In 2022, West Coast hip-hop superstar Kendrick Lamar published his fifth studio album, signalling the end of a five-year hiatus from the juggernaut of introspective lyricism. And in its opening lines, Kendrick confesses:
“I’ve been goin’ through somethin’ / One thousand, eight hundred and 55 days / I’ve been goin’ through somethin’ / Be afraid.”
I have always adored this album for its structural complexity, its enticing use of motifs, but most of all, its self-scrutinising lyrics. As much as Lamar’s earlier works were introspective, they focused on the failings of social institutions, jazz-throttled storytelling about the system that ensnared, enervated and enraged Black Americans.
But this was different. Covering the chaos of society provided no panacea to the chaos of his inner world. As he delves into what it means to wear a Crown as an imperfect person, he bids us to embrace fear. Simultaneously, he postures to his contemporaries that his spiritual growth has renewed his image as a Savior, that his newfound clarity has graced his lyricism with power.
In Side A, he sees the world through a Mirror. In Side B, he builds himself in that Mirror.
Welcome to Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers, sepia on sepia.
Side A: The Promise
A confession: the past semester has left me beleaguered by my own decisions. A pursuit of perfection, an inundation of responsibilities to occupy empty time; as if amassing accolades and pencilled positions screamed an unassailable utterance of human value. I donned the graphite mask of a Thespian and awaited audience applause.
“Take off the foo-foo / Take off the clout chase / Take off the Wi-Fi… / Take all that designer bullsh*t off / And what do you have?”
In the first verse of N95, Kendrick bids us to take it all off – material possessions, idol worship, judgement, and uncertainty. Stripped of these traits, we are left with nothing but a corrupt and ugly core. I used to listen to this verse and absolve myself of his admonishments. The pursuit of academic excellence and moral upstanding, are they not authentic desires?
I had learnt of C. Wright Mills’ concept of the Sociological Imagination, which tells of “The Promise” of sociology. The Promise is the ability to recognise the connections between history and biography, elucidating how individual circumstances are significantly shaped by larger structures and events (Mills, 1959). Or at least, that was my initial understanding of it, and it served me well enough. I reflected, and I learnt how certain privileges opened paths that endowed me with the ability to make decisions. This obsession with accruing accolades was inherited by my homeland’s desire to vanquish its vulnerability, magnified by the mandrake of meritocracy. I am a child of this country.
These laurels laid by society; our accolades are fruits. When we wear wreaths for validation, is that not materialism? The Promise made it clear that these desires are not innate but learnt. In this inheritance, it was natural to reduce self-betterment to a single dimension, to tick the checkboxes listed by the forefathers, the architects of this land I love.
The Promise brought an acute awareness to the heaviness of the masks I wore, but it was Kendrick who told me to take them off. Without scrapping for gold medals, who exactly am I?
“So what’s the difference ‘tween your life when hidin’ motives? / More fatalities and reality brung you closure / The noble person that goes to work and pray like they ‘posed to? / Slaughter people too, your murder’s just a bit slower.”
Then, in Worldwide Steppers, Kendrick elucidates the silhouetted facets of The Promise – no matter how I behaved, by playing by the rules of society, I was a killer too. The incessant need to leave no second unspent was built upon a self-imposed need to be perfect, to flaunt my worthiness through measuring this instilled merit of diligence. Every hobby had to prove some character virtue, and every interaction had to build towards a greater schema. These standards of perfection, entrenched in history, gained universality, and when others failed to meet them, I dismissed and I avoided. In ignorance, I slaughtered people too.
In the first disc, Kendrick adopts this cursory understanding of the Promise, prescribing the catastrophic madness of the world as a symptom of our ego, the force which manifests as our sins. In Father Time, he recognises that his upbringing taught him toxic masculinity, leading to his present vices. Weaponising this burgeoning recognition, he preaches his spiritual superiority in Rich Spirit, feeding his ego instead of properly focusing on himself. Despite self-awareness, Kendrick continues to be and deliver hurt.
It is too easy, too convenient to blame the world for all our problems. We tap dance around our inadequacies and say, that is who I am. Society has sculpted my effigy in marble, so how can I alter its pose without it shattering?
Yes, inaction itself is a societal prescription, but what good is a Promise without the conviction to fight for it? To fulfil it despite our fetters?
Side B: The Premise
Kendrick Lamar’s message in Side B is evident – to treat the grievances of the world, individuals must invest effort into unpacking their baggage. His lesson hinges on us recognising our active participation in our suffering.
Stop deferring blame to society, when society comprises naught but us. That is the Premise of the Promise.
“You said I’d feel better if I just work hard without liftin’ my head up / That left me fed up / You made me worry, I wanted my best version but you ignored me / Then changed the story”
As I listen to Count Me Out, I picture a Mirror crystallising in front of Kendrick. As if in confession, he rambles to his reflection, assigning blame as an outsider. He objectifies himself, and in doing so, he sees his psyche as a reflection of society. Then, the transfer of blame becomes natural. It is me who drives my destruction; “I put it on my ego, lord of all lords.”
“I love when you count me out”, when you forgo what is authentically yourself for some greater moral mission. The ease of following the motions, even though the Promise has already shown you that morality is itself a subjective reflection of society.
“Uh, I thought a new car would help (I thought a new car would help) / Uh, but when that new car get old (but when that new car get old) / Uh, I’m sure to want something else, I-I-I”
Both see it as materialism – a scientific sobriquet. No, its real name is gluttony, a sin acutely human, acutely physiological. Always expecting more from myself, I wrung moments from respite to stave off the boundless hunger. Yes, I was proud of my accomplishments, but I never sat down to actually take it in, to honestly ask, why am I doing what I am doing? ‘Achievement’ and ‘happiness’ do not share a page in the thesaurus.
