what about the small steppers?
a soundtrack to the messiness of healing 🌱
go run that new kendrick lamar. headphones on, no interruptions, touch some grass for extra credit 🌱
a very soul-searching album that touches on so much I am processing with the homies.
here i am going to go through each song on disc one: the big steppers; somebody who has been trying to find a way to depict men healing, growing, and the messiness of letting old things that don't serve us go, this was an album that hit home in a myriad of ways - sonically, lyrically, emotionally, and philosophically.
as i step out of this space of liminality, i needed this push to remind me i’m not alone, that we are not.
lemme know your thoughts in the comments 🌱
disc 1: the big steppers
united in grief
grief has been the topic of many of my therapy sessions lately and the fact that we all are being rushed through so much pain as a culture but insist that our individual pain be the center of the narrative when the issue is collective. the fact that kdot was “going through something” for 1,855 days in a day and age where we wash rinse repeat everyone’s trauma in 72 hours or less dispassionately online was resonant.
as i have come to finally say the words out loud with my therapist that i’ve been grieving for the last 6 years; grieving friends, family, time, etc and the state of freeze i’ve been locked in is the product of working, tweeting, hahaing, oofing, and it be like that sometimes-ing it through it in isolation, fully understanding we all are united in grief but never letting mine take center stage for fear of ridicule or being a burden. it was necessary listening to me and between the instrumentation and the lyricism, the opener to the long-awaited album really locked me into this project. while kendrick is called on by the streets to look outward and call it like it is over a beat, i was happy to see an inkling of the depths that he was about to go to on this album. The drums kicking in…fire my niggas, niggettes, and nonbinary niggxs.
stand out lyric: i've been goin' through somethin' /one-thousand eight-hundred and fifty-five days / i've been goin' through somethin' 🎶
n95
*taps mic* it's about time for us to address that some of the most miserable people in the world spend all the time commenting, critiquing, tearing people down, building nothing up, and just need to shut the fuck up go outside and touch some grass. all the status symbols of getting money, looking optically put together but a mess irl, and the reality of how people dispose of one another for personal benefit made this a radically honest track that honestly goes the fuck off.
even more interesting: this was originally supposed to be part of baby keem's vent track off of the melodic blue so this track feels like the release of a pressure valve for kendrick. it goes back to another the melodic blue track ‘family ties’ “i've been duckin the overnight activists.” basically, stop chatting shit and go do shit, stop trying to convince people that you're better and go be better. i thought that was reawoken within me during this track: “do you want to be better or do you want to be better?” read that back.
stand out lyric: take off the unloyal, take off the unsure, take off decisions lack (take it off) / take off the fake deep, take off the fake woke, take off the "i'm broke," i care (take it off) / take off the gossip, take off the new logic that if i'm rich, i'm rare (take it off) 🎶
worldwide steppers
not for nothing, kendrick lamar is one of the most intentional artists of this current generation of rappers. i understand the intentionality of having a conversation about abolition, redemption, and personal growth but why did it have to be kodak black? i feel like the intention is to show how somebody's problematic past can obfuscate what they can bring to the game but i also feel like i didn't need to hear my man's voice on this album, even for a second. that might be personal preference but after i got over that, this is a wonderful track.
i exist at the intersection of being an artist and having a toxic relationship to work; a lot of first gen kids do because we all grew up seeing our families work their fingers to bone to give us the slice of the american (or colonizer) dream. all i do is mind my business and try and work however to hear someone that i respect so much be open about having writers block for two years absolutely made me feel seen. in the last few weeks, i have realized my relationship to writing and overwriting often doesn't come from a place of release anymore; it comes from a place of anxiety about saying my piece on the page after feeling silenced for so long.
this was the part that resonated with me the most although the revelation of kendrick's interracial relationships was interesting. but if i'm going to keep it a rack with you, like i always try to do here, i'm tired of this conversation. i think my personal fatigue shouldn't stand in the way of what kendrick trying to do with this song, of course; if that's your bag, go off. the instrumentation feels very insistent and almost machine like kendrick opened up the spout of his insecurities and couldn’t close it. very relatable.
