notes on: Set It Off

MEDIUM: Film 

GENRE: Action/Crime Thriller

STUDIO: New Line Cinema 

DIRECTOR: F. Gary Gray

CAST: Jada Pinkett Smith, Queen Latifah, Vivica A. Fox, Kimberly Elise, Blair Underwood, Dr. Dre

RELEASE YEAR: 1996

F. Gary Gray’s Set It Off is a hood classic and needs no introduction but I’ll set the stage. Set It Off is Gray’s second feature film and follow-up to the equally classic Friday. The film centers four black women- Frankie played by Vivica A. Fox, Stony played by Jada Pinkett Smith, Cleo played by Queen Latifah, and Tisean played by Kimberly Elise- up against the wind; namely the socioeconomic pressures of growing up in the LA projects as black women. Eventually these women tire of their circumstances and seek escape through a series of high profile bank robberies. What should be a simple high-octane 90s inner city action romp is instead a tender and heartbreaking meditation on black sisterhood, feminism, afropessimism, womanism, localized tragedy, captive maternals, capitalism, and the christological story. Agape meets escape. 

The film’s opening scene follows Frankie. She works at a bank and a man she knows from around the way named Darnell is robbing it. Darnell is unassuming at first but Frankie quickly realizes the danger when he threatens her with his loaded gun. Instead of following procedure (pull money clip from right hand drawer, signal with left hand) Frankie begs Darnell to change his mind- an important and lasting example of attempted solidarity. Darnell refutes Frankie’s solidarity and proceeds with the robbery, which turns into a bloody affair. This is the first time in the movie that a black woman is failed by a black man. The robbery is “successful” and Darnell along with his accomplice Lorenz make off with a lot of money. Frankie is questioned by the LAPD’s Detective Stroud and fired because she knew the robbers and didn’t follow the aforementioned procedure. A jaded and increasingly hysterical Frankie laments the bank owners for their disloyalty and even cites her own loyalty (counted 240,000 dollars by hand for them the day before). None of it matters, Frankie is out of a job despite being the victim of a harsh and traumatizing violent crime. On the way out she makes note of more unfulfilled solidarity, this time in the form of the black female police officer, Detective Waller (played by Ella Joyce), neglecting to “bother to ask if I was thirsty sister.” 

Frankie broke the procedure out of fear and empathy but also due to an assumed camaraderie between herself and those who came from a similar background. This failure of this assumed camaraderie is a driving force for her character throughout the remainder of the film. 

From there we are introduced to the rest of the central characters at Stevie's graduation party. Stevie (played by Chez Lamar Shepherd) is Stony’s little brother but essentially her son as well. They’re orphaned due to a car crash that occurred a few years earlier. The mood is light and everyone is costumed. Cleo and Tisean help Stony ruin her little brother’s groove with the ladies, Stevie is smart and handsome and capable. It’s a good time, she’s a good sister and a good mother- even if it was a role forced on her by circumstance. Immediately we’re shown the personalities and states of our characters: Cleo’s rambunctious, vociferous, and volatile. Stony’s responsible, gritty, and street smart. Tisean is timid, loyal, and a single mother. Frankie’s vengeful, mad at the world, and ready to do something about it. It is also here that we can see Stony’s rearing of Stevie was a communal effort. These women are there for her. 

Even at times of celebration there is cause for hesitation. Stevie appears to be stressed out and after some prodding from Stony, he reveals that he did not receive a scholarship from UCLA to become the “college boy” they were so proud of him for becoming. Stevie suggests just getting a job and sticking around the hood but Stony is quick to shut that idea down, stating that she’ll find a way to come up with the money. How Stony is to go about doing this isn't clear. She works a shitty nighttime janitor job for Luther’s Janitorial Service with an overbearing and disrespectful boss (Luther, played by Thomas Jefferson Byrd) along with Tisean, Cleo, and suddenly Frankie too. Essentially, the film has demonstrated that she and everyone she cares for are stuck in a loop of poverty and violence with no escape. Rather than engage in the self-destructive activities that often malign people in the same circumstances as them, they built a community and decided to be there for each other. They’re firm exemplars of  “captive maternals.” 

Joy James defines a captive maternal in In Pursuit of Revolutionary Love: Precarity, Power, Communities as such: 

an ungendered function that cares for children and elders to keep them stable and protected. Often its labor is used to stabilize the very structures that prey on Black lives and honor in schools, hospitals, jobs, and prisons. Generative powers stolen and repurposed by the state and capital for accumulation can also be stolen back for rebellions. 

James also states that captive maternals are “central to the reproduction of the world. Without this form of caretaking, without this form of sacrifice, without this kind of glue to social order- which is tied to the economic order and the political order, and the very notion of what is familial and the familiar in the world- we see that things do not function” (page 118). From here, we can recall the people in our own lives that were forced by circumstance into motherlike roles and how important they are to any continued success we may have. Stony and Tisean are captive maternals in the most literal sense but even Cleo and Frankie assume responsibility for Stevie and Jajuan (Tisean’s son) as well as for each other. 

Stony resolves to call Nate Andrews, a wealthier man in the neighborhood who’s sweet on her, and ask him for a job. He only wants one thing in return and refuses to give Stony an advance on her first check unless she has sex with him. Nate Andrews demonstrates a similar lack of solidarity that Darnell showed to Frankie and the entire exchange is unsavory. Stony relents with her brother’s education in mind and sells her body with no pleasure, tearfully. She couldn’t scrub hard enough in the shower. To make matters worse, Stevie was lying about getting into UCLA and the money was no help. He storms out of the house after he gets into a big fight with his sister. Stevie’s asylum is Lorenz’s apartment in the Acorn housing projects. 

We immediately recognize Lorenz as a rambunctious, violent, reckless, knucklehead. He has “AP” cut into the back of his head, something that made him easy to identify in the bank robbery footage. Stevie seems quite taken with Lorenz though, uneasy in his presence and seeking his approval. This dynamic makes it easy for Lorenz to pressure Stevie into getting the same haircut. The visit was friendly enough however, Stevie even leaves with a congratulatory bottle of champagne. However, unbeknownst to Stevie, the police have the apartment staked out and they surround him upon departure. Stevie needs to take the champagne from his inside jacket pocket in order to lie down flat on his stomach as they’re demanding but the pigs (police, twelve, five-oh) mistake the bottle for a weapon and open fire, killing him. Innocent, eighteen, and unarmed. 

Unarmed Black Americans are no stranger to police violence. Many Black victims of police brutality and state incompetence have been murdered by “accident” before and after the release of the film. Eleanor Bumpurs, 66-year old disabled Black woman, was shot and killed by the NYPD in 1984 while they were trying to evict her from her home. Amadou Diallo, 23-year old Guinean student, was fired upon 41 times (hit 19  times) by four NYPD officers in 1999 while reaching for his wallet. Tamir Rice, a 12-year old boy, was shot and killed by a Cleveland police officer within seconds of arriving on the scene while playing in the park in 2014. Breonna Taylor, 26-year old woman, shot and killed in her sleep after Louisville Metro Police Officers forced entry into her home and opened fire in 2020. In 1992, the city of Los Angeles burned in a series of riots after a gang of police officers got off for viciously beating Rodney King on video.  

I invoke these real life tragedies to illustrate the familiarity of the struggle and pain felt by Stony as she arrived and saw her brother’s hot blood and cold corpse lie shiftless among the glass bottle shards. This movie was made in the wake of ongoing tragedy and it is important to recognize that because Stevie’s death marked a severance of responsibility for Stevie. Nothing mattered anymore but the means of her escape from a similar fate, which seemed not just likely but promised. 

Tisean, the other mother in the group, also deals with the loss of her son. She cannot afford a sitter and is forced to take him to work with her but she is negligent and ingests some cleaning products. They rush him to the emergency room and manage to save his life but child protective services steps in and takes custody of Jajuan until she can secure a better financial situation. This is the final domino to drop and lays out the desires and motivations of the main characters out plainly. Frankie is angry and wants revenge on the banking industry, feeling as though her hard work and loyalty has gone unrewarded. Stony wants to escape her life and needs money to do so. Tisean needs more money to retain custody of her son. And Cleo is a thrill-seeker, angry about her lack of funds. 

They stake out several banks but at the biggest one, Stony meets Keith (played by Blair Underwood). He’s immediately infatuated with her and insists on getting her number, she declines but she takes his. He’s a debonair, well-off Black man and about as far from Stony’s lifestyle that she can imagine. Keith represents an alternate avenue of escape for Stony, one without personal agency. He is also the first positive example of Black male solidarity to appear in the movie. 

The second example is Black Sam (played by Dr.Dre). Dre’s portrayal is pretty wooden but he’s a roughneck hood nigga with a soft spot for Cleo, who talks him into loaning them the weapons necessary to pull off a bank robbery. It isn't completely altruistic, they promise him a cut of the loot.

Cleo appears to be a professional even on the first bank robbery. They steal a getaway car and Cleo disposes of the music selection, beginning a fun if not childish and dangerous tradition. They wear wigs and sunglasses to disguise their appearance and it goes without a hitch. Well, almost. Tisean gets cold feet and abandons them at the last second. They steal 12,000 dollars and split it four ways despite reservations (mainly from Cleo) about Tisean going awol. Giving Tisean the money despite her not partaking in the robbery is a display of Black sisterhood and further displaying the understanding that comes from shared experience. 

The money secured from the first robbery was not enough for them to really change their lives. Stony goes on a date with Keith and upon seeing his apartment, she outright divulges that she feels trapped. She sort of begins a double life or a dual identity. Stony is provided temporary exposure to escape while with Keith and he wants her to join him for good but she doesn’t truly consider him as an option. Even without Stevie, she has an obligation to Cleo, Tisean, and Frankie. The new influx of money and the dangers of being caught also challenge their allegiances and threaten to fracture their connection. Stony and Cleo argue and point weapons at each other and curse each other out but it’s all love. 

