More than two years after its release, Kendrick Lamar‘s Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers remains a polarizing album. Some people rank it among his best, others would rather run back DAMN. or good kid, m.A.A.d city. Tyler, The Creator is firmly in the former camp.
“I think honesty is awesome. N-ggas don’t know how to give each other hugs and I hope we get past that. We will, though. The younger kids are like, ‘What’s up, bro? You good?’ We gotta cut the bullshit and just start being super open and honest,” he said at a Converse event in Paris in 2022.
“And that’s what Kendrick just did with his new album. I love that album. I feel like he touches on shit that’s so open and honest that some people can’t listen to it because they probably feel like he’s looking at them in their eyes and they’re like, ‘Uhhh, I can’t listen to this. Put on something else so I can hit my dougie and keep forgetting and numbing the shit that he’s talking about.'”
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He added: “Not saying the people that’s doing that went through what he’s saying, but it’s making them think about the shit that they’re covering up with that fucking ‘I’m hard, I shoot people shit. I see through it.”
Last week, Tyler released his latest album Chromakopia, which channels some of these same themes into a deeply personal, musically rich and thought-provoking project that demasks the man behind the mic while urging listeners to do the same.
Up until now, Kendrick and Tyler have largely sat on different sides of the West Coast Hip Hop spectrum. One is a rapper’s rapper who hails from one of the culture’s most important cities, has earned the almost unanimous respect of his peers and predecessors (not to mention the Pulitzer Prize committee), and is a battle-tested MC who defeated the biggest rapper of all time with a distinctly L.A.-sounding rap anthem.
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The other — for all of his success, influence and deep love of the artform — has long been viewed by Hip Hop traditionalists as an outcast, an oddball, a weirdo. When IGOR debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 ahead of DJ Khaled‘s Father of Asahd in 2019, the We The Best mogul (who has secured multiple Kendrick collaborations over the years) threw shade at Tyler by suggesting that his music was too “mysterious” to get played on the radio, in barbershops or through car speakers.
But after Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers and Chromakopia, it feels like Kendrick and Tyler’s paths are finally converging — two of the most outspoken figures in Hip Hop, now in their 30s, digging deep into themselves and preaching strikingly similar messages.
Here are the fascinating connections between the two albums.
Soul-Baring Revelations
Few rappers in history have bared their soul like Kendrick Lamar on Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers. From unpacking his “daddy issues” stemming from his father’s tough love approach (“Father Time”) to detailing his relationships with two transgender relatives (“Auntie Diaries”), the album peeks inside the pages of his diary and therapy sessions.
But the most vulnerable and heartwrenching confessions come on “Mother I Sober,” where Kendrick reflects on the death of his beloved grandmother, recalls witnessing his mother get beaten “black and blue” as a young child and explores how the trauma of sexual abuse (which he traces back to slavery) has plagued generations of Black families, including his own.
In confronting these difficult truths, Kendrick shares his biggest regret: cheating on his childhood sweetheart Whitney as a result of his sex addiction, an admitted coping mechanism for his insecurities.
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The no-holds-barred honesty that Tyler loves about Mr. Morale appears to have rubbed off on Chromakopia as the album features some of his most intimate revelations. While Tyler has largely guarded his love life (save for his Flower Boy confession that he’s bisexal), “Hey Jane” details a pregnancy scare with an older woman and Tyler’s whirlwind of emotions at the prospect of fathering a child with a casual lover.
The track also possibly takes cues from the male-female back-and-forth of “We Cry Together,” on which Kendrick and actress Taylour Paige enact a heated argument between a toxic couple that ends in make-up sex. “Hey Jane” sees Tyler play both roles: the “shocked” and “terrified” man who isn’t yet ready to become a dad, and the mid-30s woman keen to keep the baby and avoid a life of regret. (Fans are left guessing which decision they take.)
“Like Him,” meanwhile, revisits Tyler’s own daddy issues, albeit from a more mature perspective than his past work. Having previously cursed out his absent father on “Inglorious” and “Answer,” Tyler, now 33, sings from the heart about the strange, aching feeling of resembling a man he has never met.
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The piano ballad ends with Tyler’s mother, Bonita Smith, revealing that his father in fact wanted to be in his life but she kept him at bay — a gut-punching revelation that would bring even Bastard-era Tyler to a standstill.
“This is the first album where everything I said is true,” he told fans at a recent Chromakopia concert in Atlanta. “It’s so honest that I think I had to wear a mask of my own face to get some of that shit out.”
Inspiring Listeners To Be Themselves
The intense vulnerability on Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers and Chromakopia isn’t simply for Tyler and Kendrick to get things off their chests; it’s to inspire the listener to also drop the façade and embrace their true selves.
On “N95,” Kendrick dismisses the meaningless materialistic trophies we in society use to make ourselves feel important before asking point-blank: “Take all that designer bullshit off and what do you have?”
He also turns COVID facemasks into a profound (if not slightly corny) statement about hiding behind a metaphorical mask on “Count Me Out” and empathizes with rappers who “bury their pain in chains and tattoos” on “Mother I Sober.”
Tyler combines these latter two concepts on Chromakopia‘s sunny, sweet standout “Take Your Mask Off,” dismantling the face tattoos, gun talk and gang lingo that a “good kid” from a “fine home” has adopted to win the approval of the “dumb and confused.” He then deploys the honey-voiced Daniel Caesar to encourage listeners to “find yourself” and “take your mask off” — a message he also preached on IGOR‘s “Running Out of Time.”
Having been raised by a single mother, Tyler could have easily succumbed to such behavior. Kendrick acknowledges as such on “Father Time,” rapping: “My n-ggas ain’t got no daddy, grow up overcompensatin’ / Learn shit ’bout bein’ a man and disguise it as bein’ gangsta.”
