A floor lamp, a lounge chair, a piano. What appears to be the set of a modern play about psychoanalysis is the beginning of Kendrick Lamar’s concert. Although “concert” isn’t quite enough to describe this total work of art – this combination of hip-hop show and modern dance, of video art, performance art and blockbuster pop. It’s an experience, an experience. A spectacle.
It’s the tour for his new album “Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers,” an introspective album that hardly lends itself to places like the Mercedes-Benz Arena, where Lamar is performing this Tuesday night. But he confidently makes this new album the center of his show, beginning with the first song on the record, ending with the last, giving it plenty of space. In these songs he shows himself as a doubter, a broken man who needs (and accepts) help, who is inside out. The voice of a therapist, spoken by Helen Mirren, forms the narrative leitmotif.
This vibe is hard to reconcile with, say, the heavy trap of previous album “DAMN”. So there are definitely some abrupt changes, some sudden dynamic reversals that don’t quite work out. At the same time, he succeeds in brilliant moments, such as when a piano interlude from the new album flows effortlessly into the all-burning piano figure of the smash hit “Humble”. Fantastic!
“The Greatest Show On Earth”
“You could be anywhere in the world,” he says at one point, in one of the very few announcements. “But you’re right here. At the greatest show on earth.” He doesn’t do it below that. The magnitude of his ambition is remarkable. It is astounding that his skills can withstand this ambition.
“The Greatest Show On Earth,” that’s an old-fashioned term, that’s the language of vaudeville and traveling circuses, and Lamar comes on stage early in the concert with a ventriloquist dummy dressed and coiffed like himself. He is an entertainer and, in the unironic tradition of American entertainment, seems to want to amaze his audience above all else.
How masterfully he uses the space of this large hall: A catwalk leads from the main stage far into the middle of the interior and ends in a B-Stage. Luminous squares float from the stage ceiling and reduce the space. At one point, a Corona test tent (!) levitates from the ceiling, enclosing Kendrick and then performing in it, surrounded by four dancers in protective gear.
hits and introspection
He is aware that his new songs don’t have the energy of his hits. He places many of his best-known tracks early in the set – “Backseat Freestyle”, “Humble”, “King Kunta” -, raising the temperature and focusing attention on the more introspective passages. It’s a bit of a shame that he hardly plays anything from “To Pimp a Butterfly” and nothing from his first album “Section.80”. But, of course, he must limit himself, must make a selection from his now considerable body of work, and his selection – the clear focus on “Mr. Morale”, with sporadic adrenaline injections from “good kid, mAAd city” and “DAMN” – is a very good one.
“I can’t please everybody” is the mantra of the new song “Crown”, which he plays as one of the last. “I can’t please everyone.” A sentence from a therapy session, a realization, an admission. And yet – as an artist, as a performer, as an entertainer – he pleases everyone. “I am not your savior”, the last sentence. But: when he moves across the stage, the ground on which he walks lights up.