The conflict between the two is not just about money, it’s a battle between two opposing dispositions. Stony’s entire being is dedicated to escaping the life she’s been given in the projects while Cleo does not know escape at all. She doesn't know any future and doesn’t care. As she says, “I’m just trying to make it through today.” This defeatist and pessimistic outlook is rooted in her experience of immense loss. Her erasure as a Black homosexual femme living in the hood is out of her control and she understands that there is no way to escape what is coming for her. Joy James defines afropessimism as follows: 

lens of interpretation that accounts for civil society’s dependence on anti-black violence: a regime of violence that positions Black people as internal enemies of civil society, and which cannot be analogized with the regimes of violence that discipline non-Black workers, women, natives, queers, immigrants, etc. Afropessimism argues that the Black (or slave) is an unspoken and/or unthought sentience for whom the transformative powers of discursive capacity are foreclosed from the beginning. 

I’d be lying if I were to say I thought Cleo’s character is familiar with this term but she lives it in her everyday actions. She oscillates between hedonistic and nihilistic actions with a real madness but she’s arguably the most caring and tender of the group as well. Cleo is a woman without a future and is painted against Stony, a woman who wants one so damned bad.

Futures aren’t cheap, so they rob another bank, this time they get a lot more even if things do not go as smoothly. Cleo needs to steal an additional getaway car after some mess with the first one. Tisean doesn’t bail this time around, she even has a pretty cool crowd control moment from the ground. Oh yeah, they drive through a wall on the way out before stealing 300,000 dollars- 75,000 a piece. They formulate a plan to skip town because things are getting hot for them. LAPD, namely Detective Stroud, suspects them being urged to leave them alone (he’s partially responsible for Stevie’s murder). They hide the money in the ventilation shafts of the building they clean for Luther’s Janitorial service to be picked up at a later date. 

Stony continues her temporary escapes with Keith, who invites her for a night out at a swanky banker event. She shows up in an ugly outfit that isn't right for the occasion because she doesn’t have any fancy evening gowns. Keith takes her and buys her a really nice black evening gown. At the party she mingles with the white people and gets a taste of traditional white femininity, not captive. She is able to be delicate and be tended to and unwind and relax and just be taking care of. She’s Stony, tough as stone (lol) and nails and Keith makes her butter. It’s nice to see, but Stony knows it is temporary. “I feel free now,” she says, “But it’s not my life. I’m just borrowing pieces of yours.” They go home after the event and have hot oily soul-shaking sex as Deborah Cox’s  “What’s It Gonna Be” plays. In the morning, Stony tearfully returns to her real life with her new black dress in hand. Her life from the night before with Keith will never be forever and she knew that to be true, even if he didn’t. 

Concurrently to Stony’s escape, the others realize the hidden money had disappeared. They put two and two together and come to the conclusion that Luther stole it. After consulting Black Sam, they find him at a motel with a hooker: drugs and jewelry and new car keys on the nightstand. Cleo beats Luther and demands he tell her where their money is but he plays stupid. Cleo loses her focus and Luther gets the drop on her, pulling a gun from underneath his pillow. His gun is trained on Cleo but he forgets Tisean, who shoots and kills him, to her own astonishment. Tisean is simply protecting her sister but she drops the weapon and is almost as hysterical as the prostitute, who Cleo blackmails into silence (takes her ID card with her address on it). Cleo’s picked up by Detective Stroud the following day while walking around with her girlfriend Ursula (quiet sexy shawty, played by Samantha MacLachlan) and put in a lineup of suspects for the prostitute. The hooker remembers Cleo’s threat and does not divulge any information to the police but even still, Stony is incredulous back at the apartment as they give her the rundown. “You said we weren’t going to hurt anybody Frankie!” she cries. 

When Cleo gets back to her apartment, she displays the same toughness and urgency we’ve come to expect from her. She makes it clear that the two things they need to do is rob a third bank and “get the fuck outta here.” They make plans to rob the bank Keith works for and when Stony voices hesitation, Cleo challenges her and questions her solidarity and if she’d play them “over that buppie at the bank.” Stony, once again, chooses her obligations over her personal freedom and happiness. 

In what’s possibly the funniest scene in the movie, they dine and dash before the third bank robbery, realizing that they didn’t have enough to pay the check. Why miss heaven by two inches? 

They go through the usual motions: stolen getaway car, discarded music, disguises. But Stony calls Keith to tell him to leave the bank and their timing couldn’t have been worse. Detective Stroud and Detective Waller are showing tapes of their previous robberies to the staff. Keith does leave though, suspicious of Stony but deciding to trust her. The detectives leave too but they return after the robbery is called in on the radio. They stop our heroes just as they are about to leave. They see through the disguises and call them by their names, imploring them to surrender at gunpoint. It’s a standoff and our heroes do almost surrender but when the bank security guard shoots Tisean the moment she lowers her weapon. It’s a completely jarring moment and Stony and Cleo shift into survival mode. They carry Tisean to the getaway car and try to rush to a hospital but they’re not quick enough. 

Tisean dies in Stony’s arms in the backseat while Frankie and Cleo try to secure the new car, the first of a series of heartbreaking deaths. Tisean is saying “I’m okay, I’m okay” over and over again and when she stops speaking it’s like a heavy rock gets stacked on your chest. She was the innocent one, the kind-hearted one, the shy one, the one who was about to get custody of her back. I remember crying profusely even as a child (too young to be watching the movie) during this scene. The acting from everyone involved in the scene is superb, they all convey resignation and pain to the highest degree. I can’t say enough. 

The rest of the movie is very difficult for me and probably many other Black people. It’s painful, heartfelt, and well-made but no fun at all. I feel as though “trauma porn” is an overused term but perhaps it is a correct descriptor of what we’re given in the final act. At the same time, perhaps it ends on an optimistic note, if not a tad unrealistic. 

There is a high-speed car chase and they realize they cannot make it together. They’re trapped in a tunnel and Cleo hatches a plan to split up. She promises that they’ll meet up down the road and for them to just hold onto the money. Cleo knows this to be untrue, Stony and Frankie do as well. They embrace, tears aplenty, and disperse never to see each other again. Stony and Frankie are on foot. Cleo lights a cigarette and drives her car into a police barricade. She projects macho bravado, confidence, peace, pain, and resolute focus. She knows she has no tomorrow. And then she makes the ultimate christological sacrifice. “Up Against The Wind” plays, the perfect encapsulation of everything she’d been through up until that point. She dies indignant. This is arguably the most iconic scene of the movie and for good reason. Despite the tragedy of their deaths happening in such close succession, both losses of Cleo and Tisean resonate emotionally. 

Stony finds her way onto a tourist bus on its way to Mexico but Frankie gets caught by the same cops that murdered two of her best friends and showed no remorse as she was robbed at the beginning of the film. Detective Stroud is determined to avoid any further loss of life as the “good cop” (oh brother) but Frankie doesn’t want to hear any of that shit. She chooses death over captivity and is gunned down trying to run away after pressing her gun against Detective Stroud’s neck. Her final words were a callback to Stroud’s strict insistence on her following “procedure” during a bank robbery. Stroud sees Stony on the tourist bus but remains tight-lipped. I’m uncertain if the movie thinks we’re supposed to applaud him for that, he’d just orchestrated the murder of literally everyone she cares about. 

Stony cuts her hair in a Mexican hotel and thinks about the lost times with her sisters. She cries, it’s a mixture of happy tears and pain. “Missing You” by Brandy, Tamia, Gladys Knight, and Chaka Khan plays. It is a moment of rebirth, freedom, and finally: escape. The black dress that Keith bought her lies on the bed beside the money from the final bank robbery. She calls him and says “I am.” We understand this to mean she’s free and he does too. No other words are needed. She rides off alone into the wilderness, unbound from obligation and firmly away from captivity. 

Alice Walker has four definitions of womanist in her text, In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens. Perhaps the second one is the most apt description of our Set It Off heroes: 

A woman who loves other women, sexually and/or nonsexually. Appreciates and prefers women’s culture, women’s emotional flexibility (values tears as natural counterbalance of laughter). And women’s strength. Sometimes loves individual men, sexually and/or nonsexually. Committed to survival, except periodically, for health. 

Set It Off is about a lot of things but at its core it's about the love felt between four Black women and how they navigate it together. These women are complex, emotional, strong, vulnerable, capable, and powerful together. They’re failed by everyone in their lives to an infuriating degree. Time and time again, they’re shown to be able to rely on no one but themselves. Solidarity, even from Black men, is understood to be a dangerous expectation. This depresses me greatly, mainly because it’s not inconsistent with reality. 

I often associate Set It Off with two other movies that do not appear to have much in common with it at first glance: Waiting To Exhale (1994) and Eve’s Bayou (1997). All three of these films have Black directors and all three are about the love shared by Black women. Waiting To Exhale is about the romantic strivings of four Black women while Eve’s Bayou is about love between two sisters, their mother, and their aunt (that’s four!). A lasting impression of all three films is that Black women have nothing but themselves. It’s a sobering idea, possibly an undeniable truth. I think about who failed Stony, Cleo, Frankie, and Tisean and real life examples of black femicide come to mind. They were left to fend for themselves by the black men in their community. Even still, I have to wonder if their loss was a failure or if their marginalization is by design. I know the answer. As a Black man, I feel like I owe it to the Black women to show up for them. We carry so much experience that has welded us together along with the camaraderie of common origin. I can’t fail them. 

The final questions I have pertains to the lyric intensity and epic depth present in everyday living of a people (particularly the working class [queer] Black woman) trapped under socioeconomic pressures. Once you escape as Stony did, what is being mourned? Can you truly get away? What’s free? 

“I am.”

notes on: Frank Ocean, FYF Fest 2017

MEDIUM: MUSIC/ PERFORMANCE 

Genre: R&B

Tracks: 18 

Runtime: 75 minutes 

Favorite Tracks: “Good Guy,” “Poolside Convo/Self Control,” “Close To You,” “Thinkin Bout You,” “Nikes,” “Pink + White” 

Least Favorite Tracks: N/A 

Features: N/A but shoutout to the whole team that helped him put the show together, from the bottom of my heart. 

Ritual 

[rit·u·al  /ˈriCH(o͞o)əl/]

a series of actions or type of behavior regularly and invariably followed by someone.

On July 22, 2017; Frank Ocean performed at the FYF Festival in Los Angeles at Exposition Park only 337 days after he dropped his second studio album, Endless, and only 336 days since he dropped his third studio album, Blonde. I was not there, in fact I have no idea what I was doing while the performance was happening. This is my favorite live performance of all time. 

