Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers

Kodak Black Is All Over Kendrick Lamar’s New Album ‘Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers’ And People Have Thoughts

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As expected, Kendrick Lamar’s fifth album Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers arrived on Friday night. What was unexpected is the music, content, and some of the guest appearances found throughout the project’s 18 songs. Features from the likes of rap legend Ghostface Killah, fellow West Coaster Blxst, cousin and frequent collaborator as-of-late Baby Keem, and PgLang labelmate Tanna Leone were the expected or not-so-surprising contributors to the album. However, appearances from the likes of Summer Walker may have been a bit shocking, but none more than the multiple appearances that Kodak Black made on Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers.

Kodak Black can be found on three songs from Kendrick’s new album: “Worldwide Steppers,” “Rich (Interlude),” and “Savior.” On “Worldwide Steppers,” which caused some reactions for its own separate reasons, Kodak offers a quick introduction. On “Rich (Interlude),” he delivers a spoken word over sporadic piano keys. Finally, on “Silent Hill,” he steps in for a rap verse after Kendrick delivers one of his own.

Considering Kendrick’s high and practically unblemished status in music and Kodak’s past filled with controversial statements, sexual assault accusations, and run-ins with the law, the rappers’ collaborations on the album had a lot of people talking. Fans of Kodak were excited to see him stand in a bigger spotlight while others were not too pleased with one, never mind three appearances from him on the album.

You can hear the three songs that Kodak Black appears on in the videos above and check for comments from fans below.

Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers is out now via PgLang/TDE/Aftermath/Interscope. You can stream it here.

Kodak Black is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Worldwide Steppers’ Left Fans Perturbed As He Oddly Confessed To Having Sex With White Women

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The five-year drought for a new album from Kendrick Lamar came to an end tonight as he returned with Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers. The project was made available with 18 songs and features from Blxst, Amand Reifer, Sampha, Taylour Paige, Summer Walker, Ghostface Killah, Kodak Black, Baby Keem, Sam Dew, Tanna Leone, and Beth Gibbons of Portishead. While the music world was impressed and pumped with excitement after Kendrick prefaced the project with “The Heart Part 5,” the actual music on Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers couldn’t be more of the opposite. An example comes on “Worldwide Steppers.”

The track is a two-part effort, and in the first half of the song, Kendrick unloads a spiraling and erratic confession about the first and second times he had sex with a white woman. He raps, “The first time I f*cked a white b*tch, I was sixteen at the Palisades, fumblin’ my grades.” Later in that verse, he adds, “Next time I f*cked a white b*tch, was out in Copenhagen / Good Kid, M.A.A.D City tour, I flourished on them stages.” He continues by mentioning his longtime partner Whitney Alford. “Whitney asked did I have a problem,” he raps. “I said, ‘I might be racist’ / Ancestors watchin’ me f*ck was like retaliation.”

The entire verse was jarring to say the least, as were other moments on the album. Fans felt the same way and they took to Twitter to share their thoughts.

You can listen to “Worldwide Steppers” in the video above and see comments from fans about the song below.

Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers is out now via PgLang/TDE/Aftermath/Interscope. You can stream it here.

Kodak Black is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Kendrick Lamar Releases ‘Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers,’ Ending A Five-Year Wait For A New Album

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The music world has missed Kendrick Lamar. Sure, we’ve been doing alright with various releases from the industry’s heavyweights like J. Cole, Drake, Kanye West, Young Thug, Future, Taylor Swift, and more, as well as newcomers who have provided something new and refreshing to the world. Prior to last fall, Adele was seemingly the long superstar who went longer than Kendrick without a new album, but even she returned in November with 30. Ever since Kendrick stamped himself as not only the next great rapper but the next great artist overall, his full-length releases grab the attention of the world and it’s something that will happen again with his newly-released long-awaited fifth album Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers.

There are a few things to keep in mind with Kendrick’s new album, which was prefaced by the impressive “The Heart Part 5.” Aside from what the project adds to his undeniable legacy, it will also be his last official release on Top Dawg Entertainment, a label he’s called home since 2004. There’s no telling what Kendrick’s next step will be, heck, it took us over four years to find out what it would be following Damn. One thing we do know is that Kendrick’s journey will most likely continue under PgLang, a creative agency that he founded with his longtime partner and former TDE co-president Dave Free. PgLang is also home to Baby Keem and newly-signed act Tanna Leone.

