Kendrick Lamar - Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers (Discussion Thread)

[Chip Skylark]

I can't think of a single album from either discog that's similar. And I tried.

Undun is the story of a man, Redford Stevens, dying in reverse, rewinding from the moment he became a statistic and hitting the points in his life where he's at his most self-aware.


Damn tells the same exact story

 

[Ziggiy]

Undun is the story of a man, Redford Stevens, dying in reverse, rewinding from the moment he became a statistic and hitting the points in his life where he's at his most self-aware.


Damn tells the same exact story

Undun was so fukking Dope

 

[Chip Skylark]

Undun was so fukking Dope

facts!!!

 

[Ziggiy]

Seems the general consensus is that people are feelin the Mr Morale portion slightly more than The Big Steppers portion

 

[breakfuss]

Undun is the story of a man, Redford Stevens, dying in reverse, rewinding from the moment he became a statistic and hitting the points in his life where he's at his most self-aware.


Damn tells the same exact story

Come on...that's a hell of a reach bruh but if there's one album you could make the case for it's probably Undun. A good portion of it is instrumental lol. I think Sleep is the only track that mildly resembles something from Kendrick.

 

[Chip Skylark]

Come on...that's a hell of a reach bruh but if there's one album you could make the case for it's probably Undun. A good portion of it is instrumental lol. I think Sleep is the only track that mildly resembles something from Kendrick.

A reach? That’s the storyline of both. They’re literally east coast/west versions of each other

I don’t think you’ve listened to the roots album even if didn’t a quick Google search will tell you what the story is and both are the same

 

[darealvelle]

I lowkey think Kendrick made this album just to stump Logic from trying to copy him on various songs

for example, people like Jay-Z use "The Game" to talk about the rap game but it's a double entendre talking about Game the rapper on various subliminal songs, but Kendrick like on N95 talked about "Logic" but may be a double entendre/subliminal as to "Take off the new Logic" and "who do you think they copy? they copy off us" and "you out of pocket, you entertain the mediocre, you need to stop it" because this new Logic has been copying Kendrick for practically years...kendrick can basically shoot himself in the foot on this album and still have fanfare, but if Logic copies this shyt, he's basically shooting his career in the head, which is probably what might happen if Logic is stupid enough to copy this evasive maneuver pulled by Kendrick, and may have had an hiatus or is sitting on unreleased music to see if Logic would copy anyone else and Logic fake-retired and shyt when Kendrick didn't have any new songs to copy from these last 5 years...so basically the rest of Kendrick's new album was making up artistic shyt and changing his voice inflections so that Logic can't easily distill and copy...instead of beefing and being fully confrontational about it, Kendrick is playing an elaborate chess game so Logic doesn't get any exposure, because in beef parody, both sides get attention, but Kendrick is downplaying his copycat opponent by not mentioning him but only for those who can figure out subluminals like we are back in the 90s as listeners

i may be reading too much into this -- kendrick could have really just made post-corona club bangers the whole album to get people out of cabin fever from staying indoors and it would have been lit, but he's too smart to not have a reason for all of this to be an album, strategically have singles with subliminal messages, and not just some throwaway songs for a mixtape...for example, Humble's "sit down lil bytch" from his DAMN album was directed towards Big Sean and partially Jay Electronica the whole song (read rapgenius annotations) -- it was fire but went above everyone's heads on who the lil bytch he is talking about to be humble the whole song...when kendrick is making someone take off their fake persona, it might be towards everyone in the industry or real life and also towards logic, we're just not certain at the moment until more details come out of kendrick's camp

other notes if this is true "take off the black and white" may be a subliminal at logic being biracial, "take off the flex" -- flex is logic's favorite word...and there are a lot of Quentin Tarantino type shots for the N95 music video, which may be another layer of the diss given logic claims he is the Quentin Tarantino of rap, so a bunch of collage type shyt was in the video almost mocking Logic to copy it, like "THIS shyt HARD" on the video may induce logic to come up with another 3 words and put it on his music video almost as a taunt because kendrick knows he's being copied. N95 is obviously talking about taking off the corona mask that people hide behind.."what would you do for aesthetic" and talking about sell your soul and sell your bro for leverage talking about hypocrites sounds like blatant Logic disses because kendrick is ticked Logic is copying him so much...look into this to see if any of this has any weight or merit