I graduated from college with my undergraduate degree in May 2019. In truth, it was a difficult time for me. My “girlfriend” broke up with me just a few months earlier, citing incompatibility. I was graduating without any job prospects and no direction in my career. I was suffering from post-grad depression and simply unaware of anything I was supposed to do. I felt like I went to school and failed, although I came back with a degree. I was dirt broke and moved back into my mother’s house. I got 700 dollars when I graduated: 300 dollars from my grandparents, 300 from my father and stepmother, and 100 from my auntie. I spent 300 dollars on a Google chromebook and the rest was gone after a few weeks. By the middle of June, I had less than 10 dollars in my account and no job in sight. I had just become the first of my mother’s children to graduate from college and I had never felt further from where I wanted to be. 

I spent most of those summer nights scheming for the future, scouring the internet for inspiration on my 300 dollar chromebook. One of those nights, while spiraling down the YouTube wormhole, I happened upon a video titled “Frank Ocean Full Concert FYF Fest July 22, 2017 (Front Row)” posted by Tyler Pugmire. I clicked on it, watched it. And I cried, multiple times, alone in my momma’s lamplit basement. The next morning, I woke up refreshed and a bit more equipped to take on the world. And thus, the ritual began. 

I watch this performance whenever my life is in shambles, which has happened far more times than I care to admit. I often wonder where Frank Ocean was in his life on July 22, 2017; if he felt like he was losing Christopher Breaux or if he was free and his whole life had just come together and everything was perfect for the first time ever. It was likely somewhere in the middle. Regardless of whatever the reality was on the inside, on the outside; Frank Ocean hid just below the stage behind a cloud of smoke, on the cusp of performing a set that would change my life forever. 

✰ song one: “Pretty Sweet” 

“Pretty Sweet,” albeit short, is a chilling declaration of determination and faith. Frank Ocean sings of resilience and strength with more of a warning energy than the bravado generally associated with feelings of triumph. 

Said you want to hurt me now, you can’t hurt me now. That might be what you need. 

His warnings build to a choir of children singing a melancholy melody of sugar and sweets, perhaps in direct reference to either Frank Ocean’s sexuality or a simple taunt towards his enemies. Frank Ocean does not perform this song, it plays as a preamble for the concert. While “Pretty Sweet” is the 11th track of Blonde, it is his first track on the second half of the album, which begins after the beat switch on “Nights.” He emerges from the smoke, shrouded in darkness. As he advances closer and closer to the edge of the stage, we can make out more of his figure. He’s wearing a white Nike “Instant Karma” tee, blue cargo pants, sneakers, and large headphones on his head for isolating his vocals. He jumps into the second song. 

✰ song two: “Solo”  

“Solo” is perfect as an energizer. The opening instrumental theme to the song is more restrained in the live performance. The vocals begin immediately in the studio version but Frank lets the music go alone for a while on stage. The humming beat feels similar to the ones used for the skits in Blonde serves as a lobby for Frank Ocean to orient himself before the crowd. This makes sense because the skit, “Be Yourself,” precedes “Solo” on the album and works as the lobby. The mix of talking, singing, and soulful intonations is beautiful. The beat always makes me want to close my eyes and skate on the clouds but the desire is intensified here. 

✰ song three: “Chanel” 

“Chanel” is another upbeat jam with an essence in line with “Solo.” The braggadocious vibe of the song touches on the beauty of his sexual partners and the luxurious nature of his clothes. “Chanel” is a single and it was a newer track at the time, it was released in March of that year. It feels really good to sing along to. 

✰ song four: “Lens” 

Frank slows it down considerably with “Lens,” which he prefaces as new shit. “Lens” is also a single and premiered on Blonded Radio in April 2017. I am not sure anyone embodies longing and nostalgia in their lyrics as well as Frank Ocean does so it is no surprise that this song makes me yearn for moments long gone. 

Despite our history

Somewhere in your nights you're stuck when you think of me

✰ song five: “Biking (Solo)” 

The show picks back up with “Biking,” a song about being steady and on the go and grabbing life by what it gives you. “Biking” also premiered on Blonded Radio earlier that year and is the third and final single Frank performs in this set. The sanguine lyrics and cherubic melody bubbles to a crescendo and the crowd reaches mass hysteria as the Frank screams: 

Got, got me fucked up

Got a million dollar bike

Got a million dollar bike

Got, got me fucked up

Got me fucked up, up

✰ song six: “Hublots” 

A small portion of “Hublots” plays as a transition between songs and gives Frank Ocean a chance to catch his breath after the vocally demanding screaming at the end of “Biking.” He does not sing along. “Hublots” is the first of three songs from Endless to make an appearance in this performance. 

✰ song seven: “Comme Des Garcons” 

“Comme Des Garcons” is a luxury fashion brand and the phrase translates to meaning “like boys.” It is a nice nod to both his opulent lifestyle and his sexuality. The song is fun and more rap than Frank Ocean’s usual R&B. I always feel cool when I listen to “Comme Des Garcons” and it is definitely one of his catchier songs.  

Feelings come, feelings go

Feelings come, feelings go

✰ song eight: “Good Guy” 

The album version of “Good Guy” is 1 minute and five seconds long (only 52 seconds without the skit). Frank Ocean’s performance of “Good Guy” at the 2017 FYF Fest takes over ten minutes and it is a glorious display of revision, dedication, improvement, and emotional verbosity. Blonde samples Buddy Ross’s piano on “Running Around” for skits and an extended version of the sample murmurs while Frank Ocean gathers his emotional bearings for the song. He wails over the beat, adding flourishes where he feels they should be. But he fails to meet his standards, vocally. The first time was beautiful to me but I can feel the charge of energy he pulls into the second version. His voice hits my ear like a tsunami, drowning in pain. His timing is better and his notes are clearer. He didn’t rob himself of an emotional release by being afraid to correct himself in front of thousands of people. The biggest lyrical departure from the studio version is the final line, where he says: 

I know you don’t need me right now, 

And to you, it's just a late night out 

In this live version, he says: 

And to you it’s just, and to you it’s just, 

And to you it’s just a late night out, 

And to you it’s just, oh, to you it’s just, 

yeah to you it’s just a… yeah to you it’s just a…

This is my favorite moment of the entire show. I have often carried the burden of caring more about the moment than whoever I’m with and the realization that a memory would take up more space in your heart than it ever could in someone else’s hurts. To me it’s everything, to them it’s just a late night out. This is the curse of a lover. I cry, pretty much every time.

Frank says, “I think that was better” as the music ends. Yeah Frank, me too. 

✰ song nine: “Poolside Convo/ Self Control” 

“Poolside Convo” is a rap song and a recollection of advice he got from his grandmother growing up. Frank Ocean never released it to any streaming platforms but direct references are made to it throughout Blonde. “Poolside Convo” is the intro to “Self Control” and the rap leads directly into the opening lyrics. “Self Control” is one of the more wistful songs on the album and it completely shines through here. The song is very childish and I mean that in the best way. The love that Frank Ocean describes is innocent and naive and it’s hard because it doesn’t know enough to be soft. This is heartbreaking in a way because “Self Control” acknowledges a death of that soft love. The bridge on the album version of the song is an imperceptible yet gorgeous melody of distorted vocals made to sound like a guitar. But we can hear Frank Ocean loud and clear here as he says: 

Sometimes you'll miss it

And the sound will make you cry

And some nights, you're dancing

With tears in your eyes

“Self Control”’s outro is among the best in music history and it feels like a goodbye to the love you knew as a child, in this live rendition even moreso. There is a hidden message in the lyrics. 

I (3x) know you gotta leave (3x), 

take down some summertime, 

give up, just tonight, night, night. 

I (3x) know you got someone coming, 

spitting game, know you got it. 

If you select the words he says three times, you get: “I leave tonight.” He is saying goodbye to his lover and love. Absolutely stunning. 

✰ song ten: “Wither” 

“Wither” is the final song Frank Ocean performs from Endless on this set and it’s my favorite song on the album. He gives this song a bit more attention than the other songs from Endless so I’m guessing it’s his favorite as well. “Wither” reads like a prayer for a love that can stand the test of time. It’s a hopeful tune but the hope doesn’t feel tied to optimism, it feels tethered to anxiety. The lumbering piano beat paired with haunting vocals and pastoral yet elegiac lyrics leave a hollow feeling in your soul. Frank’s vocal performance is divine here. He calls it “this thing off Endless” when he finishes. 

And both our hands are filthy

Pointing up at the moon

All tonight, I’ll hold you close, close enough to bruise

Hope a garden grows where we dance this afternoon

Hope our children walk by spring, when flowers bloom

Hope they’ll get to see my color

Know that I’ve enjoyed sunshine

Pray they’ll get to see me, me wither (When I was young)

See me wither (When I was young)

✰ song eleven: “Close To You” 

Frank gives a small anecdote before singing about how his favorite song used to be “When You Were Mine” by Prince from his 1980 album, Dirty Mind. However, one late night he was going down the YouTube wormhole in one of the many hotels he lived in between Channel Orange and Blonde; and he came across Stevie Wonder’s electric rendition of “Close To You/Never Can Say Goodbye” by the Carpenters and The Jackson Five on The David Frost show. Stevie Wonder’s version of the song became his new favorite song and felt compelled to record his own cover of the song in Stevie Wonder’s style. I think the album version of this song is beautiful, especially after multiple listens, but Frank Ocean improves considerably upon it in this performance. 

His performance is accompanied by a big screen broadcast of Brad Pitt sitting near the stage on the phone, with a somber expression. Brad Pitt is shot by director Spike Jonze in his portrayal of a man at the end of love. Brad Pitt previously made it known that Blonde helped him through his divorce with Angelina Jolie and that “Close To You” is his favorite song from the album. Frank Ocean’s version performed at FYF Fest is sadder and obviously post-breakup. It paints the picture of a man in denial. It’s worth noting that The Carpenters original version of “Close To You” is a happy song of celebratory love and attraction. When paired with the Jackson 5’s desperation to hold onto love in “Never Can Say Goodbye,” it takes a completely different turn into something truly magnificent. Stevie Wonder was a genius to combine these dissonant tracks. The song maintains its magnetic and robotic feeling even as celestial waves of emotion crash from Frank Ocean and onto the LA crowd. 

