S13E5 - Dissecting "Father Time" by Kendrick Lamar
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From the Ringer Podcast Network, this is Dissect, long-form musical analysis broken into short, digestible episodes. This is episode five of our season-long analysis of Kendrick Lamar's Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers. I'm your host, Cole Kushner. ♪

Last time on Dissect, we examined Mr. Morales' fourth track, Die Hard, where Kendrick opened himself up to Whitney, admitted his shortcomings, and hoped she'd see enough good in him to trust that he was going to set his demons straight. Narratively, we interpreted the song as a moment of pause before the protagonist's leap of faith, before crossing the threshold into a point of no return. Thus, it's incredibly fitting that Kendrick's therapy-guided emotional journey truly begins with the album's next track, the subject of our episode today, Father Time.

You really need some therapy. Real nigga need no therapy. No, no, you sound stupid as shit. Shit, everybody's stupid. You know what? We need to talk to someone. Reach out to Egghart.

The guiding voice of Whitney returns for the first time since the album's opening moments, when she prodded Kendrick to tell the truth. She plays a similar role here on Father Time, prodding Kendrick to go to therapy, an action that would prove to her that he's serious about confronting his demons. Whitney's suggestion might have been inspired by her own positive experience with therapy. Shortly after Mr. Morale was released, she posted on Instagram speaking to her own emotional journey alongside Kendrick's.

revealing that therapy was a critical step in her healing. Quote, I was stuck in a time and place that was no longer my reality and was no longer serving me. My babies forced me to take a long look at myself and journey back through the very things that made me. I've always carried the light with me. As a child, no one was able to help me process. Many times, silence was enforced because my emotions were a lot to handle. Hiding my pain has been a technique I've mastered my entire life.

Mask it with a smile and everything is good. Silence has been my superpower, protecting me in the most vulnerable spaces.

Then I was referred to a great therapist. After a few years of hard work, I can finally say I hear my own voice again. And it's very powerful. I use my smile when it feels genuine. And it's beautiful. Allowing the world in and sharing my experience is one of my greatest fears. But truth is always very important for me. I've lived a sober life, feeling every single part of it, with the exception of mastering how to float when it's all too much. But I yearn to be centered.

to flow, to heal, to enjoy life." Whitney's elegant words and wisdom here help illuminate why Kendrick described her as an angel on Die Hard and will later describe her as "the purest soul I know on Mother I Sober." Perhaps uncoincidentally, her IG caption alludes to many of the motifs on Mr. Morale, as she speaks of wearing a mask, the importance of telling the truth, and feeling your pain sober.

At this moment in Mr. Morale's narrative, Kendrick rejects Whitney's suggestion of therapy, a resistance that reflects the traditional masculine view that therapy is for the weak. In one of the very few interviews Kendrick gave for Mr. Morale, he spoke to Spotify's Carl Cherry specifically about this moment. One of my favorite lines in the album is where Whit say, "You really need to go to therapy." And I say, "Real niggas don't go to therapy."

Because that's how niggas feel, you know what I'm saying? We grew up where our parents don't know about that, our grandparents don't know about that. You live and you experience the shit that you go through and you deal with it right then and there, or you don't ever deal with it. We learned to hold all our shit in. Shit, we keep a hundred with you. That wasn't my forte when people mentioned it to me. You know, I'm still stuck. My pops didn't fucking get there before.

Importantly, Kendrick here mentions his resistance to therapy and directly relates it to his father's own mentality, saying "I'm still stuck how my pops think." In other words, his rejection of even the thought of needing emotional assistance is an inheritance, a hardened disposition that is passed down from generation to generation, a theme that will be central in Father Time.

The opening skit then concludes with Whitney telling Kendrick to reach out to Eckhart. While we've already talked a lot about Eckhart Tolle and his teachings this season, this is just the second time he's mentioned on the album. The first being when Kodak Black said his name at the start of Worldwide Steppers. And so narratively speaking, we can see how Kendrick is setting up Eckhart as playing the therapist in the album's narrative, building up his eventual appearance as a pivotal plot point. However, at this moment, Kendrick is resistant to the idea, and Father Time will explain exactly why.

I come from a generation of home invasions. And I got daddy issues, that's on me. Everything them forewars have taught me. May have it's buried deep, them men knew a lot. But not enough to keep me past them streaks. My life is a plot, twisted from directions that I can't see.

