Kendrick Lamar has never been shy about chronicling the environment he was raised in. Through each of his releases, he’s gone to great lengths to paint scenes of his childhood and teenage years, conveying how the chaos of growing up in Compton informed every decision he’s ever made. On songs like “Hood Politics,” “Fear.,” and “The Art of Peer Pressure,” Lamar merged this personal storytelling with a carnival barker’s disposition, shouting to ensure that each moment from his personal history was heard.
That blatant intensity, which Lamar often raps with, is nowhere to be found on “Mother I Sober.” The penultimate track of Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers and the final installment of his TDE career lacks the fury present throughout the rest of the album. In its place, Lamar inserts a soft-spoken whisper, using this tone to unpack a mountain of generational trauma in nearly seven minutes. “My mother’s mother followed me for years in her afterlife/Starin’ at me on back of some buses, I wake up at night,” Lamar murmurs over a piano playing a simple yet somber progression. He’s unable to process the pain of his family’s history alone, so he lays it all out, hoping that somebody else will latch onto his whispers. And right when he stops rapping, the voice of Portishead’s Beth Gibbons floats in: “I wish I was somebody/Anybody but myself,” she tenderly sings, a neat encapsulation of how Lamar may really feel.
As string compositions kick in and background vocals rise in intensity, Lamar’s voice remains downtrodden, creating a foil through the melancholic register that persists with painful memories. He raps about his mother’s sexual assault, the lingering image of her bruised face, the violent retribution carried out by his uncle that begat its own traumas: “Till this day can’t look her in the eyes, pain is takin’ over/Blame myself, you never felt guilt till you felt it sober.” The constant threat of familial violence, the oscillations between shame and pride in getting sober, and, on top of all this, the inability to escape the collective trauma that Black Americans hold within themselves: It’s all on display. It’s a window into the source of Lamar’s insecurities and faults, both in his relationships and his self-worth. He’s not begging to be heard; it’s just that you’re only going to understand if you care to pay attention.
At the end, Lamar’s decibel level finally rises, crescendoing as he and the project reach an emotional climax. “This is transformation,” he shouts, as his journey through navigating his family’s trauma meets its natural end. After Gibbons’ voice fades out a final time, two voices appear: Lamar’s partner Whitney Alford and their daughter. “You broke a generational curse,” Alford says, followed by their daughter thanking them both. In one swift moment, Lamar shows what disrupting the cycle that molded him has finally led to, the biggest victory for the rapper to date.