✰ song twelve: “Ivy” 

I don’t have much to say about “Ivy.” Not because it doesn’t evoke the same maudlin feelings as the rest of the songs, because it does, even more so in a lot of cases. But “Ivy” feels like too much of a moment to spend any time doing anything other than experiencing it. Frank sings of dreams and that’s the best word I can come up with… dreamy. It’s beautiful on the album and it’s beautiful here. The crowd sings along but the louder noises from the other songs have seemed to chilled to a collective cooing. His vocals are fractured and heightened near the end of the song on the album but we can hear him clear as day as here: 

I been dreaming. 

The big screen broadcast has VHS effects during the performance of this “Ivy,” further suggesting that “Ivy” is a vision of a love from the past. 

✰ song thirteen: “Only You” by Steve Monite 

Frank sings a cover of “Only You” by Steve Monite for fun. It’s beautiful, fun, and funky. You can dance to it. It’s a good lift after the heavier emotional tracks. “Only You” was featured on the following episode of Blonded Radio. 

✰ song fourteen: “Thinkin Bout You” 

“Thinkin Bout You” is the only song Frank Ocean performs from his 2012 album, Channel Orange. “Thinkin Bout You” was the biggest commercial hit from the album and probably still his biggest commercial success to this day. The rendition he performed at the FYF Fest has vocals and beats interwoven throughout from the Jackson 5’s “All I Do Is Think Of You.” It almost feels like a different song. While the original is a painful reflection on the end of a connection, the sample makes “Thinkin Bout You” feel like a call to action to save what they had. I love how much confidence Frank Ocean sings this song with. It feels like he sings it knowing he can’t be fucked with. It’s so metal. 

A slowed down version of “All I Do Is Think Of You”’s chorus plays as the outro then Frank Ocean recites a poem: 

When you said your wedding vows, 

it turned out to be lies, 

shouldn’t be lies, I saw you in the 

forest weeping, you were weeping 

blowing like the dust balls in a drawer.     

✰ song fifteen: “Nights”

“Nights” is perhaps the most popular song from Blonde and also possibly the most important thematically. The famous beat switch happens exactly in the middle of the 60-minute album and cleaves it in two: the jubilant, nostalgic first half and the introspective, mournful second half. This isn't only true of the album but of the song as well. The first half of “Nights” is rap heavy and has lyrics that evoke anger, freedom, and dissociative thoughts. He’s reticent. Then comes the bridge. 

All my night, been ready for you all my night

Been waitin' on you all my night

I'll buzz you in, just let me know when you're outside

All my night, you been missin' all my night

Still got some good nights memorized

And the look back's gettin' me right

A hypnotic beat switch gives way to a slower pace. The beat switch is partnered with a chaotic light slow followed by rapid tranquility. The second half of “Nights” happens exactly one hour into his set and Frank is more open and honest about his feelings about the love he’s been missing. 

✰ song sixteen: “Pink + White” 

“Pink + White” is one of Frank Ocean’s more poetic songs. He co-produced it with Pharrell Williams and it has backup vocals from Beyonce, although she goes uncredited. Listening to “Pink + White” feels like being a lone cloud on a sunny day. It’s perfect to listen to in the car at sunset, that’s when I imagine the song came to Frank. 

You showed me love

Glory from above

Regard, my dear

It's all downhill from here

✰ song seventeen: “Futura Free” 

“Futura Free” is the final track of Blonde, Frank’s celebration of defeating both poverty and his demons. He has won at life and now he’s free. He paints a picture of the life he’s curated from the beauty and pain of his youth. He has a brand new set of fears: not being built for celebrity life, rabid fan culture, and failure to meet the expectations he’s placed on himself… amidst other fears. Still, despite it all he has given himself the space to do what he loves for a living and recognizes that he’s come a long way and he’s blessed. His last line of the album is: 

Shit went 180 on me, please run that back, though

He says it twice in his live performance at the FYF Fest then “Nikes,” the first track of Blonde begins to play. 

✰ song eighteen: “Nikes” 

“Nikes” is the opening track of Blonde and spiritual sister to “Futura Free,” the final track. The last lyrics of “Futura Free” lead directly into “Nikes” and the final key signature of “Futura Free” is in harmony with the beginning of “Nikes” which suggests that Blonde is a loop. The lyrics play on the screen as Frank sings “Nikes” like a karaoke but after the entire crowd joined him on the first verse, it kinda fell silent for a while besides Frank. Everyone just surrenders to the moment and shuts the fuck up. It was hypnotic. The final verse of “Nikes” always hits me hard. 

I may be younger, but I'll look after you

We're not in love, but I'll make love to you

When you're not here, I'll save some for you

I'm not him, but I'll mean something to you

I'll mean something to you

I'll mean something to you

Blonde is a loop that goes on forever. The feelings, somehow, last even longer than that. 

-

The final setlist breakdown of Frank Ocean’s performance at the 2017 FYF Fest: 3 singles, 3 songs from Endless, 1 song from Channel Orange, 1 Cover, and 10 songs from Blonde. Obviously a lot of favorites would be missed when your discography is as strong as Frank Ocean’s, but I wish he performed “Godspeed,” “White Ferrari,” “Lost,” “Sierra Leone,” “Pilot Jones,” and “At Your Best” although I suppose a two-hour set at a music festival would’ve been nonsensical. 

Blonde is nostalgic, a word that barely manages to capture the feeling Frank has been evoking in his fans since he first came onto the scene with Nostalgia Ultra. Blonde is a celebration of youth, vitality, and growth. When the world has defeated me, this performance forces me to feel the pain I need to stand back up. Pain is healing. As Khalil Gibran says (first introduced to me as a child as words in the mouth of Huey from The Boondocks), “Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self. Therefore, trust the physician and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility." 

Frank Ocean wrote he is “finally free” in an essay in the NY Times in an essay following the release of Blonde and Endless, perhaps the sensation I’m chasing when I watch him exorcize his pain on stage. Freedom. I have always had an idea of who I wanted to be and the more I grow up, the further away it seems at times. And at other times I feel like I can feel my “true self” breathing down my neck. Maybe I shouldn’t subscribe to a life first dreamed by a child who didn’t know anything. But that innocence and naivety is what keeps me going. I’ll never know everything and the further away I get from everything I thought I knew, the less I’m able to tell the difference between what I wanted to know and what I know now. Christopher Breaux wrote, “in my rear view mirror it’s getting small enough to convince myself it was all good. And really though, it’s still all good.” I actually find myself mainly remembering the good times from the summer of 2019, those are nights my whole life came together. 

Thank You Frank Ocean. It’s all good. 

Healing 

[heal·ing /ˈhēliNG/]

the process of making or becoming sound or healthy again.

 

5 APPLES OF 5 APPLES 

notes on: Atlanta S3 [part three]

MEDIUM: Television 

GENRE: Comedy/Drama 

STUDIO: FX 

EPISODES: 10 

FAVORITE EPISODES: “The Big Payback” “Old Man And The Tree” “Cancer Attack” “New Jazz”  

LEAST FAVORITE EPISODES: n/a

Release Year: 2022

[part three] 

EPISODE VIII: “New Jazz” 

Directed by Hiro Murai, Written by Donald Glover  

Darius and Paper Boi sit in a coffee house in Amsterdam. Paper Boi is wearing a very loud, extravagant, and eccentric hat. Darius compliments his hat.   

“Nice Hat.” 

Paper Boi pays for everything, begrudgingly, but he knew he was going to do so and that it was his responsibility now. Earn comes into the coffee house and asks  if they were still doing the thing he shouldn’t know about for “insurance purposes” and they said yes. Earn gives them spa passes and suggests that it should enhance their experience. Paper Boi and Darius leave the coffee house to embark on their thing, leaving Earn alone to work. 

They’re on their way to do drugs or as Darius calls them, “spiritual expanding apparatuses.” Paper Boi maintains that they are drugs. They aren’t doing just any drug though. They’re eating Nepalese spacecakes, an edible harvested from monks in Denmark, a synthesis of weed and Nepalese hallucinogenic honey. But no one knows for sure what is in it. Darius says they’re banned in the US and they’ll always be flawed in some way on the black market but he has found a shop in Amsterdam that sells them from internet forums. 

As they’re walking to the shop there’s a man in a Goofy hat having a bad trip, cramped into the corner, rocking back and forth. 

“Al, don’t be like him,” Darius warns. 

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Darius goes to the counter and orders a hot chocolate and a Nepalese spacecake. He doesn’t have enough money. He says he’ll wait for the universe(Paper Boi) to bring him the money. Paper Boi, annoyed, orders a hot chocolate and a Nepalese spacecake then pays for them both. The barista has a warning for Paper Boi, who seems uptight in the moment. 

Your friend seems like he has seen the other side before, but are you certain you want to do this? 

Paper Boi shrugs off his warning, irritated by the question and the assertion that he can’t handle his high. They sit down. As Paper Boi begins to dig in, Darius tells him to wait and place his Nepalese spacecake atop the mug of hot chocolate so the steam can melt the center. They wait, they eat, and the journey begins. 

Darius gives Paper Boi an iPod with pre-downloaded playlists curated to guide their highs the moment they leave the coffee house to go to the spa. Darius says he is starting to feel his high already while Paper Boi says he can’t feel any difference. They both start playing music and drift away from each other, breaking away into different worlds. 

song 33: “The Flower Called Nowhere” by Stereolab 

They both walk in an un-symbiotic trance through the streets of Amsterdam that’s broken by a dying rat. Darius tells Paper Boi he knows a shortcut after they get lost and wander through the red light district. Paper Boi is worried that he’s too famous to be caught in such a detestable and deplorable place. He runs away from Darius after a sex worker takes a picture of him. Some rowdy locals, a gang of young white guys, notice him and begin to chase him. After he evades them, the locals steal a baby from a woman in a bizarre and hilarious moment of anarchism. Paper Boi recedes into a dark room where there is a lone sobbing woman amidst a spotlight. She’s screaming for help. 

Help! Help! 

Paper Boi tries to help her but she ignores him. He notices there is a man only a few feet in front of her eating popcorn. It’s a stage performance. She does not want or need his help. Paper Boi awkwardly retreats from the dark performance and enters a well-lit art gallery. 

Damn, your hat looks dumb!

