Kendrick Lamar gifted us with a surprise new song just days before his long awaited fifth studio album, Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, coming out this Friday, May 13th, along with the visuals that add more layers to the song. On April 18th, Lamar announced a new album on his Oklama website through a press release that stated, “From the desk of oklama”. Oklama is a nickname Lamar seemingly adopted over the last year. The new song was first teased on April 19th on his website. The song depicts, from Lamar’s perspective, the realities of gang and street violence, to incarceration, and how people have become desensitized to these issues, and have even deemed this to be a part of the culture, however, Kendrick makes a stance that it is not , but is hurting the culture. Lamar conveys his message through the music where he cross-references the societal issues with celebrity controversies.
In the Kendrick Lamar and Dave Free directed video, it starts off with a black screen that reads “I am. All of us”. In the intro of the song, the track starts, sampling Marvin Gaye’s 1976 song, “I Want You”. Lamar appears on screen where he looks vulnerable, and sad almost as he cites, “As I get older, I realize life is perspective. And my perspective may differ from yours.” And instantly, Lamar’s whole mood and demeanor changes as he steps into his element of being Kendrick Lamar, the rapper, the prophet. The whole video is of him rapping in front of a burgundy backdrop, as if providing a monologue, as his face swaps into deep fakes from the perspective of his peers and entertainers such as O.J. Simpson, Kanye West, Will Smith, Jussie Smollett, Kobe Bryant, and Nipsey Hussle. Lamar is wearing simply a white t-shirt, a black bandana around his neck, and his natural hair out.
In the first verse of the song, Lamar raps about what he’s witnessed and experienced in his culture coming from Compton, California. The first line states “I come from a generation of pain, where murder is minor”. He goes on to express inner city violence, betrayal of homies and baby mommas, pain endured by incarcerated individuals, news of a loved one’s death caused by the culture, the tragedy of people serving long sentences in prison, being released and getting caught up in the same dangers of inner city violence, the evolution of raising funeral money from car washes to GoFundMe accounts, and the repeating of the cycle.
Lamar grooves to the beat in the chorus, and as he enters the second verse, he states, “I do this for my culture. To let y’all know what a nigga look lik ein a bullet Rover”. He raps it in the way Jay-Z opens his line to his second verse on his 2001 hit single “Izzo (H.O.V.A). It’s in the second verse where he does his first face swap into O.J. Simpson. He continues, “Friends bipolar, grab you by your pockets. No option if you froze up, always play the offense”, as he morphs into Kanye West, who was diagnosed as being bipolar. Lamar seems to be correlating those “friends” in West’s circle, to the friends from the hood. This song is all about perspective. From the perspective of West, Lamar seems to convey that West is surrounded by opportunists who are or have taken advantage of his mental state. Sources close to West such as Dame Dash and Pusha T have alluded to this notion in the past. Lamar continues to rap, “The streets got me fucked up, yall can miss me. I wanna represent for us. New revolution was up and moving”. It’s at this moment that he morphs into Jussie Smollet, an actor known for his activism in the Black community. However, Smollett was convicted in 2021 on five felony counts for lying to the police about an alleged racial and homophobic attack on him in 2019. It was discovered that Smollett hired two Nigerian men to stage the attack. Lamar continues to express grief due to the execution of a peer while he was in Argentina, history
repeating itself of Black on Black violence, the culture choosing to deal with their pain through substance because it’s too hard to bear while sober, however forgetting the issue at hand, and thus repeating the cycle. This peer he speaks of mourning is Nipsey Hussle The Great.
As Lamar closes the verse with “In the land where hurt people hurt more people”, he morphs into actor Will Smith, who just recently publicly slapped comedian Chris Rock during the 2022 Oscar’s over a joke made about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, in regards to her bald head. Lamar ends the verse with “Fuck calling it culture”.
In the chorus, Lamar incorporates Marvin Gaye’s vocals as he sings along to “I Want You”. However, Lamar flips the meaning of “I Want You”, which originally is a love song, to instead represent wanting the hood to love and respect him where he sings, “I want the hood to want me back”, and “Look what I’ve done for you”. This also is intended to have the culture recognize all that he and the people he portrays in the video have done for Black culture. Lamar wants his people to know that though it’s a harsh reality check, he says these things because he has love for his community.
In the third and final verse, Lamar raps about celebrating new life, lessons learned, flaws of being a human, gaining consciousness, and clarity. Lamar morphs into basketball legend Kobe Bryant as he raps, “Reflectin on my life and what I done. Paid dues, made rules, change outta love”. It’s in the second half of the final verse where Lamar morphs into Nipsey Hussle and is speaking through Nipsey Hussle’s perspective while uplifting Black culture and the community as he raps, “As I bleed through the speakers, feel my presence. To my brother, to my kids, I’m in Heaven. To my mother, to my sis, I’m in Heaven. To my father, to my wife, I am serious this is Heaven”. Through Nipsey’s perspective, Kendrick reminds the community what culture is, and
that’s to count our blessings, to invest, to “let the good prevail”, to stay out of jail, and look for salvation. It is through those values that Kendrick and Nipsey believe can transcend and elevate the community.
