Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
From Spotify and The Ringer, this is Dissect, long-form musical analysis broken into short digestible episodes. This is episode two of our season-long analysis on Kendrick Lamar's Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers. I'm your host, Cole Kushner.
Last time on Dissect, we examined Mr. Morales' opening expository track, United in Grief. It was there that Kendrick established the album's overarching goal, to find peace of mind, and the barriers preventing him from that goal, sex addiction and materialism, both of which are manifestations of unresolved trauma and grief. Having established Kendrick's personal interior world,
Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers continues by shifting its focus to the outer exterior world in the album's next track, the subject of our episode today, N95.
N95 was produced by Boy Wanda, Baby Keem, Jahein Sweet, and Soundwave.
The song begins with Kendrick singing a cappella: "Hello new world, all the boys and girls, I got some true stories to tell. You're back outside, but they still lied." After the expository united in grief, this opening a cappella functions like a narrative reset. Kendrick addresses the audience directly with a sing-song satirical tone, almost as if he's speaking to sitting children during story time.
This is reinforced by N95's video. During this introduction, we see an adolescent boy sitting on the beach looking up to Kendrick, who floats above the ocean's tide posing like Jesus on the cross, as if Kendrick was his savior. The true stories Kendrick is going to tell in the album will expose Kendrick as a flawed human, a dismantling of his public image or role as rap savior. The opening lyric "Hello New World" paired with "You're Back Outside" appears to be referring to the post-pandemic world,
after we collectively step back outside after being locked down in quarantine for over a year. However, Kendrick warns that this "new world" is still filled with lies. In other words, even though we've taken off our N95 masks and entered the world again, we are still wearing a different kind of mask.
This sets up the song as a critique of contemporary society, where alongside dismantling himself, Kendrick will also dismantle the various facades that pervade our current culture. The specific phrasing "but they still lied" feels like a classic use of the vague "they", which usually alludes to the powers that be, the shadowy figures controlling things behind the scenes.
However, while Kendrick will certainly take shots at the government, corporations, mass media, and the music industry, they will equally encompass himself, you, and me. Behind the rhythmic ticks of an electronic hi-hat, Kendrick begins N95 with an anaphora,
a literary device that utilizes a repeated word or phrase at the beginning of successive lines or clauses. Kendrick's repetitive phrase is of course "take off" which he'll repeat 27 times in this opening verse.
While the repetition provides musical effect, creating rhythm and cadence, Kendrick's use of anaphora also helps convey just how much there is to take off. In other words, there's a lot of shit we put on or identify ourselves with. And when you remove all those layers, when you take all that shit off, what are you left with? Who are you beneath all those masks?
Appropriately, then, most of Kendrick's commands are to take off things that are just for show, put on for the approval of others. He begins "Take off the foo-foo, take off the clout chase, take off the Wi-Fi." Foo-foo is slang for fake and clout chasing refers to doing things inauthentically for the sole purpose of praise and attention. A lot of clout chasing and inauthentic posturing now occurs online, hence "take off the Wi-Fi."
Similar themes in the next line: take off the money phone, take off the car loan, take off the flex and the white lies. Posting a picture holding a money phone doesn't mean you're rich, and a car loan implies that your luxury car is actually owned by the bank, not you. But by placing yourself in proximity to valuable possessions, you're attempting to prove yourself valuable to yourself by proving yourself valuable to the world. The first alteration Kendrick makes to the "take off" repetition is the line "I'm taking 10 steps, then I'm taking off top 5."
This is Kendrick's first real boast on Mr. Morale. Taking 10 steps seems to refer to a duel, where two armed opponents stand back to back, take 10 or 20 steps away from each other, then turn around and attempt to shoot each other. Top 5 then refers to Kendrick taking out the top 5 rappers in this duel. His critique of other rappers continues with, take off them fabricated streams.
Using bots to fake streams is the music industry equivalent of clout chasing, an attempt to appear bigger than you are. Then just before the beat kicks in, Kendrick once again takes aim at online culture, saying, "Take off them microwave memes, it's a real world outside." The microwave adjective applies the low-effort, reused nature of social media posts, which Kendrick contrasts with having real experiences in the physical world.
This triggers N95's explosive moment. First, the synth lays out a big E flat minor chord before a quick three-chord flourish. This riff is followed by a punctuating piano, which lays down three E flat minor chords in response. But probably my favorite instrumental part in the song is N95's bass, which is mostly just a low E flat to support the synth and piano. But every third beat we get a quick ascending four-note flourish. Let's now hear all these elements together over the drumbeat.
Now there's one last thing I want to point out about this beat drop, and that's what Kendrick chooses to do with his voice and flow. Rather than try to match the high intensity of the beat, he actually doesn't alter his delivery at all. He simply maintains the more relaxed, understated flow he began with, allowing the beat to explode behind him.
It creates an aura of someone remaining cool while surrounded by chaos, counter-intuitively creating a perception of authority, which is the perfect feeling to accompany his list of demands and boasts.