Hmmm interesting

 

[Ziggiy]

TOP 20: KENDRICK LEADS THE WAY : HITS Daily Double


320K. Biggest first week of the year to date

GKMC and Damn are also back in the top 20

 

[John Mexico]

DAMN is no Undun.

YAH and GOD are nothingburgers

 

[5n0man]

Just got finished listening to this and this album is great. The album ended strong af, N95 and Die Hard are my favorite songs so far.

I really fukk with it, after multiple plays in the whip and headphones there's a bunch of songs with high replay value imo

N95
Die hard
Father time
Rich spirit
Purple heart
Count me out
Crown
Silent hill
Savior
Mr morale
Mother I sober
Mirror

All great songs

Auntie diaries and we cry together are both good but not something I'd play on the regular.

United in grief and world wide steppers are the only songs with weird beats I don't fukk with.

 

[Arithmetic]

did they update We Cry Together with new lines?

 

[Braman]

Did you also not like To Pimp a Butterfly? Because that's largely just performance art in audio format outside of straight shooters like You Aint Gotta Lie, Momma, Mortal Man etc. This album ain't really that much weirder

For the record, don't nobody gotta like nothing. I love it but maybe that's the late 80s Gemini in me.

I disagree, I think it’s weirder than TPAB. For 2 reasons: 1 bc it’s the 2nd run at it. TPAB could be a lil out there bc we had never heard it done from kendrick. Once you do it a 2nd time it loses the appeal.

And second it feels less organic. Feels like he’s pandering to wins Grammy or woke brownie points irs a bit much

Bruh you quoting Phonte but he also speaks on the superficiality of music consumption:

Like one night we was out in my whip
With some broads just chillin' playin' demos and shyt
Asked 'em how I sounded rockin' the mic
One chic told me all she listened to was beats, thank god for ninth
Trying to get pressed on vinyl cause motherfukkers buy your CD
But turn around don't even know your song titles
Like track 2 is hot, and track 6 is long
Ain't even listening, I'm hoping I get through to y'all

??? Your point? That verse from phonte is more for the mumble rap crowd—-“ALL I listen to is beats’. Thats folk who aren’t even into lyrics and/or kendrick in the first place.

This ain’t that. I’m assuming I’m among folk who can analyze the full scope of an album —-which includes both lyrics and production.

And just bc kendrick chose bad production doesn’t make his lyrics any more poignant. Just bc the beat is faded out dont mean it’s deep

 

[Braman]

My lil frustration with this album is summed up at 2:10 on worldwide steppers. Wtf is that 10 second beat?!? Like bro why wouldn’t you just rap on THAT …instead of rapping over marching cadence for 3 minutes.

It’s just a lot of ‘man just play a beat and rap’ moments on this album which gives me the feeling this album is his first that ain’t really for “us”. Like he trying to branch off

 

[5n0man]

My lil frustration with this album is summed up at 2:10 on worldwide steppers. Wtf is that 10 second beat?!? Like bro why wouldn’t you just rap on THAT …instead of rapping over marching cadence for 3 minutes.

It’s just a lot of ‘man just play a beat and rap’ moments on this album which gives me the feeling this album is his first that ain’t really for “us”. Like he trying to branch off

Other than that song and the opening song, which other songs feel that way to you?

There aren't that many "just rap" moments on this album to me.

 

[Guvnor]

Kendricks down with them boys too?

Nah this guy is reaching though Kendrick might be a mason with lines like

"I'm a good man, shake' hand, firm grip rule"

Also I found out Mr Morale and The Big Steppers might be a refrence to the masonic text Morals and Dogma by Albert Pike