Following the opening skit, we hear the contemplative sounds of Duvall Timothy's piano while the clatter of the big steppers grows to a crescendo, indicating that Kendrick and his rejection of therapy is tap dancing around the issue, that his hyper-masculine response is merely deflection. This triggers the beginning of Father Time Proper, which was produced by Beach Noise, Beacon, Dahi, Duvall Timothy, Soundwave, and Victor Ekpo.

The first thing we hear is a sample of a 1960s song called "You're Not There" by Hoskins-Nacroud. This excerpt is then pitched up three semitones. Finally, this pitched up sample is reversed, creating what we ultimately hear on "Father Time."

Kendrick begins the first verse with a masterful opening line. I come from a generation of home invasions and I got daddy issues, that's on me.

Born and raised in Compton, California, Kendrick uses home invasions to point to at least three possible influences that pervaded his immediate environment as a child. First, there's an actual home invasion or house robbery, which points to the high crime rate in his hometown. Second, if we think of what a home invasion is,

a home that's broken into, Kendrick might be playing with the idea of a broken home. Finally, invasion denotes a space being taken over from the outside, which may point to influences from outside the home affecting the dynamics inside the home, be it his immediate neighborhood or the systemic issues that plague America at large.

arch. Meanwhile, saying generation feels important, alluding to the ways we inherit specific circumstances when we're born. Circumstances that were created by the generations before us and that we must adapt to as we age.

The phrase "I got daddy issues, that's on me" is equally potent with potential meanings. Most obviously, it refers to Kendrick's actual father, Kenny Duckworth, who was reportedly affiliated with Chicago's Gangster Disciples until he moved to Compton in 1984. In this way, Kendrick seems to be linking a generation of home invasions to his father, who may have once participated in such invasions himself.

Interestingly, the phrase "daddy issues" is typically used to denote father-daughter relationships that have a negative impact on a woman's relationships with men. Using a phrase usually reserved for women feels like a crucial part of Kendrick's message in Father Time, implying that men are equally affected by their relationships with their fathers, yet don't receive as much scrutiny as women do, a point that will be driven home more overtly at the song's end.

And while Kendrick's father is clearly the main layer of this opening line, we also have to think about Kendrick being a new daddy himself when writing the song. Meaning he has issues to work out before he can become the father he wants to be. And as he talked about in the interview we just heard, confronting his daddy issues through therapy allowed his family lineage to evolve, to break a generational curse passed down through generations.

This illuminates what Kendrick means when he says, that's on me. He's got issues he inherited from the generations before him. And instead of deflecting like he did during the introduction, he's accepting the responsibility of confronting these issues for the sake of his family lineage. Thus, Kendrick continues the verse, everything them four walls had taught me made habits buried deep.

In other words, everything Kendrick learned inside his childhood home created deep-seated habits or tendencies that manifested when he was older, some of which are unhealthy and are now causing issues. He then continues, "That man knew a lot, but not enough to keep me past them streets."

Kendrick admits his father had wisdom and experience to offer him, but he couldn't totally compete with the environmental influence of Compton and his peers. This is a dynamic Kendrick spoke a lot about after Good Kid, Mad City was released, often citing how having a father around didn't totally prevent mistakes, but helped him better learn from those mistakes. Here he is talking specifically about a home invasion his father tried to warn him about. He'll see a car pull up in front of the house and he already know that I'm getting dressed.

And every time he knew that, he'd just look at me. Don't get in the car. You know what I do? I go get in the car. Next thing I know, a few hours later, we all on the curb. I mean, because we was planning to go do a house lick. Simple stuff like that, I mean, where as a teenager, you don't really understand because you think it's all in fun that you can go out here and ruin people's lives and not get no backlash from it because that's the mentality you have. I mean, you're reckless as a 16-year-old boy.

And what separated me from my friends getting locked up, going to jail for life or being dead in prison was the fact that after I bumped my head, he was always there to say, I told you. They didn't have it at all. So what they do is they bump their head, get back up and get right back in that car and go do something else that's even more wild and have a bigger punishment for it.

Uncoincidentally, Good Kid, Mad City tells the story of a single day in Compton when Kendrick was 16. The story begins with Kendrick and his friends committing a house robbery, a home invasion, the very act that Kendrick poses as a generational inheritance in Father Time's opening line. Good Kid's story ends with Kendrick's friend getting killed by neighborhood rivals that same day. These are the kinds of unexpected events Kendrick might be alluding to in his next line, "'My life is a plot, twisted from directions that I can't see.'"

