Eminem listened to Kendrick Lamar’s fifth studio album, ‘Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers’, and shouted the rapper’s colossal effort.
Em took to Twitter to share his thoughts, tagging Dr Dre – who served as a mentor to Eminem and Lamar. “This Kendrick album is f****** ridiculous,” Eminem wrote. “I am speechless.”
Eminem’s comments come months after he and Lamar performed onstage together as part of this year’s Super Bowl LVI halftime show in February, alongside Dre, Snoop Dogg and Mary J. Blige .
Yo @Dr. Dr this Kendrick album is f****** ridiculous. I am speechless.
—Marshall Mathers (@Eminem) May 15, 2022
Lamar has spoken about Eminem’s influence on him as an artist. It’s something that can be heard on some of Lamar’s more aggressive vocal performances, like the third verse on “Backstreet Freestyle” from 2012’s “Good Kid, MAAD City.”
In 2016, during an interview with QG, Lamar explained how Eminem’s approach to language shaped him. “I got my clarity studying Eminem as a kid. How I got to the studio was just curiosity. I had a love for music, but it was curiosity,” said Lamar to publication.
“The day I heard The Marshall Mathers LP, I said to myself, how does it work? What is he doing? How does he articulate his words like that? What is the track below? An ad lib? What is that? Besides, why don’t you go to the studio and see? So I do this.
“Then it became, how do his words cut the beat like that? What is he doing that I’m not doing, now that I’m in? His time is impeccable. When he wants to get off the beat , it’s impeccable. These are things that with experience and time, I had to learn.
‘M. Morale & The Big Steppers’ arrived last Friday (May 13) without any prior singles (except for the non-album track ‘The Heart Part 5’.) The sequel to 2017’s ‘DAMN’ is a double album of 18 tracks which features Beth Gibbons of Portishead, Ghostface Killah, Sampha, Baby Keem and actress Taylour Paige.
In a five-star review, NME called ‘Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers’ a ‘cathartic and heartbreaking autobiography’ which ‘offers vignettes of what it’s like to be a black adult whose trauma still haunts them’.
“By baring his soul, he hopes we realize how we can also free ourselves from generational curses. This album is as much about struggle as it is about freedom, and what a beautiful feeling that is.
Lamar will take ‘Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers’ on a world tour this year. The global race kicks off with a North American leg in July, continues through August and September before heading to Europe and the UK in October and November. It will conclude in December with a series of dates in Australia and New Zealand.