Take off the sand roll pay, five day stay, take up what a meal, L.A. value Take off the false flag, take off reception, take off the cap, put the iPad Take off the alert, take off the unsure, take off decisions I lack Take off the fake deep, take off the fake woke, take off the I'm broke, I care Take off the gossip, take off the new logic, they the fam rich, I'm rare Take off the shit nil, take off the doge, take off the broken bag
Following the beat drop, Kendrick raps "Take Off Your Idols". During this moment in the N95 video, we see Kendrick shot from below looking down at the camera. Like the video's opening shot of the child looking up to Kendrick, Kendrick looking down on us is a classic way to put a subject in a position of authority. He's literally talking down to the viewer and commanding us to take things off.
However, immediately after saying "take off your idols", a hand with a blunt object suddenly enters the frame and strikes a mirror, shattering it and the image of Kendrick into pieces. Turns out we weren't actually looking up to him at all. We were looking up to a mirrored image.
a reflection. We were fooled by our own perception, a perception of Kendrick that was not reality. It's a potent symbol of idol worship, underscoring not just the line "take off your idols" but a major theme of Mr. Morale as a whole, an album that consciously deconstructs our perception of Kendrick as savior.
Next Kendrick raps "take off the runway" which on one level alludes to designer clothes modeled on a fashion runway. But we can also hear this "take off from the runway" referring to an airport runway. Thus we get the next lines about travel: "I take off to Cairo, take off to San Tropez, five day stay, take a quarter mil, hell if I know." This seems to tie into Kendrick's previous line about there being a real world outside.
Traveling allows you to collect physical experiences and gain a deeper understanding of different cultures and perspectives. By saying "I take off to Cairo," Kendrick seems to be contrasting the way he chooses to spend his time and money. However, Kendrick's apparent flex of spending a week in Saint-Tropez, a cliche luxury vacation destination, at the cost of $250,000 feels a bit contradictory in a verse that's demanding people to strip away their various material masks.
It's a contradiction we'll flag here as we continue to dive further into the track.
Next, Kendrick says "take off the front flag", which seems to be an alteration of "false flag". A false flag is making something appear to be something that it's not, like an attack, motive, or identity. Fronting is a slang term with a similar definition: an attempt to portray yourself as something you're not. This leads to "take off perception", which given the previous line, is a call to stop attempting to control other people's perception of you through all the various masks or front flags mentioned in the verse.
The next phrase, "take off the cop with the eyepatch" is definitely one of the verse's more cryptic images. There's a few ways we might think of this given the context. If we're taking the cop to be a literal cop,
an eye patch likely alludes to turning a blind eye, a phrase that means to ignore something you know is wrong. So together, it would be a call to abolish corrupt police officers. While this could be the case, it does feel a little outside of the scope of the verse so far. It feels more likely that Kendrick is taking aim at corrupt moral police, online activists with a limited perspective who judge and prosecute others unjustly.
This makes sense given the following lines: "Take off the fake deep, take off the fake woke, take off the I'm broke, I care." It's another direct attack on the discourse around politics and social issues, where the line between genuine activists and online actors can be incredibly blurry. For the actors, activism is essentially moral clout chasing, a way to appear virtuous in the eyes of others. Kendrick smartly places fake deep and fake woke alongside material items like jewelry, cars, and clothes.
Because at their core, they're all the same, all motivated by perception. They're all performative front flags. Kendrick ends the verse returning to material possessions, as he calls to take off the Chanel, Dolce & Gabbana, and Birkin bags, all designer brands whose products are symbols of wealth and by extension, social status. Finally, having reached the end of his anaphora, his 27 calls to take off the many layers or front flags we use to portray an image of who we are. He asks the verse's central question,
take all that designer bullshit off and what do you have? Kendrick will answer his own question momentarily, but before we get there, it's worth pausing here to consider this verse as a whole.
As we discussed at the top, Kendrick's use of anaphora repetition helps convey just how many layers there are to take off. Which begs the question, what exactly are you trying to hide? Why do so many of us feel the need to use material goods to prove our worth to the world? Why are we, as the title N95 implies, wearing so many masks? One person who has addressed these questions at length is spiritual teacher and author Eckhart Tolle, whose voice and teachings will appear throughout Mr. Morale's second half.
However, Tolle's work influences the entire album, not just the second half. So we're going to take a few minutes now to outline one of Tolle's fundamental concepts: the ego. Now Kendrick's interest in Eckhart Tolle's work first became apparent when he and Dave Free launched their creative service company PG Lang in March of 2020, just weeks before the pandemic broke in America.
The launch was accompanied by a 4 and a half minute video called "Welcome to PG Lang" which features both Tolle's voice and a shot of Tolle and Kendrick sitting together in conversation. As we grow up, we begin to identify things. Which means, identifying means we derive our sense of who we are from certain things.
When you're identified with something that you are not, it always leads to suffering and unhappiness. In this excerpt, we hear Tolle's pitch-down voice say, "As we grow up, we begin to identify with things." Identify means we derive our sense of self from certain things. When you're identified with something that you're not, it always leads to suffering and unhappiness. Tolle here is discussing one of his core teachings, the concept of the ego.
Tolle defines the ego as an illusory sense of self, a false conception of one's identity, a misperception of who you really are. As he describes in the video, this false sense of self is based on our identification with things. These things can be physical, like our bodies or our material possessions, or they can be conceptual, like our nationality, gender, race, religion, or occupation.