He plays off the idea of a plot twist, framing his life as a story he plays a role in, but contains elements and events that are beyond his control, that he can only react and adapt to. It's a pretty potent line considering the verse to this point, evoking as it does the uncontrollable circumstances each of us are born into. Circumstances that shape who we are and influence the way we respond to the inevitable plot twists in our lives.

can't see daddy issues all across my head totally fucker foul on teary eyed wanna throw my hands i won't think out loud a foolish pride if i lose again won't go in the house i stayed outside laughing with my friends they don't know my life daddy issues made me learn losses i don't

Kendrick continues the first verse with an extended sports analogy. He raps, Daddy issues, ball across my head, told me fuck a foul. I'm teary-eyed, wanna throw my hands, I won't think out loud.

Kendrick and his father play one-on-one basketball, where his father hits him in the head with a ball and tells him not to call a foul, the implication being that those who call fouls are weak. Little Kendrick of course wants to cry or ball, creating a subtle entendre with the line "ball across my head", but instead he bottles up his thoughts and emotions and plays on. He's learning a fundamental lesson in traditional masculinity, which views emotion and vulnerability as a weakness.

Kendrick's father is instilling this in him early. Kendrick using a sports analogy seems like a calculated choice, as sports are an arena in which traditional masculinity is uniformly celebrated. Ruthless competitive drive, physical and emotional dominance of your opponent, winning at all costs, these are the hallmarks of great athletes, and in a traditionally masculine view, the hallmarks of a great man.

It's thus no coincidence that Kendrick is conflating the two by sharing the lessons he learned from his father about being a man through an extended sports analogy. Kendrick then continues, "A foolish pride, if I lose again, won't go in the house." It seems Kendrick's bottled up anger and hurt manifested into a competitive desire to win, to beat his father, presumably to ease the ego bruise of his father's physical and emotional dominance.

Of course, little Kendrick can't win and the resentment of losing creates a divide between them. He literally won't go back inside his home. Instead he says "I stayed outside, laughing with my friends. They don't know my life." Kendrick deliberately creates contrast here, playing with an outside-inside dichotomy.

It's outside that Kendrick laughs and escapes the environment inside the home. And it's implied that his friends are all doing the same. The line, they don't know my life, cleverly works two ways. Kendrick's friends don't know his life inside the home, offering him an escape. And Kendrick's parents don't know his life outside the home. They don't know the real him. A classic parent-child dynamic. Kendrick then continues, daddy issues made me learn losses. I don't take those well. Mama said, that boy is exhausted. He said, go fuck yourself.

Another dichotomy here, as Kendrick's mother attempts to intervene when she sees her little boy being pushed to exhaustion.

This maternal empathy is emphatically rejected with a "go fuck yourself" displaying just how conditioned Kendrick's father is to meeting any perceived vulnerability with aggression. We then get a peek into his father's justification for pushing Kendrick so hard, as he says "If he give up now, that's gonna cost him. Life's a bitch. And you can be a bitch or step out the margin." His father's intention clearly comes from a paternal protective instinct. It comes from a place of love.

In his mind, based on his own experience and likely the experience of his own father, he is setting Kendrick up for survival. In his mind, if Kendrick isn't tough, he won't make it. He'll be taken advantage of, abused, or even killed. Given America's centuries-long rap sheet of abuses against black people, it's not hard to understand why this survivalist mindset developed.

The reality of Black Americans being forced to adapt to their environment has been a central focus of Kendrick Lamar's music his entire career. It was perhaps expressed most potently in 2015's To Pimp a Butterfly, an album that culminates with a poem about adaptation. The caterpillar is a prisoner to the streets that conceived it. Its only job is to eat or consume everything around it in order to protect itself from this mad city. While consuming this environment, the caterpillar begins to notice ways to survive.

One thing you notice is how much the world shuns him, but praises the butterfly. In interviews around the time of To Pimp a Butterfly, Kendrick would often attempt to challenge the stereotypical perception of his community by speaking about the humanity behind the hardened exteriors of his peers. When you hear these stories in To Pimp a Butterfly, it's a little bit deeper than just the music. It's cats out here really trying to do something and really trying to spark the idea of positivity in the community.

Let me tell my story, let me tell other stories that's out here that want to do something different but can't because you're in an environment where you just got to adapt. And what happens is it invites people in to get another perspective. It brings a whole other side of the world to Compton, to this backyard right here and say, "Okay, these are actually people."

With Father Time, we can see Kendrick continuing his attempts at inspiring a deeper understanding of learned behavior and the specific challenge of adapting to an environment created by America's centuries-long discrimination against Black people. You could be a bitch or step out the marches. I gotta quick.