But enough about the future, let’s enjoy the present. Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers is out now and there will mostly be so much to enjoy with it. It arrives with 18 songs and features from Blxst, Amand Reifer, Sampha, Taylour Paige, Summer Walker, Ghostface Killah, Kodak Black, Baby Keem, Sam Dew, Tanna Leone, and Beth Gibbons of Portishead. So grab a pair of headphones or turn on your speakers, and press play on an album that many of us have waited a long time to hear.

Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers is out now via PgLang/TDE/Aftermath/Interscope. You can stream it here.

The Cover Art For Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers’ Unlocks Some Unknowns About The Rapper

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This Friday, the most anticipated album in the world is coming out: Kendrick Lamar’s Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers. Lamar has been dropping hints every step of the way in the lead-up, including a recently posted image of two CDs, indicating that the album might very well be a double album. On Sunday, we were introduced to the album’s first single, “The Heart Part 5,” along with its eye-popping video. Now, Kendrick has posted what appears to be the album cover artwork.

Posted to both his social media platforms, as well as showing up as a new icon on the oklama.com website where every update in the Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers lead up has been posted, the cover photograph might very well be the first time we’ve seen the “Alright” rapper picture with his two children. He wears a christ-like crown of thorns and holds his three-year-old daughter while his fiancée nurses a newborn child on a bed in the background.

This is interesting because Kendrick is famously private about his personal life. In fact, it has only been known that he and Alford have one daughter, so the second child in the background would be a new addition to the family that the world previously did not know about. Regardless, the album is out in two days and everyone is on the edge of their seat.

Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers will be out on Friday 05/13 via TDE Records.

Pusha T Wanted To Reunite With Kendrick Lamar On ‘It’s Almost Dry’

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Pusha T reached a milestone this past week, with It’s Almost Dry going No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. In a recent interview with GQ, readers learned that the G.O.O.D Music President was looking to lyrically spar with a fellow chart-topper by the name of Kendrick Lamar on the album.

Having previously worked together on 2013’s fan-favorite “Nosetalgia,” this would surely be a welcome reunion for supporters of both. Unfortunately, the impact of “Nosetalgia” lead to this potential collaboration’s undoing as Push said he “couldn’t find a song that differed enough.” Clearly, Pusha T isn’t too torn up about it, riding a huge wave of momentum and soaking in all the positivity from those who have heard his album. He put out a post on Instagram this past week thanking all who were involved.

Luckily, Kendrick Lamar fans won’t have to wait much longer for new K Dot music either as he is set to release Mr. Morale And The Big Steppers, his final TDE album, on May 13. There is currently no single, tracklist, or inkling of who will appear on the album. The rumors of it being a rock-influenced album haven’t been revisited either, so this is truly a game of wait and see.

Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers’ Might Be A Double Album

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For the past six months, rap fans have been forced to speculate about Kendrick Lamar’s upcoming final album under his Top Dawg Entertainment contract, with little concrete information about the project (other than its elaborate title) to go on. Today though, Kendrick dropped another cryptic clue about Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, suggesting that it might be a double album. Fans checking in on the website he set up to promote the album, oklama.com, found a new folder to click on, leading to an image of a pair of CDs marked “Morale” and “Steppers” bearing the legend “Master Copy” on each along with a hardcover book bearing the album’s title.

Anyone who’s burned a mix CD in their lifetime (so basically anyone born before the year 1996) knows that CDs contain around 74 minutes of space or around 21 tracks. Obviously, most CDs never used the full capacity, but to go over that time limit (or even inching too close to it) meant separating the songs across two discs. Now, I’m not saying that this means Kendrick’s next album is going to be the length of a Marvel movie, but we should probably expect a longer project. It’s also projected to pull down huge numbers — as befits Kung-Fu Kenny’s swan song for the label that has developed his career for the past decade and a half.

As Kendrick inches closer to its release date (the only other solid bit of information we have right now), more details will undoubtedly be revealed at oklama.com. Until then, the speculation continues.

Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers is due on May 13 on TDE and Interscope.

Kendrick Lamar’s New Album ‘Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers’ Already Has Huge Sales Projections

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When Kendrick Lamar moves, the world moves with him. After a whopping five years since the release of his lauded fourth studio album, DAMN., the Compton rapper has finally given listeners the news they’ve been waiting to hear for months: New music is on the way. Announcing the release date for his new album, Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, Lamar didn’t share a teaser song or word of a new single with the album news. That record will drop on Ma 13, and it will be Kendrick’s last at his longtime label home, TDE, as he is now expanding into his own company, pgLang.