A younger black woman comments on Paper Boi’s hat. Paper Boi walks away, trying to avoid and ignore her but she begins to follow him around. The young woman introduces herself as Lorraine. She says she hates art and Paper Boi asks why she’s at an art gallery and she says to read people. She’s kinda a hater but she frames it as being honest. She’s annoying and the type of woman who thinks she’s making everyone feel alive but she’s really killing them. I don’t like her character very much but I can’t say that I don’t recognize her from real life. 

Do you need a friend? 

Lorraine repeatedly insists on helping Paper Boi but he does not want her help. He holds that he already has friends and she suggests that his friends aren’t good ones for letting him wear the hat. She unilaterally decides that he has surrounded himself with yes men and dishonest crooks who look to take advantage of him. 

Are you somebody to other people? 

Lorraine swears she has no idea who Paper Boi is but she has taken a big interest in him, almost immediately, and seems to know a lot about his current situation. We are left to believe that this may possibly be the result of her being good at reading people but I think she’s lying to maintain some level of superiority over him and give comfort to some of the anxieties that belabor him concerning the motives of everyone around him. He thinks they all want something, even Earn and Darius. She immediately surmises that he’s a rapper.  And of course, she’s correct. She says she hates rappers without Paper Boi even answering her. He sits, exasperated. 

The thing about rappers is that y’all don’t know anything about yourselves… Where is your money? Who owns your masters? 

To own your masters means you own the recording from which all later copies of your music are made. It’s arguably the most lucrative part of making music, but Paper Boi didn’t know this at all. Lorraine says that everyone around him has a vested interest in him not learning the truth. He can’t answer Lorraine’s question, which makes him put his guard down just a bit and accept her help. 

Lorraine gives Paper Boi a Goofy hat to help him blend in. They leave the art gallery and it is night, very suddenly. They head to meet some of her friends. They all go to a lounge but the bouncer does not want to let Paper Boi in until Lorraine tells the bouncer that he’s “New Jazz.” 

Lorraine disappears quickly and her friends make Paper Boi feel insecure. They ask him if he knows Dababy or Dua Lipa but he’s not paying them much attention. They tell him that he’s not Lorraine’s first rapper and declare that Lorraine and Paper Boi are fucking. After Paper Boi vehemently and continuously denies, they still do not believe him. They say her apartment is nicknamed “106&Park.”

106&Park is a long-running BET show where black musicians would go and perform their songs as well as debut and rank the hottest music videos. 106&Park had some of the biggest music stars in history on their show and they ran for 3,710 episodes with the final episode airing in 2014. The claim by Lorraine’s friends that her apartment is akin to the show only strengthens my hypothesis that she has been pretending to not know who Paper Boi is. Paper Boi is annoyed with Lorraine’s friends and heads over to the bar. 

At the bar, he meets Liam Neeson. I know, what the fuck right? Paper Boi is temporarily starstruck and confused but mostly starstruck. Liam Neeson asks Paper Boi what he did to get in the lounge and Paper Boi doesn’t understand. Liam Neeson presses Paper Boi to confess his public mishap to him but eventually backs off. Paper Boi is bewildered but he understands when Liam Neeson raises his glass off his napkin and it reads, “Cancel Club” in emboldened type. The Cancel Club is a hangout for people who are victims of cancel culture. 

Cancel culture is the derogatory connotation for a movement of accountability against public figures and their negative actions. To cancel someone is an attempt to strip them of their fame and status as a result of them being a bad person or at least suffering from the perception of being a bad person. As the general level of activism on social media rose, there has also been a stark rise in opposition against Cancel Culture in recent years, especially amidst the #metoo movement that targeted sexual predators in the entertainment industry. Comedians such as Dave Chapelle have been very loud in this opposition and he is not lacking compatriots for his cause amongst common folk. In my estimation, Cancel Culture is not real. All attempts to hold famous people accountable for their actions have failed. As time passes, people either care less or forget to care or forget what the hell they were even mad about. Cancellations cannot come from common folk. They have to be blackballed out of their respective industries and with the notable exception of maybe ex-President and current dick, Donald Trump, this has not happened as a result of objectively poor behavior. 

In the case of Liam Neeson, he faced widespread backlash after he revealed that he roamed the streets for days in predominantly black neighborhoods hoping one would incite violence against him so he could kill them. He was angry at the time because his friend had been raped by a black man, so Liam Neeson was ready to kill any black man. This was admitted by Liam Neeson at his own will while he was promoting his 2019 film, Cold Pursuit. Of course Liam Neeson was immediately scolded for his actions but in the long run, it was only a minor setback and a trivial blemish on his career. He kept acting as the leading man in a number of roles in films such as 

The Marksman, Memory, The Ice Road, and Honest Thief, None of these movies are particularly good but he has not seen any dropoff in his workload or exposure as a result of his racist confession. 

This is made evident in his conversation with Paper Boi. Paper Boi is among those who never felt the need to hold Liam Neeson accountable for what he said. Paper Boi is a polarizing figure himself and he has shown that most of his interests and sensitivities are directly related to himself rather than a community. Still, Liam Neeson feels the need to explain his actions. 

I thought people knowing who I once was would make it clear who I am, who I’ve become. 

One of the biggest critiques of cancel culture, and perhaps a valid one, is that it does not leave much room for growth, forgiveness, or error. Even admitting your error could have you judged for your actions rather than your intent. An unforgiving world where we are all expected to be perfect and where we eat each other if we are not is a cold one. 

After Paper Boi expresses forgiveness, sympathy, and understanding towards Liam Neeson on the behalf of the black community but Liam Neeson isn't very receptive to this at all. He says that he’s not racist but he can’t stand black people now because they tried to ruin his career. 

Didn’t you learn that you shouldn’t say shit like that?   

Aye. But I also learned that the best and worst part about being white is that we don’t have to learn anything if we don’t want to. 

Liam Neeson finishes his drink and walks away. Paper Boi is completely astonished. So astonished that he doesn’t notice the emcee on stage in the lounge is about to call him to the front in order to perform as “New Jazz.” Lorraine pulls him to the side and helps him escape before he has to do so. 

It is suddenly morning time. Paper Boi is now annoyed with Lorraine Again, especially after she tries to touch him. He’s on guard and distrustful of her because of what her friends had said to him in the Cancel Club. She lashes out at him saying she’s all he got. She has been telling him what he needed to hear rather than what he wanted to hear. Lorraine surmises that if you don’t have anyone around you telling you the truth, you’re white. She says was honest about the hat being ugly, she admonished him for taking care of Darius financially, for letting Earn handle all of his business, and for having a general lack of control over the decisions that will guide the rest of his life. 

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Paper Boi disagrees. He says he knows himself and Lorraine angrily, aggressively says he does not. She says he doesn’t feel shit. That he can’t even feel his legs. As she advances closer to him, she immobilizes him. She covers him with a blanket and walks away as he shakes feverishly on the ground. Darius and Paper Boi from the beginning of the episode walk by him. He has become the tripping man that Darius warned him not to be. 

Paper Boi awakes in a hotel bed with Earn by his side. Earn said he passed out and that he found him on the street. Earn says Paper Boi was asleep for 16 hours. Earn carried him to his room and changed his vomit-riddled clothes while Paper Boi was unconscious. Paper Boi asks him about Lorraine’s whereabouts and when Earn is confused and wonders if Paper Boi’s asking about his dead mother, Paper Boi disregards his own question. As Earn prepares to leave, Paper Boi asks Earn who owns the masters to his music. Earn does not hear him at first and anxiety settles in. So Paper Boi asks again. And Earn replies that Paper Boi owns his own masters. Paper Boi says thanks. Earn leaves. Paper Boi is alone again. 

song thirty-four: “Stormy” by The Meters

I have come to realize that episodes that concentrate on Paper Boi’s state of being always turn out to be among my favorites in the whole series and “New Jazz” is no different. The three most important elements in the episode, at least thematically, come towards the conclusion. 

Liam Neeson’s conclusion to his cancellation is key to the season-long definition of the curse of whiteness. If whiteness is where and when you are, if you are somewhere where you do not have to learn anything, you are white. This is not a foreign argument in the black community. Many times, black people claim black celebrities who are “victims” of cancel culture would have gotten a pass if they were white. Bill Cosby and R. Kelly goes to jail, Donald Trump becomes president. That sort of thing. Obviously, black people have less room for mistakes than white people, but I believe that black abusers should be punished just the same as white perpetrators. White men simply get off too often. The main idea though, is that Paper Boi is entering a circumstance in which he does not have to learn anything. He is becoming white and he can’t stop himself.  

First, there is the hat, which is a physical manifestation of the ways that Paper Boi is changing. He has lost some of his edge as a result of his money and he isn't completely comfortable or confident with what he’s becoming. He wears this hat and he isn't sure about it at all but no one will tell him if they hate it, that is except Lorraine. It isn't made clear if Earn and Darius actually like the hat or if they’re just saying they like it to appease Paper Boi. My guess is that they either like the hat or they’re indifferent to it. They have been real and loyal throughout the series. The important part however is that Paper Boi is scared no one around him will tell him the truth, despite their purported authenticity. 

His situation is reminiscent of the old “Emperor New Clothes” fable in which a crooked salesman comes into a city and claims to be selling extravagant clothes made of magical fabric that only the righteous can see and because the emperor pretends he can see the clothes out of fear that his subjects wouldn’t think he was righteous, everyone else pretends to see the fabric as well. The Emperor walks around completely naked and no one has the heart to tell him that he’s being fooled until the crooked salesman is long gone with all of his money. The crooked salesman sold him a lie and everyone bought it because they feared what the truth meant for them. Paper Boi thinks he’s the emperor and he thinks he’s naked and he fears no one will ever tell him so. 

This is precisely the reason that Paper Boi’s Nepalese spacecake-influenced mind invented the character of Lorraine. She’s a physical manifestation of his conscience or his inner dialogue, telling him all the evil shit that he’s afraid to say. I am of the school that she was never real, hence her having the same name as Paper Boi’s deceased mother. The death of Paper Boi’s mother and the grief stricken ways in which he coped with that was a big storyline in Season 2. Lorraine tells Paper Boi what no one else will and what Paper Boi thinks he needs to hear. 