stand out lyric: writer's block for two years, nothin' moved me / asked god to speak through me, that's what you hear now / the voice of yours truly 🎶
die hard ft. blxst & amanda reifer
honestly, not much to go over on this track but i appreciate kendricks openness about being afraid to open up, a lot of dudes need to hear this right now. as somebody who does not have a good track record of advocating for himself or allowing himself to just fall apart, this resonated with me. i think that the narrative of growth, whether it comes from pop psychology instagrams or from the tweets, often is framed online as something that we all want from each other but in real life don't allow the space for.
there's plenty of space, land, opportunity, etc. for this growth but sometimes the scariest part is planting the seed somewhere and not knowing whether that person is going to help you cultivate it or not (i personally struggle with this because i am always afraid of being a burden especially when i'm framed as a strong friend, mentor, "the dude who has it together"). growth is ageless, timeless, and to put a time limit on getting your demons straight is a very real anxiety; all that matters is to start growing.
stand out lyric: i hope i'm not too late to set my demons straight / i know i made you wait, but how much can you take? 🎶
father time ft. sampha
generational trauma. toxic masculinity. the masculine urge to reject therapy at least 3 times before going. this is exactly what one of my scripts is trying to examine about black men and to have kendrick make me want to go back and rewrite it is a blessing. sampha’s hook goes down smooth when the clarity that kendrick found through therapy and these confessions can feel a little rocky. track reminds me of a time when thinkpieces had thinks in them.
instrumentation on a million, this isn’t my favorite track off the big steppers disc, but the ability to even admit the prison that masculinity can be, especially from toxic father figures, was welcome. maybe it wasn’t groundbreaking to me due to the conversations I'm already having in my communities, but i’m sure it was much more resonant to someone else and welcome nonetheless.
stand out lyric: men should never show feelings, being sensitive never helped / his momma died, i asked him why he goin' back to work so soon? / his first reply was, "son, that's life, the bills got no silver spoon" 🎶
rich (interlude)
sigh. kodak. i don’t know how kendrick pulled the poet laureate out of this boy but, i get it. i really do, kodak is a posterboy for the self-hating darkskinned black man, who got rich quick off of street shit and gang shit, ass backwards misogyny and antiblackness, but is a product of the “system” and his “environment,” and very much pleaded guilty to an assault charge involving a female minor. i get it. this track is “rich” as an idea leading into the next track talking about the real richness in spirit. i get it. i still don’t love kodak but i also can hold two thoughts in my head: kodak himself has done some dumb, violent shit and he can try and be better. micro vs macro comes to mind a lot here; how much is individual responsibility and how much is social?
brings me back to a questions that rings off in my head constantly: “do we want people to be better or do we want to be better than people?” the abolition in me wants to see kodak redeemed but the music lover in me wants to hit skip. piano’s going nuts on this one tho.
stand out lyric: nigga play with me, he ain't gon' live to tell the story / you know, this the type of shit we glorify, everybody gang-gang 🎶
rich spirit
i remember one time i asked my therapist if i was a narcissist because i was feeling like i was taking time to take care of myself in the midst of a lot of compounding traumas. she told me that i wasn't because most of our sessions are trying to get me to care more about myself (and also, most people who are narcissist don't care about anyone else). if you know me, i downplay literally everything and i always try to make everybody feel included, sometimes, no, often times to my own detriment. this track has a hook about trying to keep the balance and not being able to fuck with someone anymore because they're focusing on themselves and a twinge of a memory went back to that therapy session. Key question for me: what’s the line between self love/esteem and being considered arrogant and narcissistic? Not easy to parse because of the industry I’m in being built on curated image, being larger than life, and follower counts increasing meaning your agency over your own life and narrative and privacy decreasing. Add that and the racial component and you get an idea of my sleepless nights.
something i balance a lot right now is the public image of who i am and how i feel inside. they have been incongruent for a long time and i am done with that (camryn, my mentee, is my accountability buddy on that). taking a step back from social media to focus on healing and growth was a first step but now stepping back into the world, coming back to my corners, and finding the line between self confidence and selfless compassion is the journey. in a world trying to beat down black people in general, it's hard to have a very strong sense of self in the face of dehumanization from white counterparts and also from people who look like you. this song reconnected me with the feeling of having a rich spirit in the past but rather than try and spread the wealth, it's time to focus on pouring that energy back into me and mine. 2193 days since [redacted] happened. the worst day of my life, a trauma i can’t change but a personal pain that i tried to pretend didn’t shatter me to my core. i needed my spirit with me but i gave it all away. not anymore. thanks kendrick for putting it over a beat.