But in the same way that K. Dot breaks a generational curse on “Mother I Sober,” Tyler continues to prove on Chromakopia that he’s a remarkable exception to this vicious cycle — simply by refusing to hide himself behind a mask.
Female Narrators
Women play a big role on both albums. Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers features intermittent narration from Kendrick’s fiancée Whitney Alford, who urges him to “tell the truth” and seek therapy for his childhood trauma and destructive habits.
After K. Dot eventually exorcises his demons on “Mother I Sober,” Whitney — who also appears on the album cover alongside the couple’s two young children — celebrates the cathartic victory by telling him: “You did it. I’m proud of you. You broke a generational curse.”
Where Mr. Morale is anchored by the love of a good woman (in spite of her man’s potentially relationship-ending flaws), Chromakopia is guided by a mother’s unconditional love. From the opening seconds, the album is littered with advice and encouragement from Tyler’s mom, whose emotional onstage embrace with her son at the 2020 Grammys when IGOR won Best Rap Album felt like a victory for single mothers everywhere.
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“You are the light. It’s not on you, it’s in you. Don’t you ever in your muthafucking life dim your light for nobody,” she urges on the intro track “St. Chroma.”
Mama Bonita also warns her son against trusting hangers-on and accountants (a first world problem Kendrick coincidentally touched on himself on his DAMN. track “FEAR.”) on “Noid,” offers relationship advice on “Darling, I” and not-so-subtly pressures him to bless her with a grandchild on “Tomorrow.”
During his listening event at Inglewood’s Intuit Dome the night before Chromakopia‘s release, Tyler explained that the album was inspired by him “taking a bunch of shit my mom told me as a kid. Now that I’m 33, all of that stuff is like ‘Oh, that’s what the fuck she was talking about!’”
Sequencing & Supporting Cast
Beyond the weighty subject matter, Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers and Chromakopia share commonalities in terms of their sequencing, sonic touches and star-studded supporting casts.
The second half of Mr. Morale largely plays out like a therapy session, with Kendrick digging deep on tracks like “Crown,” “Auntie Diaries” and “Mother I Sober” before the album builds towards a cathartic climax on “Mirror,” which literally feels like a weight has been lifted off the Compton native’s shoulders.
Similarly, the closing stretch of Chromakopia features the emotionally heavy “Tomorrow” — a meditation on the ever-changing nature of life and the uncertainty of the future — and “Like Him” before culminating in the euphoric “Balloon” and “I Hope You Find Your Way.”
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There’s a sense of closure and full circle-ness to both albums, too. Mr. Morale begins with Whitney urging Kendrick to “tell the truth” and, on its penultimate song, finds her telling him that she’s proud of him for breaking a generational curse. Chromakopia opens with Tyler’s mom telling him to “never dim his light” and ends with her telling him that she’s proud of him and to “keep shining.”
Parallels can also be drawn between the albums’ featured artists: the veteran MC cameos (Ghostface Killah, Lil Wayne); the surprise inclusion of more street-oriented rappers (Kodak Black, GloRilla and Sexyy Red); the promising protégés (Baby Keem, Teezo Touchdown); the rising stars from the pgLang/TDE universe (Tanna Leone, Doechii); and the often uncredited R&B singers who serve as the secret weapon throughout (Sam Dew, Daniel Caesar).
There are also a number of more overt nods to Kendrick Lamar throughout Chromakopia. On “Rah Tah Tah,” Tyler declares he’s the “biggest out the city after Kenny.” He uses the phrase “pop out” — a nod to Kendrick’s historic Juneteenth concert in Inglewood — on multiple tracks. And his mother says on “Take Your Mask Off,” “You don’t ever have to lie to kick it,” echoing Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly cut (which itself pays homage to 2Pac).
On “Balloons,” Tyler even appears to borrow Kendrick’s cartoonish, pursed-lips cadence from “Silent Hill” when he spits: “I’ll send his bitch ass to the moon / I’m at the top, ain’t no room.”
Of course, Chromakopia and Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers have their differences. While Kendrick Lamar plays the “protective father,” as he refers to himself on “Worldwide Steppers,” who’s looking to overcome his flaws for the sake of his family, Tyler, The Creator concludes that he isn’t yet ready to become a dad and ponders whether monogamy is even for him (“Darling, I”).
Mr. Morale is also weighed down more heavily by trauma, grief, regret, religion, ego and the struggle of self-love (“Talked to my lawyer, told me not to be so hard on myself / He has an aura, I hope to achieve, if I find some help,” Kendrick raps on “Mother I Sober”). Chromakopia, on the other hand, only further highlights Tyler’s bulletproof self-confidence (“I ain’t never had a doubt inside me / And if I ever told you that I did, I’m fuckin’ lyin,'” he brags on “St. Chroma”).
When you consider their differing attitudes to fatherhood and relationships, Chromakopia could almost be viewed as the inverse Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers.
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Given the striking similarities between the two records and Tyler’s professed love of Mr. Morale, it’s not absurd to assume that he was inspired by Kendrick’s album when making his own. Tyler himself appeared to support this theory when he shared a screenshot on social media of an Instagram comment from a fan comparing their emotional reactions to “Like Him” and “Mother I Sober.”
“It kinda impacted me like ‘Mother I [Sober]’ from Kendrick, hearing your favorite artist become this open about their feelings and family trauma has helped me in so many ways to heal and be open to [my] own family about the shit I’ve been quiet [about] through the years,” they wrote. “Thank you for that.”
Tyler, the Creator shared a comment about Kendrick Lamar’s “Mother I Sober” on his Instagram story. pic.twitter.com/JnAYhQQ2Sj
— Kendrick Lamar Updates (@KendrickChart) October 29, 2024