This is important because it ties into whiteness and what Paper Boi is becoming. She is the truth in his ear, the voice that forces him to continue to learn from his mistakes and be aware of them. Lorraine is an annoying and very bitchy Jiminy Cricket. Her voice leads him to interrogate his relationship with the people he has surrounded himself with. He asked Earn about his future and I felt my heart drop, because I was unsure that he moved in Paper Boi’s best interest. When it was revealed that Earn did the right and best thing, it was a triumphant moment because it just further affirmation that Earn cares about Paper Boi and is not just using him to advance his own life. I wish we got the same confirmation with Darius but I know that to be true of him as well. 

Final postscript thoughts on the episode: There is something mildly problematic about Donald Glover putting words of apology and regret in the mouth of a self-admitted racist. I am not sure how I felt about it but I mainly found myself in awe at the cameo and laughing at his further admissions of racism. I guess the laugh is truly always the most important part. 

EPISODE IX: “rich wigga, poor wigga” 

Written and Directed by Donald Glover 

song thirty-five: “ESCAPE PLAN” by Travis Scott 

Aaron, a teenage boy, plays COD in his bedroom. We pan over his room a few times. He has “white” interests like baseball, lacrosse, Post Malone, and Logan Paul. The people on the microphone on the game are talking a lot of shit to him but Aaron is silent. He is plotting an attack on them and he succeeds, winning the match after roasting them with a flamethrower. Right after he secured the win, he got a text from his girlfriend, Katie, that she got into college. They’re planning on going to Arizona State College together. This infuriates him for some unknown reason and he chides the online gamers with racist remarks before turning the game off. This is very discomforting because Aaron is a white presenting kid, all the way through. But it’s uncertain how light his skin is because the picture has been color graded to b&w, an homage to Rebecca Hall’s 2021 film, Passing. Passing is based on Neila Larsen’s 1929 Novel of the same name. 

Passing is the story of a 1920s NYC black woman whose life is turned upside down when her life becomes entangled with a former black childhood friend who’s passing at being white. This is important because it is revealed in the next scene that Aaron is a white passing mixed kid who’s doing the same thing in 2022. His father is black and his black father is driving him to school because he missed the bus the following day, after Katie got into their dream school. 

Aaron’s father recounts a the story of a teenage black boy who was murdered by the police, shot at Lenox mall and died at Grady Memorial Hospital. Aaron has no sympathy for this boy at all, taking the side of the police. His father is disenchanted with this but he also cites anti-black sentiments, saying trouble with the police is why he won’t let him hang out in Dekalb County. Aaron’s father says he hopes that Aaron would get pulled over by the police to experience racism.  That his nose is a dead giveaway that he’s actually black. Aaron says he’d have to let him drive in order for him to get pulled over. 

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Aaron and his dad are having money problems. This is why he isn't going to Arizona State College. His dad refuses to fill out any FAFSA forms and he’s only been able to save up 4000 dollars. His dad isn't sympathetic to his struggle and promises Aaron that he’ll have to pay rent post-high school graduation. They arrive at Stonewall Jackson High School, named for the Confederate General. His father tells him he loves him in embarrassing fashion, possibly an Into The Spiderverse homage. 

When Aaron goes into school, he greets his white girlfriend with his white friends. They all celebrate getting into their colleges while Aaron anxiously jostles, pretending he’s just as excited as they are. There is an assembly for all graduating seniors and they’re all called to the auditorium. The principal introduces Robert Shea Lee, heir to the Pink oil hair moisturizer fortune. Robert Shea Lee’s name is eerily similar to Robert E. Lee’s name, the most famous Confederate general who defected from the Union. It’s a pretty funny joke. Even eerier, Robert Shea Lee is played by Kevin Samuels, an internet dating consultant who has been maligned for his misogynistic takes. This is a surprise cameo, especially since Kevin Samuels is not even an actor. But it’s a bigger surprise because Kevin Samuels died on May 5, 2022 and this episode was released a week later on May 12, 2022. 

Robert Shea Lee is an alumnus of Stonewall Jackson High School and he’s now a billionaire. They’re renaming the school after him. But most importantly, he pledges to pay for college for every graduating student… if they’re black. Robert Shea Lee is likely based off of real life billionaire, Robert F. Smith, who announced he was paying the student loan debt of all the Morehouse College graduates in Winter 2020. Aaron thought his prayers had been answered and perhaps they are. But if he wanted to gain access to the newfound rewards of blackness, he’d have to affirm his blackness in front of his friends who think he’s white. This is a dilemma because he is not eager to do so. 

song thirty-six: “Hanging On A String” by Loose Ends 

Aaron’s white friends complain. They say it’s discrimination. They say it’s super easy to get in. They say it’s tokenism. They say they already have affirmative action. Katie says her friend dated a guy who got a full ride and only stayed one year named Zion Wilson (Williamson haha). They agree with her that it’s ridiculous. They say a lot but Aaron is silent while black students celebrate all around him. He excuses himself to go speak to the counselor about financing options for school but he is really sneaking off to inquire about the payment opportunity with Robert Shea Lee.  

song thirty-seven: “If I Ever Fall in Love” by Shai 

There are a plethora of nonblack POC practicing, imitating, and performing blackness for their “black audition.” They’re singing R&B, putting on durags, cripwalking, getting cornrows, and playing basketball. Here, Atlanta, introduces a new definition of blackness to go hand-in-hand with their season-long whiteness definition. Robert Shea Lee doesn’t think ADOS (American Descendants of Slavery) necessitates blackness. He thinks blackness is a culture rather than a genealogy. 

Aaron is called into the dark gymnasium for his black audition. The gym is dark aside from a single spotlight on Aaron and a slight shining down on the tribunal seated on the stage. The tribunal is Robert Shea Lee, Greg, and Jay. They’re all smoking stogies. They ask him a number of questions and Aaron gets most of them wrong or he doesn’t answer them in a knowing manner. 

Name six things that mix with hennessy. 

What happened to that boy at Lenox Mall? 

How long can oil sit on the stove? 

Bobby & Whitney or Will and Jada? 

Where is the first place you take your cousin fresh outta jail? 

Why did the five heartbeats break up? 

Your momma or your mother? 

What color are Wendy’s napkins? 

Holy spirit or holy ghost? 

Mustard or mayonnaise? 

Make a beat with this mechanical pencil! 

Orange or grape kool-aid? 

Spell Dante! 

DQ or Popeyes? 

What soda is good for you? 

If Ne-Yo’s hat got any lower, it’d be on his “blank”? 

When the tribunal tires of testing Aaron, they tell him it was fun and he entertained them but he fails. Aaron gets mad because his dad is black, which means he is black even if he turned his back on that part of himself. Greg gets mad and yells at him. “YOU ARE WHITE!” After Greg’s outburst, Robert Shea Lee explains his stance. He asks Aaron how long he has been coasting on his whiteness. He says Aaron deserves what he got and that he’s just got his. By attempting to pass rather than being what he is, Aaron has invalidated his blood. 

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Aaron goes home and complains to his dad but his dad is simply humoring his anger. While his Dad clowns him, he notices a black kid named D’Andre that’s going to attend Arizona State College is in Katie’s comment section on Instagram. D’Andre is an incoming football player they met at a college visit. While Aaron is cursing Katie out, she says that she knows he’s not going to Arizona State College because he can’t afford it. Then she breaks up with him. Aaron sits in his room and stirs. 

He decides to make a flamethrower, in real life, and burn down his school. He googles it then puts one together with scraps from his garage. He walks a few miles to his school with the homemade flamethrower strapped to his back. When he arrives, the sign for his school has been changed from Stonewall Jackson High School to Robert S. Lee High School. But there’s also another kid, Felix, there with a real flamethrower. Felix is a Nigerian kid from Lithonia but the tribunal decided he wasn’t black either. Aaron agrees with them though. Aaron and Felix have a philosophical conversation about who’s black between the two; mentioning heritage, tradition, and lineage. Aaron thinks Felix has a discernable path to his ancestors and because he turned his back on that, he’s not black. Felix disagrees. Aaron doesn’t really care and wants to burn down the school but Felix wants to do it first. Aaron makes a bad colorist joke that Felix was already burnt. Felix shoots a gush of flames at Aaron and Aaron runs away. Felix puts fire to the sign then chases after Aaron. 

It turns into a real life Call of Duty map for a while. They’re both evading and chasing each other, but it quickly morphs from a flamethrower fight to a mulatto hunt. Aaron is the victim and the scene has a horror feeling, theme, and score. As soon as Aaron thinks he has escaped, Felix pours gas on the floor and lights it, burning Aaron’s feet. Aaron ditches his shoes and runs away. Felix catches up to him but as soon as he has Aaron in his clutches, the police arrive. The police shoot Felix and then say, “Freeze!” to Aaron. 

song thirty-eight: “L’ucello dulle piume di Cristallo (dal film)” by Orchestra di Bruno Nicolai & Orchestra Di Ennio Morricone 

Robert S. Lee comes to the school in the aftermath; as the police are arresting Aaron, the firefighters are putting out the fire, and the paramedics are taking Felix to the hospital. Robert S. Lee pledges to pay Felix’s medical bill and for his college because “getting shot by the police is the blackest thing he could do.” Robert S. Lee tells the paramedics to take Felix to “White Grady” (Emory Hospital) and that was a pretty funny joke. Aaron ends up with nothing. 

A year passes and Aaron has “embraced” his blackness. He works at Best Buy. He has a low cut fade now, so we can’t see his hair texture. He speaks in an exaggerated Atlanta accent and uses AAVE. He dresses black. He brushes his waves between sentences and flirts with black customers. He has decided to adopt a black personality rather than coast on his whiteness. He never went to college. But Katie did and Katie is at Best Buy. She comes over and speaks to him but Aaron doesn’t seem very interested or enamored with her. As she walks away, Aaron stops her and tells her he’s never been more attracted to her in his life. He says it real “urban” like. Katie blushes. Aaron smiles at the camera as it freeze frames. 

I didn’t dislike any of the episodes this season but if I were forced to pick a weakest entry, “rich wigga, poor wigga” would be it. The story is good enough but Donald Glover’s history of “too white for the blacks and too black for the whites” still reeks in my opinion. This feels like an extension of that same anxiety, as if he is still a bit sore from being called an oreo for his interests and personality when he was younger. 

can whoever called donald glover an oreo in high school just apologize so everyone can move on?