Kendrick continues his extended basketball analogy, rapping, I got up quick, I'm charging baskets and falling backwards, trying to keep balance.

This to me plays two ways. First it refers to taking a charge, which is when a defender steps in front of an oncoming player and hopes that they run into them, at which point the defender falls backwards onto the floor, drawing an offensive foul. Defenders who take charges are often praised for sacrificing their bodies, risking physical injury in the pursuit of winning.

We can also hear these lines as little Kendrick himself charging the basket with the ball, but running into his dad and falling backwards after colliding with him. In either scenario, Kendrick is learning how to endure physical pain and frustration, charging over and over again in order to harden himself, building a mental callus so he's adequately prepared for a life full of barriers, a life full of rejection, pain, and frustration. Kendrick then uses the image of two bodies colliding to bridge into personality attributes colliding.

He raps, "Oh, this the part where mental stability meets talent."

Cleverly saying mental stability after falling backwards trying to keep balance, formally fuses the physical and psychological exercises occurring in this game of one-on-one. Kendrick's father is teaching him that talent isn't enough to take you to the top, as talent will ultimately hit a wall of mental challenges, a wall currently represented by the physical body of his father as little Kendrick charges to the basket. In order to break through, talent must be paired with a high tolerance for psychological pain.

This idea leads to the next lines. Oh, this is the part he breaks my humility just for practice. Tactics we learn together, sore losers forever, daddy issues. The wording of tactics we learn together feels significant. Tactics are carefully planned strategic actions used to achieve a specific end and are often associated with the military, another arena in which traditional masculinity is indoctrinated and celebrated.

Saying we learn together also contains a cultural implication, a shared education among father and son, among men, with the ultimate teacher being the societal forces that have required black men to adopt such tactics.

Kendrick then ties a bow on the verse-long basketball analogy by saying, "'Sore losers forever,' a phrase usually attributed to the inability to take sports-related losses well. A sore loser usually becomes extremely angry, often blaming something or someone for their defeat. This in turn only deepens their desire to dominate, to prove themselves worthy by winning the next time. It also creates a tendency for viewing others as mere competition."

as opponents, as threats to conquer and destroy. And while these attributes may motivate an athlete within the domain of recreational sports, Kendrick's father isn't preparing him for sports. He's preparing him for life. And it's not hard to imagine how such deeply ingrained tactics can manifest in unhealthy ways and complicate interpersonal relationships, both with others and oneself. More on that right after the break.

Welcome back to Dissect. Before the break, we reach the end of Father Time's first verse, which transitions directly into the song's hook, performed by British artist Sampha. No chase I need, no chase I need, no chase I need, no chase I need.

The first thing to acknowledge about this hook is the vulnerable, fragile quality of Sampha's voice. This creates an unmistakable contrast against Kendrick's extremely harsh, aggressive delivery. Between the two, the dichotomy of masculinity is properly represented. Whereas Sampha is able to wear his heart on his sleeve, representing the unbridled emotion often concealed by men,

Kendrick masks his emotion with aggression, rapping in a way that would make his daddy proud.

Sanfa's lyrics on the hook continue the sports analogy of the verse, as he sings, early morning wake-ups, practicing on day-offs. This depicts a determined athlete with militant discipline, waking up early to train, training on days off, all in the pursuit of cultivating masculinity and strengthening the ego. However, as the line, sore losers forever implies, beneath this increasingly hardened exterior is a fear of losing, which in this song-long sports analogy, is in reality a fear of being destroyed.

a fear of survival. Thus they are taught to train like their very life depends on it. Because in many ways it does. Sampha continues singing, tough love, bottled up, no chaser, neat, no chaser.

Some clever wordplay here, as bottled up first denotes being taught to bottle up or suppress emotions, but doubles as a physical bottle of alcohol. Thus we get a direct reference to alcohol, neat no chaser. Drinking hard liquor neat means it's been poured straight from the bottle into a glass, without any mixers or ice.

"No chaser" continues the motif, with a chaser being something consumed directly after straight alcohol in order to mitigate its intensity. Within the traditionally masculine framework of the song, enduring the burn of straight alcohol without a chaser is a sign of strength and stoicism, while diluting alcohol is viewed as a weakness, as feminine. We think of the expression "it'll put hair on your chest," which is often said when encouraging someone to drink hard alcohol, and directly relates this act to manhood.

Of course, analogously, consuming alcohol straight is being compared to the ability to endure pain, to present as fearless and unfeeling, to swallow your emotions and wear a mask of stoicism in all situations.