We identify with the voice in our head, our thoughts and opinions. We identify with the memory of our past, the things that happened to us, where we grew up, and how we were raised. These are the kinds of things that most of us derive our sense of identity from. The things we'd likely start describing when someone asks us who we are. It's what you believe is the story of you. This is what Tolle calls the ego or the egoic perception of self. It's the complete identification with things, forms, and thoughts.
While what things we choose to identify with most varies from person to person. For some it's their material possessions, for others it's their bodies, for others it's their intelligence or race or religion and so on. However, according to Tolle, as long as your sense of self is derived through identification of any kind, you're in the grip of the ego.
Ego is always identification with something. And identification means it gives you your sense of self. This is why for people it is so precious and they hang on to it and they defend it with their life. That's all they know. That's me.
As we heard Tolle assert in the PG Lang video, the ego and its identification with things is the cause of most of our problems and suffering. Now we're going to talk a lot more about these ego-caused problems and suffering this season, but one relevant example for today's episode has to do with the ego's unending thirst for more and more. In his book A New Earth, Tolle writes about the ego's logic, saying, The ego tends to equate having with being. I have, therefore I am. And the more I have,
The more I am. The ego lives through comparison. How you are seen by others turns into how you see yourself. How you are seen by others becomes the mirror that tells you what you are like and who you are. The ego's sense of self-worth is in most cases bound up with the worth you have in the eyes of others."
Tully goes on to argue that even when the ego gets what it wants, it does not remain satisfied for long. Because at the core of the ego is, quote, a deep-seated sense of dissatisfaction, of incompleteness, of not enough. I don't have enough yet, by which the ego really means I am not enough yet, unquote.
Tolle argues that the ego's desire for wanting is actually stronger than its desire for having. So when you derive a large part of who you are from material possessions, for example, it creates an addictive need for more and more possessions. If you identify with power, you will develop an addictive need for more and more power.
If you identify with being a victim, then you will develop an addictive need for things that victimize you, that feed and validate your perception of self. Again, the specific thing you identify with doesn't matter. The ego behind it is the same. And Tolle warns, "...no content will satisfy you as long as the egoic structure remains in place."
No matter what you have or get, you won't be happy. You will always be looking for something else that promises greater fulfillment, that promises to make your incomplete sense of self complete and fill that sense of lack you feel within. The dictum of the ego is: "Seek, but do not find." So it's always seeking. And because it's always seeking, it's always seeking for the next thing, which implies the future is extremely important for the ego.
It looks to the next thing. There's a continuous reaching out, an inability to be present here and now. That's all part of the unconsciousness that I call. Unconsciousness is, in this terminology, complete identification with the mind. And this is where the ego resides. It resides in your mind. It is a mental,
It is a kind of fiction that every human being creates for themselves. And of course you get a lot of feedback. So the particular fiction that you create for yourself depends to a large extent on the culture that you grew up in, the people you grew up with. They will tell you who you are as a child and then you,
become conditioned by your surroundings, the surrounding culture, and your family, and so on. Now there's ample evidence that Kendrick's output during the Mr. Morale era has been influenced specifically by Tolle's concept of the ego. For example, in that same PG Lang video, which by the way seems almost entirely influenced by Tolle's work, Kendrick says this:
Also in the Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers tour, the narration in between songs makes reference to Kendrick's ongoing battle with his ego. Mr. Morale, you've once again let your ego get the best of you.
Later on Mr. Morale, Kendrick will refer to the ego by name more than a handful of times, including a very revealing line on Count Me Out that describes the ego as the source of all his shortcomings. Understanding that Kendrick will be confronting Tolle's concept of the ego throughout Mr. Morale. Let's return to N95 and Kendrick's opening anaphora, which very clearly reflects the ego's identification with things.
Kendrick seems to purposefully identify material things that Western culture rewards, relating to Tolle's idea that our immediate culture gives the ego feedback and therefore influences what the ego seeks validation from. Because again, the ego doesn't actually care about the specific thing it identifies with, because the thing is just a vehicle for external validation. And so within this context, Kendrick's closing question is a deeply spiritual one. Take all that designer bullshit off and what do you have?
Kendrick is cutting straight to the core of who you are, or who you think you are. He's challenging you, just as he's challenging himself, to confront your entire perception of yourself. Because through the lens of Tolle's work, it's very likely that your perception of self is false. That who you think you are is nothing more than a story you tell yourself.
And who are you without that story of you? When you strip away all your possessions, your past, your job title, your future goals, your partner, your thoughts, your opinions, your feelings. If you were to strip all these identifications away, you'd see the ego naked and pathetic in its constant search for validation. You'd see the ego ugly as fuck. Take all that designer bullshit off and what do you have, bitches?
Kendrick reveals the answer to his own question. When you're stripped of all the things you identify with, all the things the ego validates itself from, there's an ugliness beneath. Now, after our discussion of Tolle's concept of the ego, you might be wondering what the alternative is.
Who exactly am I if not the accumulation of my past, my thoughts, my opinions, my interests, my job, and so on? Well, that's the other half of Tolle's work, which will mostly be addressed in the second half of Mr. Morale, so much more on that later.
