Andrew Barker Senior Features Writer“I’ve been going through something.”These are the first words that Kendrick Lamar speaks on “Mr.
Morale & the Big Steppers,” and if the 19 songs that follow over the next 72 minutes are any indication, it’s quite an understatement.
In the five years since he last released a proper album, 2017’s best-rapper-alive declaration “Damn,” Lamar became the first hip-hop artist to win the Pulitzer Prize, earned an Oscar nomination, launched a media company, performed at the Super Bowl, and announced his departure from TDE, the tight-knit label that has been his home and a key part of his identity since the very beginning.But “Mr.
Morale” — along with the new, non-album single “The Heart Part 5” — is almost entirely concerned with the long periods that Lamar spent out of the spotlight in between.
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