Kendrick Lamar’s Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers wins the Grammy Award for Best Rap Album at the 2023 awards.
The album debut at No. 1. on the Billboard 200 albums chart after selling 295,500 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. for the week ending May 19, 2022 according to Luminate — at the time it was the largest week of the year any album. The album became the first hip hop album of 2022 to reach one billion streams on Spotify.
The first week sales units include 35.5k from pure sales & 343 million on-demand streamMr. Morale & The Big Steppers took inspiration from RZA’s Bobby Digital track “Domestic Violence.”. The single “We Cry Together featuring Taylour Paige immediately became a social media talking point as one of the most relatable songs on the album that explains the plight of the black men and women all over the world.
Lamar’s long time partner Whitney Alford is credited as a narrator/writer for “We Cry Together,” which has a Florence Welch and the Machine sample on the intro.
The verbal back and forth with Paige whose convincing performance is also award worthy.
“See, you the reason why strong women fucked up,” Paige screams in rap rage. “Why they say it’s a man’s world, see, you the reason for Trump / You the reason we overlooked, underpaid, under-booked, under shame.”
Paige blames him for the abuses in the entertainment industry, “You the reason Harvey Weinstein had to see his conclusion / You the reason R. Kelly can’t recognize that he’s abusive.”
Lamar fires back, “Man, shut the fuck up, we all know you still playin’ his music / Said I’m tired of these emotional-ass, ungrateful-ass bitches / Fake innocent, fake feminist, stop pretendin’ / Y’all sentiments ain’t realer than what you defendin’.”
Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers also gets high marks for the feature performances from legends like Ghostface Killah, Kodak Black, Blxst, Sampha, singers like Summer Walker and all interludes with Eckhart Tolle and Lil Wayne.
Mr. Morale and Big Steppers received eight nominations going into the Grammy awards including Album of the Year, Song of the Year and Record of the Year. Lamar became the first artist in any genre to be nominated for Album of the Year with four consecutive lead studio albums since Billy Joel (1979–1983.
Earlier on Sunday Lamar won “Best Rap Song” for his writing credit on “The Heart Part 5”.