Kendrick then follows "you ugly as fuck" by saying "you out of pocket", which makes sense in the traditional sense of the phrase, meaning acting out of character. Of course, the phrase is a bit deeper in the context of the song and album, because Kendrick isn't simply talking about saying or doing a single thing out of pocket, he means your entire perception of yourself and sense of self-worth is out of pocket. Your unawakened existence is out of character.
However, like so much of Kendrick's work, this line gains dimension when considered with the previous song, United in Grief, where Kendrick admits to indulging in materialism to cope with his unconfronted trauma. Beneath the cars, clothes, and mansions, he too is ugly as fuck. He too has fallen into the trappings of the ego.
And so as much as Kendrick might be coming across as condescending here, as an informed and careful listener that considers the context of the song, we know that Kendrick is not only talking to others, he's also looking in the mirror, talking to himself.
He continues rapping: "Two ATMs, you step in or what? This seems to be a flex of wealth, so much cash that you need two bank accounts to hold it all." "You step in or what?" is the first allusion to the album's title, with "step in" meaning to either flex or challenge someone. Both definitions work here, as Kendrick seems to flex his wealth and asks if you're stepping like he is. However, it's hard to simply chalk this up to flexing wealth given it follows both United in Grief and the opening verse of N95.
which reveal the complex psychology beneath our external material posturing. So it could be that Kendrick is purposefully being contradictory here, showing his own intuition to flex wealth despite knowing the underlying insecurities of doing so. Or Kendrick is talking about a different kind of wealth, like moral or spiritual wealth,
In this reading, he'd be calling out the listener for living out of pocket or not living up to moral standards despite having money. This confrontational attitude continues, who you think they talk about, talk about us. Who you think they copy off, copy off us. Once again, we can interpret this two ways. Kendrick in the grip of ego, simply indulging in classic hip-hop bravado, and or Kendrick is implying that he's modeling behavior that others can follow to get back in pocket and find their true selves. More on that right after the break.
Welcome back to Dissect. Before the break, we approach the start of N95's second verse, where Kendrick's delivery picks up intensity, rapping in quick triplets about the current state of society. Kendrick begins verse 2, The World in a Panic.
Given the release of this album in 2022, it's hard to hear this line without thinking about the COVID pandemic that caused so much fear and chaos across the world. However, I don't think Kendrick's diagnosis applies just to the pandemic conditions. Rather, he's pointing to global dynamics that were only exasperated when crisis struck. Thus, we get the next line, "The women is stranded, the men on a run."
This introduces a theme that will be expanded on later in the album, which we'll talk a lot more about when we get to episodes like Father Time and We Cry Together. But Kendrick here is alluding to the ways in which men, in the grip of ego and unconfronted trauma, often take their issues out on women, through emotional unavailability, verbal or physical abuse, or in Kendrick's case, infidelity. The almost apocalyptic description continues, the profits abandon, the law take advantage, the market is crashing.
A prophet is someone who speaks on God's behalf. So, abandoned prophets might refer to the decline of religion, spirituality, or ancient wisdom, specifically in the West. For example, in 1990, 90% of American adults identified themselves as Christians. By 2020, that number dropped to 64% and shows no signs of slowing down. Meanwhile, those who identify themselves as non-religious are on the rise, from 16 to 30% in the last 15 years.
While it's not completely illustrative, these kinds of stats do show a dramatic decline in religious devotion. People who, at least in theory, would be studying ancient wisdom and texts, who would be thinking actively about morality and ethics, using the word of God as a guide to live a spiritually rich life. When considered with N95's opening critique of material identification and obsession with consumerism, Kendrick could be pointing to the way in which capitalism can be viewed as the new religion of the West.
In his book How Capitalism Became the Religion of Modernity, author Eugene McCarraher writes about something he dubs the migration of the holy, where the mysteries and sacraments of religion have been replaced by things like market forces, economic development, consumption, profit, and price. To quote McCarraher directly, under capitalism, money occupies the ontological throne from which God has been evicted.
Like religion, capitalism is a system that offers purpose, meaning, and a worldview. A system of enchanted superstitions and unfounded beliefs, its own economic profits, its own iconography of advertising and branding, and its own political theology. However, as Kendrick points out next, the religion of capitalism is corrupt. As he raps, "The law take advantage, the market is crashin', the industry wants n-words and bitches to sleep in a box while they make in a mockery following us."
The box here is a symbol that seems to be based on the idiom "thinking outside the box" which means to think differently or creatively, to offer a new perspective, something beyond the current status quo. Being asleep inside of a box would then mean to be confined to the status quo and limited thinking. This symbol of the box took on a significant role in the Big Steppers tour, which featured a tour poster that included the heading "Come help get Mr. Morale out of the box."
And at one point during the show, Kendrick enters a large physical box where first he's forced to take a COVID test, a cheeky way to acknowledge the box as representing the universal confinement during the pandemic. However, the box symbol works in a number of other ways, as it represents Kendrick's feeling trapped in his role as perceived savior and being entrapped by his sexual addiction, where the box doubles as a slang term for vagina.
