When Kendrick Lamar debuted Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers (MMBS) this past summer, I was enthralled. I’ve been following Kendrick’s music since the politically defiant jazz of To Pimp a Butterfly in 2015 and the prophetic protest of DAMN in 2017. In many ways, Kendrick shaped my imagination of Black life in America and how true progress on this soil demands structural transformation and reparation.
Kendrick has always had ambition and political scope for his artistry, harnessing the historical power of rap and hip-hop to create possibilities for liberation since its inception in the 70s.1 But when MMBS came out earlier this year, I was surprised because it was much smaller in scope, and its subject was intimate. This new album was not ultimately about political regimes and socioeconomic structures — it was about Kendrick, his partner Whitney, his children, his family, his fears, and his trauma. In many ways, MMBS was about Kendrick going to therapy.2
Whitney: You really need some therapy Kendrick: Real niggas need no therapy, fuck you talkin' about? Whitney: Nah, nah, you sound stupid as fuck Kendrick: Shit, everybody stupid Whitney: Yeah, well, you need to talk to somebody.
The fifth track on the album, “Father Time,” grounds the narrative of the entire album. In this song, Kendrick and Whitney begin with a conversation, arguing about whether or not Kendrick should go to therapy. But as the song progresses, Kendrick explores his wrestling with trauma and masculinity, acknowledging how his stubbornness to address his trauma caused Whitney to suffer his sorrows.3
My niggas ain't got no daddy, grow up overcompensatin' Learn shit 'bout bein' a man and disguise it as bein' gangsta I love my father for tellin' me to take off the gloves 'Cause everything he didn't want was everything I was And to my partners that figured it out without a father I salute you, may your blessings be neutral to your toddlers It's crucial, they can't stop us if we see the mistakes 'Til then, let's give the women a break, grown men with daddy issues
Kendrick’s message is undeniable: many men in this world have daddy issues.
It makes me reflect on how trauma passes on to future generations and disrupts our lives, families, and relationships. Especially in a world filled with fear and stress caused by (racial) economic disparity, many children in low-income households and communities are left to cope with cycles of abuse perpetuated by systemic issues.4 Kendrick is clear on this. What he seeks to do throughout MMBS is expose the destructive legacies of trauma and toxic masculinity in his communities and work toward repair.
On the seventeenth track of the album, “Mother I Sober,” Kendrick laments the pattern of Black male rappers having experienced different forms of child sexual abuse. Thus, for Kendrick, these rappers indulge in self-destructive lifestyles, compulsive behaviors, "disguising it as being gangsta," and toxic sex cultures to cope with their traumatic backgrounds.5
I know the secrets, every other rapper sexually abused I see 'em daily buryin' they pain in chains and tattoos So listen close before you start to pass judgement on how he move Learn how he cope, whenever his uncle had to walk him from school His anger grows deep in misogyny This is post-traumatic Black families and a sodomy, today is still active
MMBS makes me question how we imagine masculinity today and what that means for rebuilding our communities. Indeed, with the rise of the #MeToo movement and the exposing of evangelical leaders and the covering up of abuse in churches, evangelicals are facing the same questions Kendrick is wrestling with.6 What do we do with masculinity?
But Kendrick doesn't stop with abuse. Though he explores the tragedies of Black life, Kendrick never ends with tragedy. Prophetically, Kendrick points to the possibility of transformation.7
So I set free myself from all the guilt that I thought I made So I set free my mother all the hurt that she titled shame So I set free my cousin, chaotic for my mother's pain I hope Hykeem made you proud 'cause you ain't die in vain So I set free the power of Whitney, may she heal us all So I set free our children, may good karma keep them with God So I set free the hearts filled with hatred, keep our bodies sacred As I set free all you abusers, this is transformation
Our stories do not have to end with tragedy. Albums like these remind me that there is hope for a world ravaged by abuse. Kendrick Lamar gives me faith that there is a new possibility beyond trauma and daddy issues, beyond what we today have named “toxic masculinity.” In my personal life, I have seen the testimonies of men who have seen their broken histories (and broken bodies) touched, moved, and utterly transformed. And what I’ve seen as the causes of such radical transformation are what Kendrick enumerates: community, intimacy, family, vulnerability, and keeping our bodies sacred and whole — all of these things wrapped up in the rhythm and repetition of the phrase “set free.”
I agree with Kendrick. What transformation ultimately demands is liberation and freedom. We need to be set free.
I look up to Kendrick, his journey, and his vulnerability. Transformation is not far from our reach if we genuinely strive toward it together and build new communities, families, and lives oriented around love, hope, and vulnerability. I pray that this reality comes true for all people suffering from trauma, especially men who feel stuck in cycles of trauma and abuse.
I want to end this reflection with a quote from Whitney, who writes in a Father’s Day post: “I was almost 30 the first time I celebrated Father’s Day and it’s still one of the hardest for me. I know there are many women like me. So men it’s not as important for us to celebrate you, as it is for You to celebrate You. Celebrate your contribution to the next generation. I am grateful for the men that are showing me a different picture, my lens was very narrow before but not anymore.”8
Reading:
Ends of Empire: Asian American Critique and the Cold War by Jodi Kim (University of Minnesota Press)
Opening the Gates to Asia: A Transpacific History of How America Repealed Asian Exclusion by Jane Hong (The University of North Carolina Press)
Watching:
Eydís Evensen - Full Performance (Live on KEXP at Home)
Reflecting on my Time at Moody Bible Institute (Gospel Simplicity)
Listening:
Fallen Paradise by Vancouver Sleep Clinic
Frost - EP by Eydís Evensen
Inner Symphonies by Hania Rani & Dobrawa Czocher
In his song “DNA” (from DAMN), Kendrick Lamar juxtaposes the beauty and tragedy of Black life and its possibilities for sociopolitical transformation through Christ:
I got power, poison, pain and joy inside my DNA I got hustle though, ambition, flow inside my DNA I was born like this, since one like this, immaculate conception I transform like this, perform like this, was Yeshua new weapon
Kendrick Lamar, “Father Time,” MMBS.
Lamar, “Father Time,” MMBS. Emphasis added.
Read: “Higher Stress Among Minority and Low-Income Populations Can Lead to Health Disparities,” American Psychological Association (January 8, 2018). Also, “Black and African American Communities and Mental Health,” Mental Health America.
Lamar, “Mother I Sober,” MMBS.
Isaac Chotiner, “Decades of Sexual-Abuse Coverups in the Southern Baptist Convention,” The New Yorker (May 26, 2022). Also: Eliza Griswold, “Silence is Not Spiritual: The Evangelical #MeToo Movement,” The New Yorker (June 15, 2018), and Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, Liveright, June 23, 2020.
Lamar, “Mother I Sober,” MMBS. Emphasis added.
Emphasis added.
Absolutely outstanding.