FEATURE:
My Favourite Singles of 2022 (So Far)
Five: Kendrick Lamar – The Heart Part 5
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MAYBE an obvious choice…
for my fifth-placed single of 2022, I have been swept away and mesmerised by Kendrick Lamar’s latest album, Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers. It is one of the finest albums of this year. The Heart Part 5 is part of the digital release of the album, but it is really a standalone single. I love the song and it is up there with the best of this year. Many people might not have heard of Kendrick Lamar or might not have checked him out since his 2015 masterpiece, To Pimp a Butterfly. The Heart Part 5 was a song released to anticipate the new album. Released as a single on 8th May, it is unusual that a single garners so many reviews and attention. It happens most with huge artists, and Beyoncé was another star who got that same attention and love when she put out BREAK MY SOUL from RENAISSANCE. I actually want to bring in a few other reviews. Normally, when I review a song, I do not quote other people’s words, as it sort of takes away from my views and, essentially, a review should be about what I think. In this case, I am not reviewing Kendrick Lamar’s The Heart Part 5. One of the best singles of this year, it makes my top five. I want to start with a bit of NME’s review of one of the most mature and observational singles from a Hip-Hop legend and pioneer:
“When it comes to the art of masterful and vivid storytelling, no-one is slicker than the incredible rap juggernaut Kendrick Lamar. Throughout his rap tenure, the 34-year-old has always been revolutionary with the way he regenerates musically. His peers may strive to become the best lyricists around, but Kendrick has always done that and more year on year. Now, with his first solo single in five years, Kenny’s comeback single full of heart as he observes the world around him.
As seen in the announcement of Lamar’s fifth album, the imminent ‘Mr Morale & The Big Steppers’, and confirmed in this first single’s music video, ‘The Heart 5’ introduces us to Kendrick’s newest persona, Oklama. There are many theories about the name, including that is a play on Barack Obama’s name. On ‘The Heart Part 5’, this seems to be the best definition. Over the Marvin Gaye-sampling track, Oklama plays with the original sentiment of Gaye’s disco-y Motown crossover track ‘I Want You’, where – instead of a lover – he wants his “hood to want [him] back”.
In essence, Lamar’s comeback takes a political stance, which is similar to his second album ‘To Pimp A Butterfly’ — hence the reference Obama, who was in the White House when it was released. Like the 44th president, Kendrick is an emotive speaker and ‘The Heart Part 5’ finds him trying to get his crime-riddled neighbourhood to change: “In the land where hurt people hurt more people / Fuck callin’ it culture”.
A song that caused a wave of excitement and conversation on social media, I was looking forward to a new album from Kendrick Lamar. A big fan of his previous album, DAMN. (2017), it was great receiving a taste of his latest work back in May. Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers came out on 13th May. Everything Kendrick Lamar puts out is so interesting, powerful and impressive. He is one of the all-time greats. Pitchfork provided their take on the staggering The Heart Part 5:
“When Kendrick Lamar dropped the first volume of his “The Heart” single series in 2010, he declared himself “just a lil’ nigga from Compton.” This was one year before the release of his 2011 breakout album Section.80, yet he was already comparing himself to rap legends with a fire and urgency that implied his fate among hip-hop gods was already sealed. Twelve years later, his respect within the industry is unparalleled and he’s the first and so far only rapper ever to win a Pulitzer Prize. But gold can’t erase the bloodstains of the past, a fact that Lamar openly grapples with on his latest single “The Heart Part 5.”
Each new installment in “The Heart” series is a status update, a palate cleanser to prepare for whatever direction Lamar is heading next. “Part 5” has slightly more meta tendencies than usual. “As I get a little older, I realize life is perspective,” Lamar mutters over funky piano stabs and shuffling hand drums sampled from Marvin Gaye’s “I Want You.” His perspective swings from harrowing tales of the street-to-prison cycle to society’s tendency to numb pain with drugs to his memories of performing in Argentina on the night of late California rapper Nipsey Hussle’s death. During the third verse, Lamar speaks from Nipsey’s perspective, positing what he might’ve thought at the moment he was shot and telling his family and his brother, Black Sam, that he’s watching over them. It’s a powerful and haunting moment.
The themes and lyrics are dense and complex even by Kendrick standards, and the song’s accompanying video adds even more layers. From its second verse on, Lamar’s face morphs into deepfakes—created by a company founded by South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker—of different Black celebrities of varying degrees of notoriety: O.J. Simpson, Ye, Jussie Smollett, Will Smith, Kobe Bryant, and Nipsey. The convincingness of the deepfakes is mixed, to say the least, but they amplify Lamar’s words and serve to visualize a complicated lineage through Blackness and the pressures of celebrity (Ye on “Friends bipolar, grab you by your pockets,” Smollett on “The streets got me fucked up,” etc.)”.
I do want to source from The Guardian for the last critical review of Kendrick Lamar’s The Heart Part 5. It is a song that amazed so many people. Right up there with his very best work, you wonder whether he will ever drop a step. I don’t think that he ever will! Such a spectacular artist, The Heart Part 5 is a single from this year that sits alongside the very best:
“Lamar’s intense care for his people scales up even further in the heartstopping final verse. In the music video, he morphs into “deepfake” versions of oft-criticised Black celebrities including Kanye West, Jussie Smollett, OJ Simpson and Will Smith, a visual expression of Lamar’s determined empathy. During this final verse, he appears as Nipsey Hussle, the LA rapper who was shot and killed in 2019. Lamar refers to his grief over his death earlier in the track, and a line, “Sam, I’ll be watching over you”, seems to refer to Hussle’s older brother. This verse, then, is voiced from the perspective of the late Hussle, asserting that he is in heaven, forgiving his killer and speaking with satisfaction about what he achieved when he was alive. Some may find this emotionally manipulative or unethical, but Lamar has often expressed admiration for Hussle in the past and the verse feels true to an artist who was devoted to uplifting his community through regeneration projects and business opportunities.“You can’t help the world until you help yourself,” Lamar says as Hussle, and this is ultimately Lamar’s credo. Some will say he puts too much impetus on the Black community to do the work of governments and institutions – can you always help yourself before the world helps you? But as Lamar continues to document, you are a product of your environment, and the US, for better and more often for worse, has that mantra of self-actualisation at its core (he is also likely informed by the understandable lack of faith the Black community has in institutions to have their interests at heart).
Amid the song’s ambiguities, Lamar’s own love for his community is never in doubt. The backing track reworks I Want You, perhaps Marvin Gaye’s most purely erotic song – where the emphasis is just as much on the wanting itself as it is the particular person. In that desire, Lamar divines Gaye’s innate social conscience, changing the title line from one of lust to one of hope, using the urgent disco rhythm to perfectly impart the seriousness of his feeling. “I want you,” Lamar says as the track’s final line, a statement of pure fraternal need. And perhaps encouragement – there are endless implied words that come next. Back on the first part of the Heart series in 2010, he said, “I make a way for my people to see the light,” and that remains his mission”.
In a year that has provided so many remarkable and different singles, there was no doubt that Kendrick Lamar’s The Heart Part 5 would make the top five. In the next part, I am going to combine my sixth-placed choice and take it down to number ten. I wanted to spotlight the top five and give them their own space. Days after releasing The Heart Part 5, Lamar released the immense and unforgettable Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers. It was proof that he is a modern-day pioneer and…
A Hip-Hop master.