be going wrong. We want to help, fix things, and make everything better. But sometimes, we forget that we're people, too. We have our own struggles, our own wounds, and our own lives to put back together. Taking care of ourselves doesn't mean we stop caring about others. It means recognising that our own healing matters, too.
For me, that is what makes this album so important. It isn't just about Kendrick Lamar. It is about the things we inherit, the pain we carry, and the responsibility we have to ensure that the people who come after us don't have to carry the same burdens.
I hope the next generation inherits less of our trauma and more of our love. I hope we learn to raise children who feel safe expressing themselves, who know they can ask for help, and who don't have to spend their adulthood unlearning everything they were taught about being human.
And perhaps that is the greatest thing music can do. It can reach someone sitting alone in a foreign country, with a thousand unanswered questions, and make them feel a little less alone.
Heavy. But sometimes, the things that weigh on us the most are the things that help us understand ourselves. And sometimes, an album can become more than music. It can become a companion through a chapter of your life you might never have known how to get through on your own.
This is my first take on Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers, and I'm pretty sure it won't be my last. As time goes on, I'll probably find new meanings in old lyrics, discover new things to appreciate, and find more songs that deserve a shout-out of their own. Maybe I'll come back and add to this, maybe I'll rewrite the whole thing, or maybe I'll write an entirely new essay. Who knows? It's my website, my album review, and my rules. The free world, baby.
Now, back to my writer's block until I pull the motivation to get out of it.