On August 27th, 2021, Family Ties dropped.
Family Ties was a promotional single from rapper Baby Keem. Kendrick Lamar (Keem’s cousin) had stayed out of the public eye for a long while before this song dropped, so expectations were high.
Those expectations were met and then-some.
Lamar not only takes the time to use biblical imagery to establish to the listener exactly who he is, but he also takes shots at the music industry and the acts which have gotten popular. Combine that with a wacky few lines which went viral on social media for a spell and you’ve got a mission statement from one of music’s most precise marksmen.
Lamar tells us directly on the track that he “ain’t taking no prisoners” which could only mean that Lamar was coming in hot on his return to music.
Lamar announced in April of the following year that he was releasing a new album and a month later, his first solo single of this album cycle came in the form of The Heart Part 5. The track has this really phenomenal groove, and on this track in particular Lamar covers a wide array of topics with reckless abandon.
It really feels like an old school Lamar track where he takes the listener on a journey through his experiences with drug violence, loyalty, family, and culture.
This was the perfect song to build hype towards the album because it was incredibly well made and it was clear that Kendrick was going into this album with something to say.
Only five days later, we got the album Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers.
The album actually established several motifs early on. Similarly to the poem which pops up between tracks on Lamar’s album To Pimp a Butterfly, we hear singer Sam Dew sing a few lines every once in a while to set the tone or transition between songs (beginning with the first track United In Grief).
Dew is a great singer and I thought this was a really good choice as a theme throughout the album.
After that, we hear some piano chords which harken the arrival of the headliner, Kendrick Lamar. He highlights the 1855 days since he last graced us with a project before rapid firing some lines out about his time since then. He establishes a few key themes on this track which will pop up going forward, the most important being cheating on his partner, Whitney Alford.
Whitney (who appears on the cover of the album) has been Lamar’s partner since they were in high school and Kendrick openly admits on multiple tracks on the album that songs about screwing around with other women weren’t posturing or storytelling, but rather true tales of Lamar’s repeated infidelity.
The openness about this topic is the biggest example that this is going to be a very personal album. Kendrick’s previous albums took personal stories and experiences and applied them to a greater cultural idea or filtered them through concepts of different emotions.
This album, though, is only about one thing. It’s about Kendrick Lamar.
I actually really enjoyed the energy of this track as well as the following track N95. The triumphant synth underneath Lamar on the chorus reminds me of the one on Family Ties just because of the emotion and the feeling of victory they evoke. Lamar shifts focus a little bit from his views of himself to his views on what has been going on around him.
Kendrick’s little interlude between flows in the middle of the song was really great, as was the verse that followed it. It’s not surprising that this was the first album track to get a music video not only because it’s the most accessible hip hop song but also because it’s fantastic.
Kendrick takes shots at people who hide their true selves behind vapid luxuries and social media. I will say that while I also like this track, lines like the one where he disavows the idea of “cancel culture” make him sound really old.
Besides, one can only crow about how “un-cancellable” they are for so long before lumbering out Kodak Black to appear on a track.
Kodak doesn’t really get in the way (yet) and we instead get a really introspective track about his infidelity in the form of Worldwide Steppers. Lamar puts a racial spin on some of his affairs and reflects on the effects not only on his partner but on his psyche.
I’m not as in love with the final verse of this track (Kendrick feels the need to drop another line about how sensitive everyone is,) but it still has some really creative moments. In a line akin to the hook of Rage Against the Machine’s Killing in the Name, Lamar drops a line about white supremacy within “good citizens” which felt really potent and scarily accurate.
The first three tracks, at times, feel like therapy sessions for Lamar. He’s getting out everything he’s feeling, sometimes so quickly that it’s hard to keep up with him. This builds up until we get to the track Father Time.
The track begins with Whitney telling Lamar that he needs to go to therapy and what we get following this is a track which pulls no punches about Lamar’s issues with his upbringing, his family, and fatherhood. Lamar passionately unloads his mind, but one line stuck out to me.
“This is the part where Mental stability meets talent”.
It’s easy for people to forget that musicians and artists are people too. They’ll glorify an artist being so tortured that they took their own life without realizing what effect that will have on tortured artists who are still alive.
This was the first part where I began to feel Kendrick really resented his fanbase and this role that’s been given to him as an activist and a leader.
Kendrick’s fame may be part of the reason that he feels the way he does because he has to repeatedly revisit these traumatic experiences for his music.
With the personal themes and the references to therapy and psychologists, it brings to mind an album which conceptually looms large over this project.
Plastic Ono Band was John Lennon’s first full solo album since leaving The Beatles and in the months prior to recording, he and Yoko Ono engaged in Primal Therapy (where a patient will express feelings of hurt, anger, rage, etc. upon a chair meant to represent a person).
Lennon’s album was very personal and seemed to really be born out of these therapy sessions. At times, the album itself does seem akin to a therapy session. Songs like Mother and Isolation get down deep into Lennon’s psyche like no song he’d written before.
It’s interesting to see Lamar’s take on an idea like this and if this was therapy for him, I hope the album was successful in bringing him some peace of mind.