However, within N95, the box is being related to the industry, who is incentivized to keep people in boxes. Perhaps most immediate to Kendrick is the music industry, which desires to keep their artists asleep in a box or controlled, uncontroversial, and conform to popular thought and trends. This in turn makes them easier to market and ultimately more profitable.
We can also view the analogy as tying back to Kendrick's diagnosis of the world at large, where the global powers that be want the individuals and their society easily controlled, playing the game of capitalism, content with their small gains and material possessions, ignoring the ways in which the game is rigged in the favor of the elite.
This idea leads to Kendrick's next line: "This ain't Monopoly, watchin' for love. This ain't monogamy, y'all gettin' fucked." Monopoly is of course an economic-based board game in which the rules allow each player a legitimate chance to win.
Kendrick makes the case that our current system isn't this fair, that rather than a monogamous, loving and faithful relationship between power and the people, the people are getting fucked over, cheated on and manipulated. As the verse continues, the instrumental switches to a more spacious, atmospheric section of the beat, which Kendrick matches energy-wise as he turns his focus from the outside world to his inner world.
Kendrick begins this half of the verse jumping on what the hell is that I gotta relax when I feel. Following the harsh, pessimistic indictment of the verse's first half, it seems as if Kendrick is jumping on or checking on his own overwhelming emotions.
These emotions have such a grip on him that he's even being checked on by his deceased relatives. As he continues, While it's hard to know the specifics behind this personal line, there is evidence that Kendrick takes his dreams seriously. He's previously talked about Tupac visiting him in a dream, telling him to keep his music alive. A dream that seemed to have profound impact on Kendrick's artistic trajectory. A real situation where I was asleep one night, man, and...
His blur Like a silhouette And he basically said Keep doing What you doing Don't let my music die And I'm really big On shit like that Spiritual shit like that Somebody comes in your dream And relays a message You gotta listen You gotta listen to it Because I got past Family relatives That's been past And been coming to my dreams Forever And talking to me
Later on Mr. Morale, Kendrick will specifically cite his grandmother visiting him in his dreams for years, and he's already mentioned his deceased grandmother Estelle by name on United in Grief. Over the course of the album, Kendrick will continue to build on this theme of family lineage as he unpacks the ways in which human beings inherit and pass down generational trauma. Kendrick then continues with what feels like a mission statement. I'm done with the sensitive, taken it personal, done with the black and the white, the wrong and the right.
Kendrick here asserts a common critique of online discourse, which is that the formats of social media promote and incentivize binary thinking. Opinions or actions of others are placed in one or two boxes, good or bad, right or wrong, and the limitations of the medium don't offer much room for nuance or real discussion.
Regardless, Kendrick makes it clear that he's holding nothing back this time. He's going to tell us exactly how he feels, even if that means he'll hurt people's feelings. Or perhaps more accurately in Kendrick's view, that people will act as if their feelings are hurt. This subtle layer of disingenuity will become more apparent later in the song, but it's also beneath the final line of the verse. "You hoping for change and clericals? I know the feelings that came with burial cries."
Having already revealed his grief over the death of his close friends in Compton, it would appear Kendrick is calling attention to the difference between himself and a certain type of so-called political activist who don't have the lived experience he or his community has. Throughout the album, Kendrick will question the true motives of these types of activists, question whether they actually care about his community or if they care more about appearing virtuous, simply serving another look, waving another front flag.
♪ Serving up a look, dancing in the drop ♪ ♪ Hello to the big step, we'll never lose the count ♪ ♪ Fencing in the safe house ♪ ♪ Fencing in the safe house ♪
Kendrick returns to the kind of sing-songy melody from the song's start, this time partially interpolating the musical contours of the children's rhyme Itsy Bitsy Spider. He begins serving up a look, which plays on the idea of serving fashionable outfits, someone who's carefully curated their look.
Within the context of the song, Kendrick is certainly saying this facetiously, continuing his exposé on the ego's façade, the masks we wear, the looks we put on to save face, conform to social standards, and appear to be someone we're not.
Next is Dancing in a Drought, an image of someone joyful during dire circumstances. It's another symbol of facade, in this case someone feigning happiness when they are anything but. However, the metaphor of a drought or lack of water carries a deep history within Kendrick's discography. It's an idea central in Good Kid, Mad City, addressed specifically in the song Sing About Me, I'm Dying of Thirst.
In the storyline of Good Kid, Mad City, Kendrick dying of thirst signifies the moment he realized that his current path, his unmediated pursuit of sex, money, and violence, is leading him and others to death.
Rather than barreling down the pit of destruction, Kendrick decided instead to "hop in that water and pray that it works" a clear reference to the Christian ceremony of water baptism.
Also, on the chorus of the song "Lust" off of "Damn", Kendrick admits that he's in need of some water as a result of pursuing his intuition for sex, money, and murder. In our season on "Damn", we discussed Kendrick's use of water or the lack thereof was clearly influenced by the Bible, which uses water as a metaphor for God's spirit.
Just as humans need water to survive, humans need to be filled with God's Spirit in order to truly live.