— ashley ray (@theeashleyray) May 14, 2022

But this episode was also very tied into the “curse of whiteness” motif. Aaron was white enough to pass physically but he had none of the privilege because of the circumstances of where and when he was. Aaron chose whiteness and whiteness ate him and spat him out. It rejected him. In the end he chose blackness because he had nothing else left. When attaching blackness to culture rather than ADOS, a comedic point I don’t believe, Aaron is able to retrieve what had never been lost. At the same time, I do think the tribunal was right to deny Aaron on the basis of him not being black. If you look white, act white, talk white, have white opinions, white experiences, and white feelings then you are white. Quack like a duck, walk like a duck, you are a duck. 

Everything bad that happened to Aaron happened as a direct result of his whiteness and his economic status. Robert Shea Lee gave the black students at Stonewall Jackson High School the tools to flip the circumstances, much like in “the big payback.” 

Postscript thought: I feel as though Atlanta went out of their way to employ the worst people in the world. I think they were actively trying to find people who aren’t very popular amongst the liberal crowd on the internet. Chet Hanks, Liam Neeson, and Kevin Samuels are quite the trio of cameos. Especially since Kevin Samuels is not an actor and I don’t think he necessarily had a good performance. He wasn’t believable to me but there were still some funny lines he was able to deliver. It was most enjoyable when Felix was chasing Aaron and the tension was dialed up to 11. Solid episode, but not great. 

EPISODE X: “Tarrare” 

Directed by Donald Glover, Written by Stefani Robinson 

Three black girls have brunch at a Parisian cafe. Two dark skin girls, Xosha and Shanice; and their influencer friend, Candice. Candice has been flown out from Atlanta to Paris to pee on a rich French man. She brought Xosha and Shanice along for the experience. They’re looking for a move but they think they need to be familiar with some locals in order to find something really fun to do. While they’re talking, Candice abruptly rises from her seat and walks from the cafe to a neighboring butcher shop. Candice is friends with Van and that's who she sees. When Candice greets Van, Van is speaking French in a heavy French accent and pretending she doesn’t know Candice with her little “Amelie” bob. She eventually relents and admits to herself that Candice is someone she knows. She’s carrying a large French baguette. Van has gone insane. 

Candice, Xosha, and Shanice go with Van to her French apartment that Van lives in with her chef boyfriend, Marcel. She appears to be a completely different person. It’s unclear how long she has been in Paris but she seems very infused into the lifestyle and decor of the apartment. Pictures of her marcel adorn tabletops. She is featured on the cover of Chic Paris magazine. Candice gets a peek at Van’s phone and people from her real life (Earn, her parents, old friends, etc) are blowing up her phone. Van is not responding to any of them. 

Van and the crew leave on vespas to run Van’s errands, bread in her bag. Candice is worried about Van because of her erratic and dissociative behavior but Xosha and Shanice are wholly entertained by her performance. They go to a luxury hotel. 

song thirty-nine: “Rock Wit U (Aww Baby” by Ashanti 

They go to a hotel room and Alexander Skarsgård is in there dancing to Ashanti. It’s another cameo and he appears to be gone off some drugs. Van kisses Alexander Skarsgård in a very familiar way, which further confuses Candice because she said he was in a relationship with Marcel. Van’s fucking Alexander Skarsgård and tells Candice to not be so “American” about her relationship sensibilities. Van goes into the bedroom of the hotel room while Alexander Skarsgård dedicates himself to entertaining Xosha and Shanice. He says everyone should take off their clothes. They say okay but he’s the only one who starts stripping. 

song forty: No Letting Go” by Wayne Wonder 

Candice follows Van into the bedroom in an attempt to talk some sense into Van but Van is non-receptive. Van plants crack, meth, and cocaine throughout his bedroom then leaves. She scoops Xosha and Shanice on the way out, Alexander Skarsgård is in his animal print underwear. They leave in a hurry but before doing so, Van lies to the concierge and tells them that Alexander Skarsgård is going berserk off of drugs in a hysterical manner. She tells Candice that this is simply a prank, their “devil dance.” 

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They arrive incognito at an apartment complex. Van is frantically looking for a mystery package that is supposed to be around. It’s a scary scene, locals are shouting things at them from their windows. Van goes into the trunk of an abandoned car and goes into the cooler for her package but it’s empty.Van curses a mystery man named Emilio for not holding up his end of the bargain.  Candice, Xosha, and Shanice are asking a lot of questions and getting no answers but they’re very curious at this point. The shouts from the tenants are discernable at this point. They’re yelling “Tarrare.” Tarrare was an 18th century French showman and soldier who was famed for his unusual eating patterns and insatiable appetite. He famously ate a baby or at least was suspected of doing so. He died at the age of 26, he suspected that he was poisoned by his failure to digest a golden fork he ate a few years prior. It’s unclear why they’re calling Van, “Tarrare.” 

Van is pissed that the cooler is empty but she knows she has to get out of the apartment complex in a hurry. The tenants are beginning to converge on them. She’s not welcome. They run back to their vespas and there’s a knife in the tires. A group of men impose on them before their friends start another altercation and divert their attention. Van, who had accepted their fate, begins to run away on foot and the rest follow her. They get on public transit to their next location.    

She tracks Emilio down to a private museum. She coaxes the doorman into letting her in the museum with niceties. It’s clear that she is familiar with and knows both of them. When she goes in, Emilio is immediately frightful. She leans into his fear too, giving a frightening breakdown into why she’s been carrying around the enormous baguette all day. The bread has hardened due to her leaving it out for months. She uses it as a battering stick and beats him down with it. The majority of the violence happens off screen, the camera cuts to different marble statues in the gallery before she finally yields. She asks Emilio where her package is and he maintains that he does not have it but he could get her a new one the following day. She offers to put the baguette in his mouth and take his teeth out. He finally admits that the package is housed in a nearby vase. Van tells Xosha to get it and breaks the vase. The vase was empty but it was the wrong vase. Then she goes into the other vase and retrieves it. The baguette is washed in splattered blood. 

They all leave, Candice is disgusted with Van. Van invites them to the party she’s working with Marcel that night. Candice declines the invitation but Xosha and Shanice accept and decide to stay, despite her. They don’t know Van and are not worried about her poor behavior, especially with no basis for knowing how strange she’s truly acting. 

“I don’t know her but I like whoever this is.” 

Alexander Skarsgård is at the party and he confronts Van about her “devil dance.” He tells her that it was a good one. Van spits in his face and walks down to the kitchen, where Marcel is waiting on her. Alexander Skarsgård goes to the bathroom and masturbates to the idea of Van spitting in his. When Van gets to the kitchen, she gives Marcel a long passionate kiss. Van gives Marcel the package from Emilio, a human hand. That’s what they’re cooking as the main course of the meal for the party. We now know why the tenants at the apartment complex were calling her “Tarrare.” 

Candice followed her and is once again confronting her about this new life that she has manufactured for herself. Van says that Candice is just jealous because she’s finally more interesting than her. She mocks Candice for being in Paris to pee on someone. As Marcel fries hands, Van rushes them out to the dinner table, trying to ignore Candice. 

The host of the party addresses her guests. She instructs them to put their napkins over their heads and shroud themselves. She elucidates how they do not shroud themselves out of shame but instead to have a private and sensuous meal. Xosha and Shanice are unaware of the main course but everyone else seems to be in the know. Xosha and Shanice even happily throw the shroud over their heads and whisper that it’s some “fancy shit.” 

At the same time, Candice continues to grill Vanessa. She asks her how she plans on integrating her old life into this new fugazi one. What will happen when her visa runs out? What does she tell her parents? What will she do for money? What about her daughter, Lottie? Van had an answer and solution for all of her questions until she was asked about Lottie. She stumbled and stuttered and then finally broke down. She starts breaking dishes and screaming. Candice consoles her friend as Van’s voice returns to normal. 

Xosha and Shanice realize they’re eating a human hand and jump from their seats after screaming. Alexander Skarsgård arrives late to the table and exclaims that hands are his favorite.

Later that night, Candice and Van sit on a bench overlooking a river and catch up, as two real people. No French persona, no influencer bullshit. Van admits to feeling like a lost failure during her last days in Atlanta and having wanted to commit suicide. She said she closed her eyes while driving. She says she felt as Lottie knew about her moment of weakness and was judging her later that day when she picked her up from school later that day. As a result of that, she dropped Lottie off with her parents and went to Europe, finally delivering the truth on the question Darius asked her all the way back in Episode 2 of Season 3: Why are you here? As for her persona, she said she was watching the 2001 film, Amelie, and decided she wanted to be Amelie. Van says she does not know who she is. Candice says she is somebody. I say that’s probably enough. Van realizes she needs to go back to Atlanta and confront her problems head on. 

Candice sent Xosha in her place to pee on the rich man rather than her, so she could be there for her friend. The man lies down on the tarp, almost nude. Xosha looks out the window, to the Parisian skyline while peeing on his face. 

song forty-one: “Splash Waterfalls” by Ludacris 

There’s a post credit scene. Or an epilogue to the season, to put it more genuinely. A delivery man for lost luggage brings a bag tagged for Earnest Marks into a hotel lobby. The lobby looks very American but it’s not explicitly said if that’s the case. The delivery man has an Atlanta accent. He meets Earn in the lobby, but Earn maintains that he didn’t lose any luggage. The delivery man does not really care, he tells Earn to sign because his name fits. Earn takes the bag. He sits in his room and opens it. There are pills, a picture, a deftones tee, amongst other things.  The bag belongs to white Earnest Marks. The demented white fisherman from the prologue who let the shit water swallow his friend. The same white Earnest Marks who shot himself in the head after giving advice to Marshall Johnson while on the run from reparations in the “the big payback” episode. Earn doesn’t know this though. So he absentmindedly places those objects to the side and goes about with his night. 

song forty-two: “Above Below” by Eddie Chacon ft. Nick Hakim 

Zazie Beetz stated in multiple interviews that she saw Van and Earn’s storyline as completely detached from the rest of the show and what goes on with Paper Boi or Earn. As far as her performance, she is negotiating with completely different tonalities and emotions than the rest of the cast. I think that shows a lot in this episode, even in one mainly bereft of Earn. 