“Is that what we call love?” Wearing myself thin, so thin that everything you feel you have to do constantly occupies your mind. I starved myself to gorge the gluttony of the ego. With splintered energy, the time I spent with those I loved was perfunctory, treating their life updates as ethereal as the wind, despising idle moments for their starvation.
‘Your eye bags are worse than mine,’ one of my friends said. I replied, ‘It’s been a busy week. But next week, it will be better.’ A platitude, that for me would always morph into a lie. I thought that fatigue was weakness, and for that, I am sorry. For in our suffering, we make others suffer too.
“Say, “Hydrate, it’s time to heal” / Safe, you’re frustrated, I can feel / Huddle up, tie the flag, call the troops, holla back.”
In the titular Mr. Morale, Tanna Leone tells Kendrick that the solution is neither to starve nor feed the ego. It is to hydrate, to cleanse. It is to purify the locus of the self, to retrace old paths with new boots. To practice the Premise of the Promise through mindfulness.
For myself, I have been finding it emancipatory to spend time writing out my uncensored thoughts, then leaving them in silence. Allowing myself to sit with my experiences, I wish to artfully trace the contours of my emotions rather than deferring them as biology; humanity is no reducible science.
And so, I wrote, initially in pandemonium, until those disparate thoughts became subconsciously connected by invisible threads. In the eye of the tempest was a pair of parallel principles – self-love and self-awareness, which I transformed into my mantra.
To love myself is to respect myself for being imperfect, “to forgive myself a hundred times”. It is to know what I am worth, and to be firm about my boundaries, to have the courage to say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; ditch the ‘Maybe’. Naturally, boundaries only manifest in people who know who they are, thus self-awareness is an irreplaceable facet of self-love.
That means: (1) Taking accountability for one’s actions, but not being fettered to blame, (2) Being passionate to explore, for doing so may expand one’s awareness of self, (3) Being firm about boundaries, (4) Respecting others’ journey of self-discovery too, (5) Listening and being present.
These are the goals that I will hold myself accountable too, and I imbue my actions with the intention of actualising them. For the sake of love, to others and to myself.
Outro: The Pen
“The pressure’s taking over me, it’s beginning to loom / Better if I spare your feelings and tell you the truth / Lately, I redirected my point of view / You won’t grow waitin’ on me.”
I finally reach the closing track, Mirror. Here, Kendrick commands the listener to use his vulnerable confessions to kickstart one’s own growth. It is ironic, how he has shed his persona as a Savior, yet is comfortable in asserting authority by being prescriptive in his lyricism. “Be afraid,” because he is ready to fulfil the Premise of the Promise through its inversion. Deconstruction, then reconstruction. He is ready to assert itself as a fearsome hunter, defanging socialisation to domesticate intergenerational trauma.
He is not your Savior, but he will show you how to save yourself.
I admit, this may appear self-righteous and didactic. In writing this piece, I posture myself the same way that Kendrick does in this album. The recent works of this publication itself proves that this desire to share one’s reflections is not unique to myself, nor to Kendrick; it is a universal and necessary end point to growth.
Who exactly are we writing for: an audience, or ourselves?
Well, to some extent, reflective writing sates our gluttony. After all, it is the expectation of reaction from readers that enables us to evaluate if our reflections are truly relevant. In publishing this piece, I hope for the validation that my contemplations are beautiful, are logical, are moral. That is a necessary confession, and I am proud of the psychological distance I have ran.
That would have been the conclusion of my justification in the past, but Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers has endowed me with a newfound certainty – I yearn to write because I have rekindled a blazing passion innate to my being. Those incandescent embers; see, I once stomped them out in fear, fear that one’s words could only mean most to oneself and could never be equally appraised by a reader. I once believed that without appraisal, creation was worthless. I am grateful that I now know this to be untrue.
Simultaneously, we write for an audience in hopes that our experiences would provide the reader with a novel perspective; to learn from our lives lessons applicable to their own. In sharing stories, we call for our community to surround a hearth, together basking in the warmth of mutual understanding, searching for a shared connection to humanity. To write is the most human of all desires, and it is emblematic of the equilibrium – between society and the self – needed to navigate the Premise of the Promise.
Finally, regarding writing, I must warn that writing is not silence. It is the confluence of both language and stillness where healing occurs – words provide my thoughts with a body, silence grants them a heartbeat. To respect myself, I promise to continue carving moments of silence amidst the hectic and relentless cavalcade of life, of being human.
This odyssey has no end. Not for Kendrick, not for me and not for you. I will fail a thousand times more, but with each stumble, graze and contusion, I will grant myself the clemency to curse the earth before returning to my running feet; the same which I grant the people I love.
So, let us make a vow of forgiveness. We will continue to break our pinkies, but each new bandage and cast will wrap it sturdier. Promise, that when life’s heat fogs up your Mirror, you will press your digit against the glass, spelling out Mr Morale’s parting words:
“I choose me, I’m sorry.”
As the air cools down, those words will surely fade. But I Promise, when the heat returns, they will resurface.
About the Author
Jeron Sia, a Year 2 Pharmaceutical Science student, loves running because it gives him an excuse to listen to more music. He would like to implore people to listen to Savior by Kendrick Lamar.
References
Mills, C.W. (1959) The Sociological Imagination. Oxford University Press, New York.