Without God's spirit, humans will never be satisfied, nor could they live in a just society. And this larger idea about society seems to be what Kendrick is getting at in his lyric Dancing in a Drought and in N95 as a whole. There's nothing of substance beneath all those material possessions, beneath all those masks we wear. We are dancing in a drought, donning designer clothes to serve a look, but beneath it all we're ugly as fuck, dying of thirst.
Kendrick then gives a name to this drought dancer serving a look, singing "Hello to the Big Stepper, never losing count." For the second time, Kendrick refers to a stepper, this time announcing one half of the album title proper. Now there's a number of layers in the Big Steppers moniker, which we're going to talk a lot more about in our next episode on Worldwide Steppers, but we have enough context to at least define one of those layers now.
Most immediately, the Big Stepper is the name Kendrick gives to the one dancing in the drought, serving the looks, wearing the designer mask to cover up their internal ugliness. This dancer motif explains one meaning of "never losing count", which plays off a dancer counting their steps to remain in sync with the music.
This sheds light on the structure of the full album title Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers, as it mirrors the names of groups from the 60s and 70s like Diana Ross and the Supremes or Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. It's a lead singer and their backup singers, who sometimes also dance. In this way, Kendrick or Mr. Morale is the leader of the Big Steppers. He's still part of the group, but he's the frontman, their biggest representative. Whether he likes it or not, he's got the loudest voice and the most influence.
And this leads to another layer in the Big Steppers moniker, its most common definition that's been used in hip-hop for decades. Big Stepper.
As we just heard, a big stepper denotes someone making big moves, someone who gets the job done, who hustles and makes money. Stepper is also used to describe someone who is perpetually armed, not looking for trouble, but is ready for and will not hesitate engaging in conflict.
With this in mind, we can observe how Kendrick crafted N95's bridge to also apply to this definition. Serving is also slang for selling drugs, and never losing count refers to keeping track or counting one's money. And like dance moves, this kind of big stepper is making moves in the streets. There's even a secondary layer to dancing in a drought when we consider things like the money phone, weird ass jewelry, and fabricated streams mentioned in the song's opening verse.
These are cliche tropes of hip-hop's Big Stepper. Thus, dancing in a drought are the Big Steppers flaunting their material possessions while actually living in some of the country's worst circumstances. While Kendrick's tone throughout N95 comes off as judgmental and egotistical, over the course of the album, as his own ego dissolves, Kendrick will shed light on the historical context of these circumstances in order to encourage empathy when judging the Big Stepper. The street hustling motif is continued into the bridge's final line, "Venton in a safe house."
A safe house is a hiding place or secure refuge from the law, and a vent is a common hiding place for drugs. However, Kendrick also uses this line to pivot to emotional venting, like to get something off your chest, which he does in his safe house, his music.
Playing off the final line of The Bridge, Kendrick begins by asking, Can I vent all my truth? I got nothing to lose. Hearing someone of Kendrick's stature say they have nothing to lose is actually pretty startling.
Technically, he has a lot to lose by Western traditional standards. He has millions of dollars. He has houses, cars, and expensive jewelry. However, as he's made clear in both United in Grief and now N95, he doesn't actually value his material possessions. Whatever truth he's been hiding in the safe house needs to be expressed, even if that costs him everything, which implies that not expressing his truth is actually the more dire option. He'd rather live with the consequences of being truly authentic than live in hiding any longer.
He then lists his current problems and stressors in rapid fashion. His every move is being recorded by paparazzi, he's got family members trying to get money out of him, people he knows are being murdered, he's being taxed an outrageous amount by a dishonest government, and when he hangs out with his friends, he's paranoid the feds are spying on him because they suspect his friends are part of a criminal enterprise. It's a portrait of a life full of constant stress and anxiety, and Kendrick's panicked tone delivery helps sell the overwhelming feelings of his day-to-day life.
This verse contrasts the flexing intuition of the big stepper mentality. Kendrick isn't dancing in a drought, posing like everything is great. He's venting his truth. He has all the things people are striving for, and he's letting us know, very transparently, that it doesn't come with the satisfaction or contentment we imagine it does.
Kendrick's tone and flow become less frenetic as he stops venting about his personal life and turns his attention back to the listener. He raps, let's think about this for a second. Tell me what you would do for aesthetic.
Having revealed how much of what we do, say, and wear is in service of the ego, how much we're motivated by portraying ourselves as something we're not, Kendrick asks us to really think about how far we're willing to go to upkeep this charade of perception. How much of ourselves are we willing to compromise? Where exactly do we draw the line? This leads to a few traditional moral questions. Would you sell your soul on credit? Would you sell your bro for leverage?
Selling one's soul, presumably to the devil, is a classic analogy that generally means compromising your morals for material success or power. Doing this on credit furthers Kendrick's previous reference to car loans, using the idea of monetary debt as an analogy for one's moral debt. It's an idea Jesus spoke about in the Bible. In the Gospel according to Matthew, Jesus predicts his death and resurrection, and then tells his disciples, quote,
Kendrick's possible nod to the gospel according to Matthew is seemingly confirmed in the following line:
On its surface, it's asking us if we betray our close friends and family for our own material gain, once again pressing us on how much we're willing to morally compromise in our egoic pursuits. However, betrayal is also a pivotal plot point in the Gospel according to Matthew, where the disciple Judas betrays Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.