stand out lyric: ayy, bitch, i'm attractive (ah) can't fuck with you no more, i'm fastin'*, ugh (ooh) 🎶
*true story, i told shorty something similar to this once right before ramadan and she thought i was lying. between kendrick and ramy, i hope she found google and some goddamn sense. tryna keep it transparent and honest.
we cry together ft. taylour paige
why is this track ‘fences’ for hood niggas????? lmaoooooooo. definitely a scarin the hoes type track to play anywhere but in your headphones but an interesting reality to play with in a fight between a heterosexual couple. this sounded like a fight i heard in crown heights on the street sheeeesh. again, two unhealed people who need to work through it who end up just fucking the pain away…temporarily. the pain still there, the pressure just dipped, and all the low blows and false equivalences still echoing (*logic voice* who can relate?) also something i wanna explore in ace (someone buy this joint from me, on god, stop playing with me).
taylour paige went nuts on this and it was smart of kendrick to get an actor to do this rather than a rapper. this track being the part of a conversation about kendrick’s relationship to lust and sex is very interesting and as someone who dated someone who wanted fuck their way out of a fight but couldn’t because of my asexuality, i find this track hilarious. but man if i want to hear this again i’m just gonna go somewhere in bed-stuy and post up; a fight like this happens every 2 hours. brutal, visceral, real, at times funny, petty all the way through, no notes.
stand out lyrics: this is what the world sounds like and stop tapdancing around the conversation 🎶
purple hearts ft. summer walker & ghostface killah
this one sounds like a muted track i’d hear at a black bbq; that’s not slander, i love the production. i love the theme of letting love guide you and i think, honestly, love, lust, and self-soothing/centering behavior get interchanged in the cultural conversation a lot so for the track to talk about what love is from all these perspectives is interesting; imperfect, forgiving, open-hearted, patient, and a mix of self-love and love for each other. as an ace person, love, romance, attachment, and willingness to take your partner as they are is much more important to me than the lust element but, that being said, working with your partner and communicating needs and wants without fear of rejection is necessary to have that love bloom. indifferent to sex doesn’t mean indifferent to love, remember that if you ever come across any other ace people.
stand out lyric: shut the fuck up when you hear love talkin'🎶
disc one overview:
kendrick don’t miss. i needed this album. i’m happy to hear this pov and i won’t lie, i ran it back 6 times on the release date and about 5 more times since. it’s about time for these intracommunal conversations and maybe it’s not perfect but if you’re looking for perfect healing, growth, and change, you’re just setting yourself up for disappointment.
i feel like in a highly commodified capitalist view of “self-love” and “self-care,” where the systemic issues that cause this anxiety, confusing material richness with desirability, and low self-esteem (especially amongst people of color) are considered individual issues as opposed to trauma responses, projections, and reflections to a fractured and obfuscated community prescribed love. we need each other, we do. when we “work on ourselves” in isolation, it becomes work work; unnecessarily painful, lonely, and emotional prison of our own making. when we work on ourselves together and build the future we want to inhabit together, that’s love. don’t confuse extreme toxic co-dependency with healthy interdependency. communities rely on each other, we have to build a new world built on love, trust, and accountability, fully feeling our emotions without resorting to the yelling from “we cry together,” the toxic male patterns listed in “father time” and embrace that we have time to grow, get our demons and traumas straight.
grief, pain, trauma, and vulnerability are hard to shoulder alone and a lot of men (and women and gnc people) don’t have the toolkit for emotional intelligence due to their socialization and forced conformity to traditional masculine patterns.
let the uniting fact that we are all grieving, unpacking, unlearning, and reeducating and trying to grow be liberating and not shameful. be curious, nonjudgemental, take the time to do what you need to do for you but never alone. go outside, touch some goddamn grass. text your friend. light a candle. play a game. make your reality one anyone would want to live in and have the love in your heart to invite the right ones in.
i write this section to you as much as i write it as a love letter to an earlier version of me and the present and future versions of me.
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lemme run this joint back and come back with part 2 this week 🤝