Also, choosing alcohol for this analogy seems calculated. Perhaps alluding to the ways bottling your emotions is a gateway to the physical bottle. In other words, those who are unable to express their emotions are more vulnerable to substance abuse, as it offers relief from their suppressed trauma. Something Kendrick first acknowledged on United in Grief and is now reiterating on Father Time.

♪♪♪

Kendrick begins verse 2, I got some daddy issues, that's on me. Looking for I love you, rarely empathizing for my relief.

It's a pretty heartbreaking line when we strip away Kendrick's aggressive delivery, as we imagine little Kendrick looking for affection from his father and rarely receiving it. He learned to adapt to his father's lack of empathy and thus look for affection in other ways. He raps,

Here, little Kendrick seeks approval from his father by embodying the stoicism he taught him. We can picture little Kendrick scraping his knee, perhaps sneaking a glance his father's way to see if he was proud of him. It's another heartbreaking moment, as there's perhaps nothing more pure than a little boy seeking his father's approval. Yet we know in that seeking, Kendrick is quite literally forcing himself to detach from his feelings. This learned detachment thus embeds itself as a personality trait, as Kendrick's

As Kendrick raps, "Daddy issues, hid my emotions, never expressed myself. Men should never show feelings, being sensitive never helped." What has been implied in the verse to this point is now being formally articulated. As men, we are told either implicitly or explicitly that emotional vulnerability is a weakness.

Of course, the reality is that feelings are unavoidable. So what's really being demanded of men is the suppression of those feelings. Kendrick follows by giving a real-life example of this, rapping, His mama died. I asked him why he's going back to work so soon. His first reply was, Son, that's life. And Bill's got no silver spoon.

Yet another heartbreaking moment here. We can safely assume Kendrick's father did not have a job that offered paid time off for grievance. The reality was he did have to go back to work in order to survive. And this only reinforces his worldview, that stoicism is required in a cutthroat society that lacks empathy. Grieving was a luxury he literally couldn't afford.

Daddy issues, fuck everybody. Go get your money, son. Protect yourself. Trust nobody. Only your mama know. This may relationship seem cloudy. Never attached to none. So if you took some likings around me, I might reject the love. Daddy issues kept me competitive. That's a fact, nigga. I don't

Kendrick continues the verse rapping, daddy issues, fuck everyone, go get your money son, protect yourself, trust nobody, only your mama and them.

more direct lessons from a black man who only knows a hostile world, seen as a threat by society and so learned to see society as a threat to him. While the protective shield that developed from this reality may have helped him survive, Kendrick makes a very therapy-influenced connection between this distrustful, competitive, dog-eat-dog mentality and his own difficulties in relationships. He raps, This made relationships seem cloudy, never attached to none, so if you took some likings around me, I might reject the love.

Describing relationships as cloudy is clever in that it denotes a lack of transparency, implying that he's unable to see them clearly, and therefore misinterprets and feels distant from them. Also, as a result of being taught that everyone is a potential threat, Kendrick learned to be skeptical of every relationship he's had, even the positive ones, as the goodwill from another person could just be manipulation in order to exploit him.

We can only imagine how this ingrained distrust was triggered when Kendrick became successful, when exploitation is an incredibly legitimate, pervasive threat, when most new people in his life are looking to gain from him. He then continues, daddy issues kept me competitive, that's a fact, n-word. I don't give a fuck what's the narrative, I am that n-word.

Again, Kendrick is beginning to formally link his upbringing with his intuition as an adult. This time he draws a connection between those one-on-one games with his dad and his competitive drive in hip-hop. His need to be seen by others as the best, the most dominant, the most threatening. He wants to be what his father was to him on the court. A larger-than-life, commanding, unmovable presence. The wall his rap rivals run into and fall backwards because of.

Kendrick then gives a very specific example about how this competitive instinct played out, referring to Drake and Kanye West settling their beef in December of 2021. While the two had worked with each other many times before, tension between them escalated when Pusha T dropped a Kanye-produced track called "Infrared" that contained disses aimed at Drake. This ignited a rap battle between Drake and Pusha T, which reached a climax with Pusha T's "The Story of Adidon" where he revealed that Drake was hiding a child.

Drake later stated that he suspected Kanye fed Pusha T this information, and this, among many other things, strained their relationship for years. In late 2021, Kanye publicly apologized to Drake and asked him to perform at a benefit concert for Larry Hoover, kingpin of Chicago's Gangster Disciples, who is currently serving multiple life sentences in prison. Coincidentally, the Gangster Disciples are the same gang Kendrick's father was allegedly involved with before moving to Compton.