Judas does so by kissing Jesus on the cheek as a signal to the authorities, who then arrest Jesus and eventually crucify him. This infamous biblical moment is alluded to in the N95 video, where Kendrick and his cousin, his bro, baby Keem walk together during this part of the verse.
Directly after Kendrick says "would you sell your bro for leverage?" Keem kisses Kendrick on the cheek, just as Judas did Jesus. And Kendrick looks at Keem with suspicion. However, the reference to Judas goes deeper when we look at his story a little more broadly. First, we should note that Judas actually ended up feeling remorse over his betrayal. He ended up returning the silver he was given and then hanged himself.
Ultimately, selfish greed or selling his soul for short-term material gains became the source of his own demise. But perhaps the most relevant Judas story actually comes earlier in the Bible. As one of Jesus' twelve disciples, Judas was put in charge of the money bag, which he would routinely steal from.
In the Gospel according to John, Mary annoys Jesus by rubbing expensive perfume on his feet. And Judas objects saying, "Why wasn't this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year's wages."
On the surface, it seems like a noble objection. However, Judas had selfish ulterior motives, as John revealed, "He did not say this because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief. As the keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it." In other words, he wanted to sell the perfume so he could steal some of the money. Yet, to anyone unaware of his true motives, his comments would have appeared noble.
Thus, we get the final line of the verse where Kendrick repeats "Where the hypocrite's at, what community feel they the only ones relevant." It's a purposefully controversial line and seems to most immediately call out groups who feel the world should be prioritizing their problems over everyone else's. Within the song's multiple mentions of online activism, it feels like Kendrick may be specifically taking aim at those within these groups who weaponize their identity for their own personal gain or reputation.
However, just like the previous lines, this one gains dimension within the context of Kendrick's allusion to the gospel according to Matthew. During the Sermon on the Mound, which is described in Matthew 5-7, Jesus speaks specifically on hypocrisy, saying, "...take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them, otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven."
Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and the streets, that they may have glory from men." Jesus goes on to apply the same lesson to both praying and fasting, warning against doing these things publicly to be seen by others in order to receive praise and improve your own reputation. Notably, Jesus names these disingenuous actors hypocrites, a word that stems from the Greek hypocrites, which means hypocrites.
actor, or stage play. And if we want to get really technical, the Greek "hypokrites" is a compound noun that combines "hypo" meaning "beneath" and "krites" meaning "judge" or "interpret." So together the literal translation is "an interpreter from beneath."
This might sound odd until you know that actors in ancient Greek theater wore large masks to mark which character they were playing, so they interpreted the story from beneath their masks. Over time, the Greek Hippocrates took on an extended meaning to refer to any person who is wearing a figurative mask and pretending to be someone or something they were not.
So, as it applies to the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is calling out those hypocrites or actors who deceitfully wear the mask of giving, praying, or fasting in order to receive public praise.
Likewise, in N95, the song literally named after a modern mask, Kendrick is calling out the hypocrites or actors who deceitfully wear the mask of performative activism in order to receive praise from others. Eckhart Tolle himself actually used this same biblical story to illustrate the duality of service and charity. It can be a wonderful spiritual practice if it arises from the right place inside you.
And it can also be a strengthening of your ego if it arises from a different place inside you. Jesus talked about that when he talked about giving alms. Some people, he said, like to be seen when they give alms to the poor. They want to be seen. And he says those people are not going to get a reward in heaven. What that means we'll look at in a second.
because they have their reward already. And of course, what their reward already is, is that it's a feeding of the ego.
Tolle goes on to discuss the two ways the ego is fed when doing charitable acts. One is being seen by others, and therefore the ego is fed by its perceived external validation from others. However, the deeper, more complex way is the way in which we see ourselves internally, how identifying with being a good person is also a way the ego feeds itself. You see yourself as the doer of good.
and you see yourself as sacrificing something that you give to another. So it improves your ego really, how you see yourself because what is ego but an inner self reflection. Ego is like an inner mirror where you are not yourself, you have an image of yourself and you live through this mental image of yourself
And the image of yourself is usually not satisfying. So every ego tries to improve the image of oneself and it can do it in many, many different ways. But then you have the image of me, the doer of the good deed, and that really strengthens
The image.
In the song's outro, Kendrick returns to the sing-song delivery, beginning with the line, you out of pocket, you out of pocket.
Previously an ad-lib during the hook, Kendrick here reinforces the theme of acting out of character, with a heavy emphasis on acting, wearing the hypocrite's mask. This acting motif is subtly extended in his repetitive use of the word entertaining in the following lines, as Kendrick calls out those who entertain mediocrity and toxic friends, which results in their life being filled with nothing but bullshit and gossip, i.e. nothing real or meaningful. It's all just an egoic performance. It's a drought.
Each of these lines is punctuated by the ad-lib "this shit hard", a phrase that describes something tough and cool, like the beat of N95 itself. But Kendrick is also using "this shit hard" to comment on the difficulty of what he's asking us to do. Being real with yourself, confronting your true motives, taking the mask off, all this shit is actually incredibly hard. It's much easier in the short term to uphold the charade, to play the game of the ego.