The issue as a consumer with listening to an album which functions as therapy is that sometimes, you feel like a voyeur or that you shouldn’t be listening to this. In the case of Lennon’s album, this came with the album closer My Mummy’s Dead.
In Lamar’s case, this came for me with the eighth track, We Cry Together.
On this track, Lamar and actress Taylour Paige have what seems to be a domestic argument wherein they scream, curse, shout, and insult each other for about five minutes before deciding to have sex instead of continue to fight.
Paige launches some brutal lines at Lamar on this track, highlighted by her blaming people like Kendrick for the actions of R. Kelly and Harvey Weinstein.
It is… uncomfortable.
I’m certain that was the goal, nobody could write this track and make a short movie about it without knowing that it will make the audience feel this way. It’s not a flaw for a piece of media to make you uncomfortable, especially if it has some kind of message.
When an album functions as therapy and it’s really made for the person who made it though, that doesn’t really happen.
The track Savior features Lamar really honing in on these feelings about his success and his place in the community. A lot of people expect him to be an activist at all times and were disappointed when he didn’t make a public statement regarding the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.
Lamar jumps on this track to essentially throw his hands up and say it’s not his responsibility to try to fix the world all the time. He didn’t sign up to be a public speaker and he takes issue with people forming these para-social expectations of people like himself, J. Cole, and LeBron James.
It was around this point in the album, though, where I started to get annoyed with some of the production and the hooks throughout this project. Many of the hooks overstayed their welcome for me after a few listens (Rich Spirit, Silent Hill, and Mr. Morale) while some songs were so overproduced that they sound like garbage (Die Hard and Purple Hearts).
While I really like some of the motifs that Kendrick has thrown throughout this album like the piano trills and the voice of Sam Dew almost functioning like a Greek chorus, I found some of his sonic decisions to be really off-putting.
Speaking of off-putting…
This one certainly got mixed reviews.
The track Auntie Diaries went viral among LGBT activists and online personalities due to Lamar’s repeated use of the “F-Slur” as well as his frequent use of the “dead name” of the relative the track is about.
Some publications felt the song was “a powerful statement against transphobia” while others called it “careless” and “clumsy”.
Personally. I understand what he was going for. I do think the way the song was written was super unnecessary and probably should have been left on the cutting room floor, but it didn’t come from a place of malice. Lamar states throughout the song that he can’t believe he used to say this slur, but saying that while still saying the slur doesn’t endear you to those you’re writing towards.
What I can say with the utmost certainty is that sonically and structurally, this is one of the best songs on the album. Lamar’s cadence and the linear structure of the song really do it for me.
I can look at this song objectively and see a lot of good things about it. Unfortunately, the bad of this song will certainly keep it out of my playlists for good.
The track Mother I Sober is a very bare song. There are a few songs with mostly just piano and harmonies backing a low energy Lamar, but this song captures this idea with the most success. The song grows and grows (especially in the last verse) as Lamar gets more and more intense while the music gets louder and louder.
Over the course of the nearly seven minutes this track has, Lamar talks about sexual abuse within his family as well as within the Black community, how he handles grief, infidelity, and the strength his wife has by staying by his side. The passion Lamar has feels very real. Not every therapy session is going to be intense and angry and, in fact, this track feels the most accurate to the range of emotions which can be derived from therapy.
A really sweet moment comes at the end of this track as Whitney and Lamar’s daughter Uzi both congratulating him on “breaking a generational curse” before Sam Dew returns one last time to tell us that through Lamar’s search through his psyche, he is now free.
The transition from this to the final track of the original release of the album (Mirror) draw some interesting questions about the direction of Lamar’s career after this album. Lamar has made a career telling stories about his life. He’s always been very personal and honest but the success that came with this brought about a whole new crop of issues.
The line Sam Dew says to end the penultimate track may signal to some that now that Lamar has addressed what has been tormenting his mind, he may not need to come back to music.
Mirror can only further this thought as he reflects once again on his status as a “savior” in his community before telling us that he “chooses himself”.
The line “I’m sorry I didn’t save the world friend, I was too busy saving mine” is a really potent line as well and really sums up the emotional journey Kendrick has been on throughout this project. This sentiment from Lamar appearing on other songs as well (like the track Savior) can only help to make this album feel like a goodbye.
This is confirmed to be his last album with the record label Top Dawg Entertainment so while this may not be his last album, the end of his record deal may signal another extended hiatus from music for Lamar.
The extended version of the album tacks on The Heart Part 5 as the final track and while I find the original final two tracks to be a really potent goodbye, I actually really like the idea of this track closing the album instead. It’s a big sonic shift from the rest of the album and feels reminiscent of Lamar’s older work, almost like walking through memory lane or seeing your life flash before your eyes.
Is this my favorite Kendrick Lamar album? No, but I still got a lot from this album. It gave us a view into the psyche of the man people have been demanding new music from for half a decade and now we have something which feels like a definite end point. Lamar’s career felt like it could only go up after the album DAMN. but I feel like now Lamar should be able to spend his time with his family.
He spent much of this album apologizing and regretting his actions as a partner and talks a lot about how he wants to be present not only for Whitney but also for his kids. If this is the last we hear from Lamar, I’m hope he got as much out of writing this as I did listening to it.
Thanks for everything, Kendrick.