But none of that seems to have fans worried in the slightest. Even without as much as a teaser for a single, the album’s projection numbers for first-week sales are already massive. The music industry insider blog, Hits Daily Double, has already predicted the record will move over 350,000 copies during its first week. “The forecast is in the vicinity of 350k,” the blog noted, reminding longtime listeners that DAMN. moved almost double that when it was released, around 600,000. All-time sales numbers for DAMN. have now reached 11 million. But for an artist like Kendrick, pure sales come alongside the push from streaming, and that’s what makes this notable.

Since the album is dropping relatively soon, hopeful some preview of it will also be imminent.

Kendrick Lamar’s Mysterious Website Now Has Hundreds Of Folders And Fans Are Puzzled

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A couple days ago, Kendrick Lamar shared some long-awaited news: His next album is called Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers and it’s set for release on May 13. Lamar revealed the news on his mysterious oklama.com website, which fans noticed last night has been updated. It’s not currently clear exactly what this new update means, though.

Currently, oklama.com/theheart features a window full of numbered, retro-looking computer folders, like the ones that were on the site when the album announcement was made. Since that update has gone live, fans have been clamoring to figure out what’s going on.

Fans tried opening all the folders on the page, but each one leads to the same error page. One fan dug into the site’s code and found that every folder is set to lead to the error page, even the one black folder that is labeled “important.” Furthermore, somebody else noticed the amount of folders on the page actually changes relative to your internet browser window; I was able to get as few as 11 folders to show up by decreasing the size of the window and increasing the page zoom (I actually got to nothing showing up at all by making the window as small as possible), and over 5,000 folders by doing the inverse. With default settings, my browser displayed around 500 folders.

Even with the functionality of the website figured out on a technical level, that still hasn’t solved the mystery of what it means. Some have speculated that given the page’s URL, “The Heart Part 5,” a sequel to 2017’s “The Heart Part 4,” is coming soon. Others believe that at a certain point, the “important” folder will be updated, perhaps to direct to new music from Lamar.

Whatever’s going on here, Lamar and his team have come up with an intriguing way to get fans excited about new music, so kudos.

Kendrick Lamar Channeled Michael Jordan For His New Album Announcement And Fans Love It

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For most of the day so far, the music world was focused on looking back at the first weekend of Coachella. Everything changed this afternoon, though, when Kendrick Lamar came out of nowhere and announced that his next album is called Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers and it’s set for release on May 13.

Lamar shared the news via a tweet and almost immediately after doing so, he became the No. 1 trending topic on Twitter. While most of the conversation consisted of excited knee-jerk reactions to the news, some fans took a minute to observe how Lamar’s announcement bears a striking resemblance (intentionally, it appears) to an iconic Michael Jordan moment.

Lamar shared the news via a simple letter that plainly states the news of his album, with the formatting of the note seemingly modeled after the famously minimalist fax MJ sent in 1995 to confirm he was ending his retirement and returning to the NBA. Journalist Andreas Hale also observed that Lamar’s announcement comes almost exactly 27 years after Jordan’s: MJ’s note was dated March 18, 1995, while Lamar’s is from today, April 18.

Imitating the Jordan fax has actually become a bit of a trend in hip-hop lately: Migos did the same thing last May and Logic followed suit the next month.

Check out some more Lamar reactions, to both the Jordan similarities and to the album news more broadly, below.

Kendrick Lamar Finally Confirms The Release Date For His Next Album, ‘Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers’

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Kendrick Lamar has finally delivered a due date for his new album. Titled Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, Lamar posted the official album announcement via his oklama.com website, but he let the world know in extremely eccentric (and very Kendrick Lamar) fashion that shows he’s been listening to all of the Twitter stans demanding an album update for months.

Lamar quote retweeted a two-month-old tweet saying, “Kendrick Lamar is officially retired,” with just the link to his website.

On the website’s landing page, there are two old-school Microsoft Windows folder icons. The first one labeled “nuthoughts” takes you to his statement from last August where he indicated that his next album would be “my final TDE album.” But the new folder, marked by an all black Windows folder takes you to a statement printed on official pgLang letterhead (the media company/label founded by Lamar and Dave Free in 2020) and it reads simply:

“Los Angeles, CA (April 18, 2022) – the following statement was released today by oklama through his company pgLang at 11:00am PT in Los Angeles, CA:

Album: “Mr Morale & The Big Steppers”
Release date: 5/13/2022

All factual information for this release will come directly from this source only.”

So there it is. Kendrick Lamar has finally announced Mr Morale & The Big Steppers. Let the countdown to May 13th begin.

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