Kendrick Lamar - Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers (New Album) May 13th.

Tell him he sounds great on We Cry Together LOLOLOL

 

Got tickets for the first Toronto show. Was so pumped that I forgot I have to somehow get out of work and get to Toronto in time. :/

Oh well. Let’s go!

 

Doctor’s Certificate forgeries available… for a price.

 

I got to say that... disconcertingly, this album most reminds me of the Purple Mountains album.
Got tickets for the London show, feeling pretty funny about all things Kung Fu Kenny, but man oh man I love this album

 

I saw this tour, went in expecting it to fail, how can one man move 18,000 people at the O2 arena, but within 3 seconds of DNA he had everyone going crazy for 90 minutes, insane, he pulled off more than Prince did at that venue.

 

so apparantly the album only sold 200k compared to his other work is a downgrade? To me its better. but looks like its not as popular as his other albums.

 

This checks out. We’re 5 years removed from his last record and I don’t think he has the ear of younger people like he used to. The cultural zeitgeist moves fast. Also, this has no obvious hits. No standout singles. It’s a really dense, complicated record that demands close listening. Damn was a crowd pleaser. This seems like it’s just for him. Good tickets for his show around here are still available, which really surprises me. I thought it would sell out instantly like the last few tours did

 

I think that makes sense. There's no real obvious stand out single and it's a dense difficult record. I don't think it was really made with much of an intention to be a blockbuster.

I have to admit, it's not really growing on me, in fact the opposite. He's obviously an immense talent, and there's some standout moments on the album, but in my estimation it's easily his worst and the first record he's made with some outright cringe.

 

To be fair, Kendrick has always had some cringey moments. The fake live show thing on “i” is borderline corny but he sells it well. Then the last song on TPAB has that lyric that seems to say it’s OK if Michael Jackson molested kids because he made Billie Jean. “Humble” relies on the same very basic chorus too much, that rubbed me the wrong way right from the start with DAMN. The world has changed a lot since his last record came out and I think his level of earnestness comes off different now.

 

I'm just glad there's a physical coming. Ordered it and I won't listen to the album until it gets here. Kendrick is in the very small "blind buy anything until he lets me down massively" category.

 

That's... not the way I interpret that lyric!

 

The Michael Jackson line is joke from a Chris Rock (maybe Dave Chappelle?) comedy show. I hope it's not meant to be taken seriously.

 

I oversimplified it a bit and I get where he’s coming from in the context of the song. Always thought it was a rough, kinda dumb line though

 

Oh jeez, is it? I feel a little silly now

 

I understand. I went through the same thing with Biggie's infamous opening lyrics on Me and My Bitch when he spat "You look so good. I'll suck on your daddy's dick." It completely threw me off

 

I'd always assumed from Kendrick's delivery that "that (censored) gave us Billie Jean, you say he touched those kids?" was supposed to have quotation marks around it... a reaction from a fan from when **** has hit the fan.

 

But he’s still asking if you’ll stick with him! And I get how it fits into the greater idea of controversy being used and sometimes weaponized to take down influential Black artists. More than anything, I think it just sounds clumsy in the song

 

@ghoulsurgery Ironically, I'm listening to MJ right now and thinking about how odd that Kendrick line is and how it's rarely brought up.

 

it’s an awkward line for sure! I think it gets overlooked bc it’s near the end of a long record and then the Tupac thing starts up and draws all the attention

 

You're right. That's most likely it, but I also think people are afraid of challenging Kendrick and the only time (outside of recently) I can remember that happening is when "The Blacker the Berry" dropped and the "So why did I weep when Trayvon Martin was in the street? When gang-banging make me kill a nigga blacker than me? Hypocrite!" stirred up controversy and had people questioning if kendrick was equating police brutality to black on black violence.

 

No, Kendrick is acting his fanbase if they'll stick with him if it all hits the fan, in whatever way that may be. The reason for Michael Jackson being mentioned is that he went from being a megastar of black origin to a joke, and in spite of never being found guilty of anything in his lifetime a lot of fans who put him in that position still turned their back on him.

 

FWIW if anyone wants to see him in the NY area, Barclays Center seems to have sold out with tickets being resold at inflated prices, but UBS Arena has a LOT of tickets leftover (especially in the nosebleed sections), and they've already gone down a bit in price. Parking is ridiculously expensive, about $50 (unless you have a BMW in which case it's free) but the LIRR should be a little under $10 each way, and it may end up being faster since getting out of the parking lot can take a very long time.

 

I don't really recall controversy around "The Blacker the Berry" but Trayvon Martin wasn't killed by police brutality, he was killed by an armed racist idiot, of the sort that there are millions of in the US.

It was "Alright" that has the line about trigger-happy police ("and we hate the po-po / gonna shoot us dead in the street for sure")

 

I do. It was all over Twitter and I remember Hot 97 and Breakfast Club touching on it around that time too. I believe it was his comments on Ferguson that also sparked that conversation, which was around that time.

 

Yep, he had some tone deaf (at best) comments back then and folks were angry. This article sums it up:

Black Twitter Reacts to Kendrick Lamar's Comments on Ferguson