Notes from Professor Skye Record Reviews

mr morale - kendrick lamar

christ of paternity - pere goriot - prof. talks about this as an analogy to the album, parents have an almost religious calling to self sacrifice for their children, which is what kendrick is doing - choosing himself/his family over being a saviour for the culture

interesting; related to etymology of ‘mr morale’/morality — moralism

how to adult (a summary of the album from prof. skye)

1. process trauma
2. take responsibility for the ways in which your coping with trauma has hurt others
3. forgive yourself
4. achieve some kind of real stability centered around your grown and your connection to others
5. enforce boundaries

the album is the opposite of preachy - he is showing, not telling what to do. i.e. he actually disappeared for 1855 days to figure out how life before coming back and telling us what he’s been up to.

They all greedy, I don't care for no public speaking
And they like to wonder where I've been
Protecting my soul in the valley of silence

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaise_Pascal - “wrote about a lack of mindfulness, our need - that all our unhapiness comes from the fact that we cannot sit alone in a room. that we can’t sit in front of a mirror and look at ourselves. The torment that comes from being mindful is a longstanding thing [that humans have understood]”.

the reason why we buy/do things is to have a diversion, to distract us - https://www.anthologialitt.com/post/blaise-pascal-on-diversions

Eckhart Tolle (philosopher that Kendrick mentions) talks a lot about the relationship between self (I and Me). Its a mix of Buddhism mixed with mysticism, a New-Age re-working of Zen. Similar to the Four Noble Truths, he emphasises that you can only control what you do now, and blaming yourself for past/future you are just your thoughts.

kendrick lamar [at least on this album] is a humanist, not an activist. being a humanist is much more difficult, rewarding and important than being an activist. he is not trying to be the voice of a generation… not of americans, african americans, … he is a voice of all humanity… he still emphasizes the generational trauma and how he’s healing from it, but his prescriptions for solutions are human ones, not specifically framed as crimes against a race, or something that could be solved through direct political action.

The ‘united in grief’ - unites us in that everyone grieves something. we may not grieve the same things, or go through the same things, but we all still have to process what we’ve gone through. in that way, he’s like a 20th century existentialist philosopher. we are all united in that we are all going to die, we are united in death. the only way to find meaning is to create human connections with others.

On father time:

I've got daddy issues, that's on me

Is easy to blame parents for trauma, but kendrick is basically saying that once you become an adult, no matter what you had to deal with as a kid, you [and maybe with a partner or therapist] have to figure out how to deal with it and move on.

Otherwise, you just continue the generational cycle of being dissosiated and deal the same trauma to the next generation.

i lay down my life for you - JPEGMAFIA

whenever I relisten to this now, I really internalize the arc of the album that prof. skye described.

Sonically, the whole thing feels like a trauma response - it starts with screaming in the mirror before he interacts with anyone. It has all these loud, metal, distroted guitars, loud Brazilian funk, Flume doing this crazy noise/electronic stuff - all to distract himself from how he’s feeling. By the end of the album, the whole thing sort of slows down sonically, and becomes much more acoustic/orchestral.

JPEG is a true hater - he turned it into his job. He performs the classic rap kayfabe of being better than everyone (and fair enough, JPEG is great), he raps about his beef with Freddie Gibbs, and his distaste with people asking for handouts. However, post on or off the drugs (in some sense, this feels like the last time on the album where he is self medicating, its the come-down), he accepts the fact that he’s medicating (that doesn’t mean he stops doing drugs, just that he knows its a tool he’s using), and describes his fearful relationship with his spiritulity and how he externalizes his maladaptions towards other people

On on or off the drugs, it feels like there’s the first signs of these realizations hitting him:

It's not just a façade that I can see
Or standin' up for guys that don't believe
I'm Michael Jackson dancin' in the mirror
The only one who can't see me is me
The only one who can beat is me

God, I pray my son won't be this weak
God, I pray my daughter won't be this weak, fuck

On ive recovered from this, he drops the kayfabe entirely and just says how he’s feeling.

Look, my bitch never got taken from me, I lost her myself
My bitch never got comfort from me, I needed too much help
I can't do one hour a week, I think I need more help
I don't think I need no more fixin', I'll just heal myself

I could have wrote this when I'm faded, but alcohol gives you a lens
When I'm speaking my mind, I'm on demonic time
I got family and fences to mend
Every argument comes with a cost, every dub ends up in a loss

I been stuck in a car with the child-lock, tryna break out and answer the call
Can you hear it?
Actual love, actual heart, actual caring