Drake ultimately accepted Kanye's apology and the two did perform together, where they were seen hugging and smiling on stage. This caused Kendrick a moment of pause as he admits, I was slightly confused. Guess I'm not as mature as I think. Got some healing to do.

Confused here applies two ways. First to his initial confusion about why Drake and Kanye would choose to reconcile. Kendrick's father would never apologize for fouling him, just the opposite in fact. And so in Kendrick's competitively indoctrinated mind, Kanye and Drake should be rivals. They should be trying to dominate each other. They should be trying to win.

However, the second layer of Kendrick's confusion is his confusion over his own feeling of confusion. In other words, Kendrick is interrogating his intuitive gut instinct for competition. He's wondering why he's viewing reconciliation between two black men as a weakness.

Isn't Kendrick the artist who made To Pimp a Butterfly? Isn't he the one calling for more solidarity amongst his community? Wouldn't a public reconciliation between two of the most famous black men in the world be, in theory, something to celebrate? Thus Kendrick admits that he's not as mature as he thinks, and still has some healing to do. This triggers Kendrick to confess that he actually does need assistance in parsing out his feelings. That he does need therapy.

Referring to himself, Kendrick raps, egotistic, zero given fucks, and to be specific, need assistance with the way I was brought up. Within the album's narrative, this is a critical moment.

It's the moment Kendrick admits Whitney was right, that he does need help eradicating the toxic traits he inherited from his father as a child. Importantly, Kendrick mentions his ego directly before this admission. This is significant because of how it relates to the teachings of Eckhart Tolle, who is of course being set up to play the role of Kendrick's therapist.

and through the lens of Tolle's work, what Kendrick learned from his father can be boiled down to one thing, the ego. Specifically, Kendrick's father taught him to identify and strengthen his ego as much as possible, which Tolle views as the source of all human suffering. In his book The Power of Now, Tolle writes, "...ego is the unobserved mind that runs your life when you are not present as the witnessing consciousness, the watcher." The

The ego perceives itself as a separate fragment in a hostile universe, with no real inner connection to any other being, surrounded by other egos which it either sees as a potential threat or which it will attempt to use for its own ends. The basic ego patterns are designed to combat its own deep-seated fear and sense of lack. They are resistance, control, power, greed, defense, attack,

Some of the ego's strategies are extremely clever, yet they never truly solve any of its problems simply because the ego itself is the problem, unquote.

Tolle believes that the ego seeing itself as an isolated entity living in a hostile world causes all human conflict, big or small. "When egos come together, whether in personal relationships or in organizations or institutions, bad things happen sooner or later. Drama of one kind or another in the form of conflict, problems, power struggles, emotional or physical violence, and so on.

This includes collective evils such as war, genocide, and exploitation, all due to masked unconsciousness." With Tolle playing Kendrick's therapist on the album, we are primed to view Kendrick's therapeutic journey as one in which he confronts his ego, an action that will allow him the vulnerability required to penetrate past the hardened masculine exterior that protects his trauma and actually deal with his environmental conditioning.

Kendrick then continues the verse: "What's the difference when your heart is made of stone, and your mind is made of gold, and your tongue is made of sword, but it may weaken your soul?" Kendrick juxtaposes three idioms to describe himself: A heart of stone denotes someone who is cold and unfeeling. A mind of gold denotes an exceptional gift or talent. And a tongue made of sword denotes someone whose words are deadly or used to hurt others.

It appears Kendrick is questioning the value of his talents when those talents are being used competitively, when they are a means to exalt himself above others, propagate his ego, and reinforce negative personality traits, all of which damage his soul. All the success he's had with music has only exacerbated his personal issues, so it appears he's asking what these talents are actually worth if they're only damaging his spirit and the relationships with those he loves most.

Rather than continue to focus on his music, it's time he actually focuses on himself. Hence his admission for needing help and seeking therapy. After this formal admission, Kendrick then ends the song by turning his attention outward to his community.

Let's give the women a break. Grown men with daddy issues.

Kendrick raps, my n-word's got no daddy, grow up overcompensating, learn shit about being a man, and disguise it as being gangster. Overcompensation is an excessive reaction to a feeling of inadequacy, leading to an exaggerated attempt to overcome that feeling. In yet another therapy-inspired connection, Kendrick proposes that the intimidating, ultra-masculine persona of a gangster is an overcorrection for a lack of male presence in the home.

