Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers

Released May 13, 2022 via pgLang, Top Dawg Entertainment, Aftermath and Interscope, Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers is a double album in two halves, eighteen tracks and a little over seventy-three minutes, with Lamar credited as executive producer under the name Oklama. The CD followed on May 27. He spends it confessing: to cheating, to the trauma he inherited from his parents, to how tired he is of being treated as anyone's saviour. Sounwave, J. Lbs, DJ Dahi and Bekon handle most of the production, with The Alchemist and Pharrell among the others, mostly piano, soul and jazz with the drums pulled low.

"N95" and "Silent Hill" were the hard-edged singles. "We Cry Together" with Taylour Paige plays out as a full-blown argument between a couple, and "Auntie Diaries" tells the stories of his uncle, who came out as a trans man when Lamar was a boy, and his cousin Mary-Ann, who transitioned as an adult; he owns up to the slurs he used to throw around, and ends the song turning on the church that turned her away. Beth Gibbons sings on "Mother I Sober," her most prominent appearance since Portishead's Third, over a piano as Lamar traces his mother's fear and his own infidelity back to the same source. Sampha, Summer Walker, Ghostface Killah and Baby Keem also appear.

It debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, his fourth album to do so, and drew eight Grammy nominations, including Album of the Year.

CD album, new and sealed.