Kendrick Lamar gives the people what they want, on his terms Los Angeles Times

Much of the online music conversation over the next week or so will probably be about Kendrick Lamar’s new Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers album. By inhabiting these past lives, he shows how each generation of artists must navigate between divine inspiration and mortal temptation. Through each verse, Kendrick argues that artistic gifts carry both blessing and burden, requiring careful stewardship rather than mere expression.

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This Sobriety resulted in feverish levels of expectation, with a vocal fandom insisting everything Kendrick rapped contained hidden, intricate messages that had something deep to say about the human condition. By 2017, DAMN rubber-stamped the Kendrick Lamar brand among white, middle-class hipsters. It introduced the world to the Sage-like alter ego of Kung Fu Kenny, creating a clan of angry Fox News adversaries and winning a coveted Pulitzer Prize that solidified hip hop in the minds of European academics.

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Indeed, his flashy outfit — a white jacket emblazoned with the word Compton and a single sparkly glove à la Michael Jackson — suggested he’s found a way to embed any residual hunger for fame within the framework of his ideas about home and Black history. She desires a fresh start and cuts off all the toxic people in her life. The woman is proud of her recovery journey, unwilling to blame or compare herself to anyone.

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Since stepping into the spotlight with his debut studio album, “Section.80” in 2011, Lamar has evolved from an unknown up-and-coming emcee to one of the industry’s most revered lyricists. Later in his verse, Kendrick reveals Alford — who appears on the album cover along with their two young kids — urged him to seek professional help for his addiction. In a culture fixated on novelty, he suggests that true spiritual evolution requires us to first understand our past lives. The lyric, “Heroin needles had me in fetal position, restricted,” paints a harrowing picture of substance abuse. I hear Kendrick reminding us that too often we have played into this dehumanising story of an unfeeling physical hardness by demanding psychic toughness – toxic masculinity, abusive relationships, a disregard for ourselves.

• While it didn’t receive massive airplay like most songs by the band, ‘Amazing’ definitely deserved more recognition from music critics around the world.
• While still in high school, the rapper joined a group of friends with whom he would carry out several illegal activities, including home invasions and robberies.
• This contrast highlights the duality of alcohol’s effects – social lubricant vs. personal struggle.

Blinded by the assumption of what we can buy, or who we can hurt, tells us something about our worth. It’s not long into the album before Kendrick makes clear we can’t buy our way out of this shit; can’t flex our way out. That only distracts from the real issues – a dehumanising sense of ourselves, self-hate, lack of love. The Rolex, the pools, the cars are signs of our grief not symbols of our success. We’ve been set up to substitute stuff for substance, to cover the holes in our psychology with loud cars and bright diamonds that only distract. Can’t buy yourself out of a social world that despises you; instead, we end up “walking zombies trying to scratch that itch”.

• “Family Ties” by Baby Keem and Kendrick Lamar is one of the biggest rap songs of the 2020s so far.
• Lamar used his fifth album to put his ugliest and darkest self under a microscope, and then blew those images up for the world to see.
• “Listening to Kendrick Lamar might help mental-health practitioners and other professionals to understand the day-to-day internal and external struggles of their patients,” the authors write.

On the heavy “Mother I Sober” featuring Beth Gibbons of Portishead, Kendrick Lamar expands on his aforementioned “lust addiction” and cheating on the mother of his two children. The integrated health conglomerate Kaiser-Permanente repurposed some of Kendrick’s rhymes in an ad encouraging people to be more forthcoming about discussing the illness in order to break the stigma around it. Lamar says that he wants to tell the public that there are times when you can’t follow a trend just because it has become popular.

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While his lyrics and rhyme skills may get the party going, the things Kendrick does in his personal life may seem like he’s going against the grain. Even paying for a modest house cash instead of financing a multi-million dollar home like many other rappers, Kendrick seems to go left when others are going right. “Pure soul, even in her pain, know she cared for me / Gave me a number, said she recommended some therapy,” he explained in the song. Sadly, Lamar was eventually sucked into the gang lifestyle almost synonymous with growing up in Compton. While still in high school, the rapper joined a group of friends with whom he would carry out several illegal activities, including home invasions and robberies.

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We all know about Amy Winehouse’s terrible addiction issue, which eventually cut short her life kendrick lamar addiction in 2011 at the tender age of 27. This article offers a powerful soundtrack that resonates with the resilience and hope found in the path to healing. Starting March 2025, Kendrick will preform his album GNX across North America, in cities like Houston, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Atlanta and more.