This absence, paired with the requirement to survive a harsh environment, causes these boys to hyperinflate the characteristics of a stereotypical man, creating hypermasculine personas as a protective layer, like a shield. Understanding that having a dad in his life, even a flawed one, is a privilege, Kendrick's final mention of his father in the song is an affectionate one. He raps, "'I love my father for telling me to take off the gloves, "'cause everything he didn't want was everything I was.'"

The wording here is extremely clever. First, it's a callback to Kendrick's mention of Kanye West, quoting his 2007 track "Everything I Am."

Take off the gloves is a phrase that usually means getting ready to act or fight in a ruthless manner. And so within the context of the song to this point, we first suspect Kendrick is thanking his dad for teaching him those lessons in cutthroat competition because he was a sensitive, emotional kid by nature who wouldn't have survived Compton without those lessons. At

At the same time, we know Kendrick's father tried keeping him off the streets. And in this way, taking off the gloves could denote walking away from a fight, or taking off the gloves used to conceal fingerprints during a crime. And this reading, "cause everything he didn't want was everything I was," would mean that Kendrick was heading down the wrong path as a teenager, which is what his father didn't want. And him being there to discourage Kendrick from a life of crime is ultimately what saved him from it. It's crazy because I always go back to the story that

I was probably the only one in America with an actual active father in his life. I don't know. Well, at least in Compton. It was like boys in the hood. You remember boys in the hood? Trey and his pops. Yeah. Trey and his pops. That was my pops. But my pops wasn't as righteous. My pops was still bumping his head too. But at the same time, he always had so much of a love for me. He gave me the wisdom in the game to say, "You know what? I did that. Don't do that."

And sometimes he could stop it, sometimes he couldn't because I still had my friends surrounding me in the community. And each block in Compton is a gang, you know what I'm saying? So these are the people I grew up with, these are the people that I love for. And when you're around them, you have peer pressure. Of course, as a kid. So I bumped my head a few times, but what they didn't have, what I had was somebody to say, "All right, you bumped your head. Now let's see what happened."

you in the back of a police car. See what happened? You at the station. Nobody was telling them that. So they'll keep doing it over and over again.

We should recognize the gratitude Kendrick shows his father at the end of father time as a significant moment. The song to this point has centered the toxic traits Kendrick learned from him, so without this moment, we may suspect he's come to resent his father. But it's clear Kendrick is now mature enough to recognize both sides. He's grateful that his father remained in his life and credits him for being able to transcend his circumstances. At the same time, Kendrick also understands that he did inherit toxic traits from his father and that those daddy issues are on him.

In the same way his father did what he could with his own circumstances to ensure Kendrick had a better life than he did, Kendrick now must do the same. It's his responsibility to eradicate the toxicity he now recognizes to ensure his children don't inherit the distrust, cynicism, and enemy complex that have complicated his relationships and blackened his heart. After thanking his father, Kendrick again turns his attention to his community. He raps,

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." Understanding the rarity of simply having a dad, Kendrick praises those who survived without one at all. It's a touching gesture, as Kendrick understands a lot of men in his community may not be able to relate to his story, and some might even take issue with Kendrick critiquing his dad when they didn't have any father figure whatsoever.

I imagine Kendrick's salutation here at the song's end goes a long way to those individuals feeling seen and their difficulty acknowledged.

Kendrick then encourages these individuals to show up for their own kids, underscoring the generational equity that can accumulate from breaking a pattern of absentee fathers. He words this sentiment, While my perspective is obviously limited here, it appears Kendrick is suggesting that the powers that be, aka white supremacy in America, benefit from his community perpetuating mistakes that are within their control to amend.

They may not be able to control their circumstances entirely, nor can they rewrite the centuries of American history that created those circumstances, but Kendrick is encouraging them to improve on what they've inherited in order to create a better set of circumstances for future generations, who can then build on that upward trajectory. And it's here I want to return to that interview clip we played at the start of the episode, where Kendrick speaks about Father Time's intro and his reluctance to go to therapy. What I didn't play for you was the end of this brief interview clip, where Kendrick

where Kendrick makes a crucial comment about generational growth. Kendrick says that's a whole new step in a whole new generation. That's growth.

This to me explains the song title Father Time. Kendrick is emphasizing the way family lineage can evolve over time. He's underscoring the importance of breaking generational patterns, as challenging as that can be, because that work not only benefits yourself and your immediate family, but it ultimately benefits your children's children, their children's children, and so on. Specifically to Kendrick's point about the importance of father in this equation, there's overwhelming statistical evidence to back his case.