Kendrick then turns defiant one final time, rapping "What the fuck is cancel culture?" This direct shot formalizes Kendrick's attack on online activists throughout N95. The phenomenon of cancel culture is obviously a broad and complex topic, but it generally refers to the removal of support for an individual, group, or company over an opinion or action that was deemed offensive.
Proponents of cancel culture argue that it's a tool for marginalized people or groups to seek accountability when the justice system fails them, while opponents argue that it creates a culture of fear, can be used irresponsibly, and doesn't actually amount to real lasting change. On N95, Kendrick makes similar critiques, as he seems disgusted with those using cancel culture to portray themselves as morally superior, like the hypocrites praying in public.
It also seems Kendrick feels is a threat to the freedom of expression, as he continues by asserting his willingness to express how he feels no matter the potential consequences of cancel culture. He does this in one of the more layered analogies of the entire album. He starts by rapping "Say what I want about you n-words, I'm like Oprah, dog." Comparing himself to Oprah in this context very likely refers to her history with hip-hop music. Earlier in her career, Oprah routinely criticized the genre because of misogynist lyrics and the use of the n-word.
Over the years, she had friction with rappers Ice Cube, 50 Cent, and Ludacris, all of whom have been critical of Oprah's lack of support for hip-hop. Kendrick's reference to Oprah goes deeper when considered with the next line, I treat you crackers like I'm Jigga. Watch, I own it all. Jay-Z, or Jigga, was one of the first rappers Oprah invited on her show back in 2009, where they debated Jay's use of the n-word in his music.
You know, I've been known for not being a big fan of rap music because of misogynist lyrics and because of the use of the N-word. You obviously feel differently. A little bit. A little bit. A little bit. And tell everybody why. What we discuss is more of...
People give words power. And for our generation, what we did was we took the word and we took the power out of that word. We turned a word that was very ugly and hurtful into a term of endearment. So even when someone says it, there's still intention behind what you say. But pretty much took the power out of the word. Because if we just start removing words from the dictionary, just make up another word the next day. So we don't address the problem. The problem is racism.
Right? That's really the problem. So we disagree. Yeah. Yeah. Kendrick pairing Jay and Oprah and his line about the N-word obviously nods to this famous conversation.
However, Kendrick also pairs Jay-Z with the word cracker, a derogatory term for white people. This could be referencing a line from Jay's verse on the song What It Feels Like with Nipsey Hussle.
And yet another reference to hypocrisy, Jay points out the double standard of the federal government allowing a mostly white crowd or crackers to storm the Capitol building on January 6th, while the IRS storms Jay's capital or wealth with audits because he's black and successful. This specific line made headlines when the song was released, so it seems very likely Kendrick is nodding to this well-known reference when he pairs Jay-Z with crackers. Understanding the full context of his Oprah and Jay references,
We can now unpack the wordplay. At its core, Kendrick is comparing himself to two of the most wealthy, successful, and influential black moguls in modern history. Both Jay and Oprah have "fuck you" money and power, so they could care less about what a critic says about them, just like Kendrick. Oprah criticized black rappers, Jay criticized white MAGA conservatives with no thought about the consequences.
And by saying both n-word and cracker, Kendrick is also making clear that he's not discriminating against or catering to either side. He doesn't care who he offends, black or white, right or left, or anything in between. Kendrick's line, I'm like Jigga, watch, I own it all,
contains two clever triple entendres. The surface level meaning is that we're going to watch or witness Kendrick own everything he says on the album. However, Jay-Z is famous for his watch collection and both Jay and Oprah are adamant about black ownership.
They own their various business enterprises. Specifically, Oprah owns the Oprah Winfrey Television Network, otherwise known as OWN. And of course, how do you consume a TV show like Oprah's? You watch it. Conclusions
As the album's second song, N95 continues the expository nature of Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers opening tracks. Having established the inner chaos of his personal life on United in Grief, N95 establishes the outer chaos of the world around him. Indeed, the song makes it very clear that Kendrick plans to be just as hard on us as he is on himself. He paints a dystopian image of modern society, with our obsession with materialism, our abandonment of ancient wisdom, our
manipulative leaders and rigged system, our conformist thinking, and perhaps most importantly, our endless search for validation, all of which can be attributed to Tolle's concept of the ego. Meanwhile, we parade in our performative masks, dancing in a drought, big stepping and feigning perfection online when inside we are filled with anxiety, unresolved trauma, and self-doubt.
Most of us are wearing the mask of the hypocrite, performing in the theater of the world, playing the part the ego has written for us. And as United in Grief made clear, Kendrick is absolutely including himself in this diagnosis. Naming the song after the medical mask worn during the COVID-19 pandemic adds a few layers to these ideas. For one, it reinforces the mask as the central symbol of this album that's conceptualized as a piece of musical theater, which is itself reflective of the world being a theater.
Also, it would appear that Kendrick is making a point that even when we took off the N95 mask post-pandemic, another deeper psychological mask remained. In other words, the world was already in disease-ridden chaos before the pandemic. We were already sick.
And as Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers continues, so too does Kendrick's global diagnosis. Of course, this is Mr. Morale's next track, Worldwide Steppers. A song we'll examine note by note, line by line, next time on Dissect.
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