‘Oh, Kendrick Lamar’ - the refrain echoed around Manchester’s arena with dizzying force. It might have been an all-too-familiar adaptation of the football ground theme tune, Seven Nation Army, but as the chant was welcomed by an artist reinforcing that he is one for the ages, it was difficult to come up with anything else to say.
I’ll give it a go, though.
Kendrick Lamar took to the AO Arena stage on Wednesday night (November 16) for the final performance of European leg of The Big Steppers Tour. Before a near-sold out arena, Kendrick performed the duality that has characterised his career.
The rapper’s last era saw the production of the album Damn. A record dominated by inner and outer conflict, a man at odds with his culture, his country, and himself.
Through the highs and lows of global success, Kendrick demanded of himself that he remain Humble in one of the most critically acclaimed tracks of 2017 of the same name. Yet, he was yearning for more as he searched for Loyalty and Love in similarly eponymous tracks.
This year, he released Mr Morale and the Big Steppers - opened by the line 'I've been going through something, 1,855 days'. The album became a marked shift to a meaningful attempt to resolve some of those long-running questions, and seek as permanent a kind of peace as a man in endless conflict can get. It charted a seismic evolution from childhood to touring rapper to father of two children; it charted a voyage back into his past to right some of the wrongs of his own upbringing, along with a promise to not let history repeat itself.
And washed with white light, featuring next to nothing but a bed and a piano, the simple staging for his latest tour suggested that he has succeeded in his efforts to strip bare the bravado that comes with the fame of an almost entirely Grammy-nominated body of work.
That freedom became thrilling as the crowd filled the arena with chants of ‘this is me and I’m blessed’ from the track Count Me Out , revelled when we could finally unleash ‘ B**** Don’t Kill My Vibe’ , and yelled the words to United in Grief and Alright after a traumatic couple of years derailed by the pandemic.
Kendrick kept our eyes fixed on him as he peeled back the layers to expose that newfound lightness, often cutting a notably singular figure on stage without the backing of band members. Those moments were regularly fleeting, though, as the maestro oscillated to pyrotechnic and machismo-filled renditions of tracks like Humble and Rich Spirit .
A faceless narrator which has followed us through his performance comes over the speakers, ‘Manchester, are you entertained?’ Kendrick is striding on his podiums as a contemporary gladiator, loved and praised but all too aware that he could see his demise.
The dichotomy showed off someone who feels deeply rooted in a very personal, political version of rap versus someone who has become commercially bigger than life the world over. As he says himself, he’s ‘still an old school Gemini’ at heart.
As a statuesque Kendrick stood and courted his enraptured audience, it's impossible to think that he isn’t aware of exactly what he’s presenting at all times. Just as he donned a diamond crown of thorns during his transcendent Glastonbury performance this summer, he's telling us that there's always a sting in the tail.
Shadows on a white backdrop showed Kendrick being shot by arrows, militaristically-uniformed dancers surrounded him, and an eerie, Kendrick-imitation puppet remained propped up on top of the piano. Motifs pointing to the feeling that is so evident in his music, that he fears he will always be buffeted and controlled by forces beyond his grasp.
Really, if anyone was a puppet it was us. Completely hypnotised by Kendrick's considered, slight movements, every single person was chanting their hearts out before Kendrick's altar. I was knackered by the end.
For the number of times he’s referenced a feeling of isolation wrought by fame, he’s showing himself breaking free from a different kind of isolation - in this case, a plastic box on stage filled with laboratory workers for an enforced Covid test. If you've seen the 'Kendrick's in a box' TikToks, this was it.
For his documented attempts to beat back the long shadow of gang warfare which he and his peers have grown up in, he’s bringing out his cousin Baby Keem to join him for a rendition of their track Family Ties . Tending loving bonds in the next generation of rap artists in a genre tarnished by feuds.
A black man from Compton, with all that it entails, is laying himself bare in front of thousands each night while boldly talking about grief, transgender loved ones, what it means to be doubtful but to love anyway, and breaking free from a prison of his mind. Kendrick’s prescient honesty is profoundly moving and will be his legacy, pushing forward not only his art form, but the culture at large.
Still, never far away is the voice that haunts him. At the close of the two-hour show, as he finished repeating ‘I can’t please everybody’ from his track Crown , the narrator spoke again.
She questioned Kendrick, ‘you made it out of the box, but can you stay out?’ The next challenge for an artist at the peak of his creativity and personal growth to date.
Simple yet so effective, the Big Steppers tour is proof of life for Kendrick Lamar - it is a truthful vision of the strides he’s made, as complicated as they come. And it’s all realised on stage in bright, cleansing light.
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