For example, youth that come from fatherless homes are 5 times more likely to commit suicide, 32 times more likely to become homeless, 10 times more likely to develop substance abuse issues, 9 times more likely to drop out of high school, 20 times more likely to develop behavioral issues, and 20 times more likely to go to prison.

Of course, having a father isn't a guarantee for success, nor is not having a father a guarantee for failure. But generally speaking, the evidence seems clear that having a father present is typically a benefit, not a detriment. And I think a big part of Kendrick's message in Father Time is encouraging all men with children to be present even if they feel like they're flawed, even if they feel like they're not good enough. Because most kids aren't looking for perfection from their parents. They're looking for presence.

simply showing up like Kendrick's father did, like Kendrick's doing now, imperfections and all. Kendrick then closes his verse with a powerful punctuation: "Till then, let's give the women a break, grown men with daddy issues." The line formalizes Kendrick's play on the phrase "daddy issues" with

a phrase almost always attributed to women, often with an unsympathetic, judgmental undertone. Kendrick is making it unmistakably clear the phrase equally applies to men, and that daddy issues are something to be taken seriously. They're not something to weaponize, but something to confront so you might evolve past them. There's also subtle wordplay in Let's Give the Women a Break.

Oftentimes when parenting small children, a brief break from the kids, even a small one, goes a long way in restoring one's mental and physical energy. Of course, without a father around, single mothers don't get a break. They assume all responsibilities all of the time.

And so this line points to present fathers not only helping children, but helping mothers too. However, there is a wider message here, which is the unfortunate fact that it's women who often suffer the consequences of the more toxic elements of hypermasculinity that can result from grown men's daddy issues.

For Kendrick, these elements have manifested in emotional detachment and habitual adultery, which we can only assume caused Whitney immense suffering. For other men, these traits can lead to verbal abuse, domestic violence, sexual violence, and a slew of other abuses against women. Thus by saying, "Until then, let's give the women a break," Kendrick is calling on his community to end these transgressions.

He's calling on other grown men to follow his lead, to take off the mask of masculinity, look in the mirror, and confront their daddy issues. Conclusions

In a recent 2024 interview with Harper's Bazaar, Kendrick was interviewed by SZA, who asked Kendrick about the top factors in his self-transformation. One factor he named was learning that vulnerability is not a weakness, and he admitted he was still learning that lesson today.

When SZA asked why, Kendrick responded, quote, Being a man type shit, right? And he never showed no weaknesses. He never showed any emotion that could garner a one-up from the person sitting across from him. And I learned to experience that, not knowing I had them same traits, right?

But for what I do, there is certainly no growth without vulnerability. If I understood the power of vulnerability earlier, I could have had more depth and more reach to the guys that was around me in the neighborhood coming up. You know, our parents, they never had these outlets to express themselves the way they wanted to. I've always looked at us as somewhat of a beacon of hope for them."

In this brief excerpt, Kendrick touches on the three thematic pillars addressed in Father Time: the inheritance of toxic masculinity, the power of vulnerability to evolve past that inheritance, and the empathetic understanding that previous generations were limited by their circumstances, so we ought not to judge or resent them for their shortcomings.

Instead, we should see ourselves as an extension of our family lineage whose duty it is to improve conditions for future generations. This understanding of how self-improvement leads to communal improvement is a central theme in Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers. Kendrick is zooming out, widening his perspective to see himself as part of the larger evolution of his community and of humanity itself.

It recalls the album's opening minds, as Kendrick conveys Eckhart Tolle's idea that individual peace of mind is what creates external paradise, that the evolution of one is the evolution of all. In terms of the album's linear narrative, Father Time begins by displaying the resistance Kendrick felt towards therapy, representing a broader masculine resistance to vulnerability.

At the same time, the song also clearly exhibits some of the lessons Kendrick's learned by eventually taking a leap of faith and committing to therapy. He has removed the mask of masculinity and is now looking himself in the mirror, thus beginning his healing journey.

Ending Father Time by calling on others in his community to follow his lead also sets the stage for the album's next track, where we hear directly from someone in this community, someone infamous for their toxic masculine behavior. I learned entrapping in the business, smart people making horrible decisions, you know? Rich niggas get my dick sucked after the show. I ain't gonna lie, we were poor.

Of course, this is Mr. Morales' next track, Rich Interlude with Kodak Black. A song we'll examine note by note, line by line, next time on Dissect.

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