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This is not the first time Van has had episodes with her at the center of the narrative, look back to “Value” in Season 1 and “Champagne Papi” in Season 2 for examples, but this one is far stranger than the earlier offerings. This episode feels closer to the Paper Boi centered episodes. Van is completely lost and as a result of that, she has constructed a new life for herself that’s completely out of touch with reality. She was only brought back down to Earth at the mention of her daughter. While the escalating insanity was very entertaining, I think the emotional core of the story would have benefitted from more time being spent with Van as her true self. But I guess we’ll see her find herself in Season 4. 

The “Tarrare” element of the story was interesting. A secret society of rich cannibals is very in line with the type of horror elements I expect from Atlanta. The idea of Van becoming an outcasted myth was super cool, I really enjoyed the story. Her dynamic with her rotating cast of seemingly distant friends have always been interesting. Van always seems to feel lesser around them. She was the one with the broke baby daddy and a shitty teaching job. But now that Earn ain’t broke, she doesn’t seem any better off. Van doesn’t have the life she thinks she deserves and as long as there is friction there, she’ll never be happy. I could relate to that. 

Aside from the episode, the epilogue allowed the “curse of whiteness” elements to come full circle. We have known that white Earn had the same name as our Earn since episode 5. And we could suspect that the family that he was expected to pay reparations to may have Earn’s own. But Earn has elevated himself. At the end of Season 1, Earn was sleeping in a storage unit. At the end of Season 2, Earn was hanging onto his job by a string. But here, at the end of Season 3, Earn is comfortable and well paid. Due to the circumstances of where and when he is, you could say that he’s… almost white? 

The epilogue was a physical manifestation of that feeling. Earn inherited whiteness from the white man of his nightmares and moving forward, he will be comfortable. Even in Atlanta. In Season 4, we don’t expect to see the same struggle from earlier seasons. Earn has “ascended” to whiteness, the same as Paper Boi. Not exactly obvious, because as we saw throughout the season, he will still face racism in a number of ways but he’s secure now. He’s not struggling anymore. He has usurped the demons of his past and leveled the playing field. All of those demons…the curse… is the problem of white people now, not his. Earn is returning to Atlanta a new man and his Atlanta will be a new Atlanta. I can’t wait for Season 4. 

 -

The two primary things I was looking for throughout the season was evaluating Atlanta as a lens and the curse of whiteness. I feel as if the curse of whiteness has been continuously defined and refined throughout my notes. Almost all of the episodes touched on this in some way, but it was at the forefront of “three slaps,” “the big payback,” “white fashion,” “trini 2 de bone,” and “rich wigga, poor wigga.” 

The curse of whiteness, to put it succinctly, is a direct result of a culture that orients itself around circumstance rather than heritage, truth, or accountability. If you’re white, you’re treated like what you’re going through but if you’re black, you’re treated like what you are. No matter what else is going on, you are white. In the world of Atlanta, that has finally been criminalized in ways that black people have been criminalized in real life for the past 400 years. White people throughout the season are victims of their own decisions simply because no one has the heart to tell them the truth. Amber and Gayle, the suicidal foster parents. Will, the uneasy investor. Fernando, the ghost-fucking billionaire. Marshall Johnson, reparations dodger and cookie thief. Marcello and the rest of the design team at Esco Esco. Sharon, the jollof gentrifier. Miles and Bronwyn, the absent parents. Aaron, the broke almost white teen. White Earnest Marks, the demon himself. Their pain didn’t stop with them though, mainly because they couldn’t see who it belonged to. They were bleeding and hungry so they ate others and when they were finished, they ate themselves too. Whiteness, as a culture; eats, colonizes, and corrupts. 

The way the curse of whiteness ties directly into the main story with Paper Boi and Earn is very interesting. The main point is that the circumstances of where and when they are has changed. They are at an elevated point in life and because their proximity to whiteness is new, they can sense the shift in how they are being treated. There is an immense amount of anxiety about how they’re handling their relationships and where the truth in their life is coming from, especially in the case of Paper Boi. He’s a superstar now. Paper Boi’s everything we ever wanted him to be but he doesn’t even think he’s himself anymore. He seems different too. Has he traded authenticity for whiteness? What’s he being authentic to? I don’t think I have the answer.

As far as answering what Atlanta means as a lens or a way of looking at the world, I think the answer was more infused in the overall creative direction of the season rather than the narratives.  The team behind Atlanta wanted to make a maximalist season and be contrarian at the same time. They simply wanted to do what others cannot do. Atlanta is a dedication to relentless eccentricity. The best of the city all have their own identities and perspectives while maintaining a strong sense of community. This dedication to relentless eccentricity gives what could have been a very disjointed season, a layer of cohesion. 

On Hulu, in the episode descriptions, Atlanta provides further insight into the abrasive mindset they had when releasing the season. It reads as if they anticipated what people would say and hoped that they would dislike it. 

EPISODE I, “Three Slaps”: Wow it’s been a minute. I mean, I like this episode about the troubled kid but we waited 50 years for this? 

EPISODE II, “Sinterklaas Is Coming to Town”: I think everybody knows blackface ain’t cool anymore, we get it. They be trying too hard to go viral. 

EPISODE III, “The Old Man and the Tree”: This one was cool. Going to rich parties and meeting weirdos. Season 1 was better. 

EPISODE IV, “The Big Payback”: I was legit scared watching this. 

EPISODE V, “Cancer Attack”: Sometimes shows just be over my head acting fake deep. Where’s the poop jokes? 

EPISODE VI, “White Fashion”: I’ve definitely seen this before on a better show. They’re always stealing ideas. But the fashion industry gotta be exposed #streetwear

EPISODE VII, “Trini 2 De Bone”: White people watching this be like… Pain. 

EPISODE VIII, “New Jazz”: Al and Darius walk around Amsterdam. Psssh, I could make a way better TV show than this. 

EPISODE IX, “Rich Wigga, Poor Wigga”: Black and White episode? Yawn. Emmy Bait. Why do they hate black women so much? 

EPISODE X, “Tarrare”: Tarrare was a real person. Wild. They gotta stop biting these better shows tho. 

Every episode description reads like a twitter recap of the episode and they’re pretty accurate. These are the reactions they’re hoping we are having and in reaction to some of the noise that took over during their hiatus. This is the lens. Atlanta is a world in conversation with both reality and the fictional. Atlanta is the mythical place that inspired that. 

Final notes: I wish the season gave Darius more to do. Maybe in Season 4. The season was funny as hell and visually stunning. I love how they managed to subvert my expectations and still live up to them. Van and Earn’s love story needs more time. Brian Tyree Henry is a star and I hope to see him as a leading man for years to come. I hope to leave these characters in a hopeful place. I know the creators of the show don’t give a fuck what I have to say. Season 4 really needs to be in Atlanta, for my sanity. 

Atlanta is Mordor. Atlanta is Asgard. Atlanta is Westeros. Atlanta is Wakanda. Atlanta is Olympus. Atlanta is a black fairy tale. 

5 APPLES OF 5 APPLES

notes on: Atlanta S3 [part two]

MEDIUM: Television 

GENRE: Comedy/Drama 

STUDIO: FX 

EPISODES: 10 

FAVORITE EPISODES: “The Big Payback” “Old Man And The Tree” “Cancer Attack” “New Jazz”  

LEAST FAVORITE EPISODES: n/a

Release Year: 2022

[part two] 

EPISODE IV: “the big payback” 

Directed by Hiro Murai, Written by Francesca Sloane 

A white everyman stands in line at a cafe. He’s listening to a NPR podcast. The black man ahead of him in line is having an animated conversation with the white barista. It appears that they’re familiar, possibly dating. But we can’t hear them, we are in the world with the white man listening to a podcast about wildlife. The white everyman, our man, is eyeing a packet of cookies but he doesn’t purchase them. The black man ahead of him in line retreats, the white everyman buys a large coffee and goes about his day in his bubble with his coffee and stolen cookies. He doesn’t even realize he’s being followed by a blue car. 

song eighteen: “Jay” by Plastic Girls 

The white everyman is Marshall Johnson. He’s recently separated from his wife and on the brink of divorce from the mother of his daughter. He’s picking up his daughter, Katie, from his wife’s home to take her to school. They’re amicable and it appears they can still work out whatever is ailing their marriage. Marshall asks his wife for a tall standing lamp for his new apartment; she appears to agree that he can have it. 

On the way to school, the radio is talking about a court case in which a black man sues Josh Beckford, an early Tesla investor, because his family used to own the black man’s family. The black man won the lawsuit and set a precedent for individualized reparations. The people on the radio speak of heightening racial tensions and what this means for anyone else looking to find the descendants of the white people who owned their family. While listening, Marshall receives a phone call from an UNKNOWN number and declines it. He drops Katie off at school and promises to try to work things out with her mother before heading off to work. The same blue car that followed him from the cafe earlier in the episode is waiting outside of his workplace. 

Marshall Johnson works for Superior Shrimp Co. A white co-worker asks him about the Josh Beckford case and Marshall isn't very worried about it. He writes it off as rich people's problems. There is a meeting at work. They’re having layoffs because the owners of Superior Shrimp Co. have anxiety about personal litigation and are worried about being sued for their family owning slaves. All of his white co-workers get increasingly worried that their lawsuits are coming next but Marshall maintains that he has nothing to worry about, neglecting the offers to look down his family tree. 

Later that night, at home in his apartment, Katie asks him if they’re racist. Marshall says they aren’t and that they were enslaved thousands of years ago by the Byzantine empire because they’re Austro-Hungarian. Before he can get into it even further, he declines another call from UNKNOWN. And then there’s a knock on his door. He answers. There’s a white man and behind him, a middle-aged black woman. The white man gives him a paper and walks away. The middle-aged black woman pulls out her phone and begins recording. He has been served by Sheniqua Johnson. 

Sheniqua Johnson is a middle-aged black woman. Marshall’s family used to own her family. She is claiming his house and a shouting match ensues. Marshall kicks her out but she leaves, as confident as ever. She tells him not to bother calling the police because she already called them. Marshall is embarrassed and asks Katie not to tell her mother about this. Hilariously, Sheniqua tells Marshall “don’t slam her door!” as she leaves. 

The following day, Marshall sneaks into work. No black people showed up for work, except Willy and Lester. One of his white co-workers, Tim from accounting, wears an “I OWNED SLAVES” shirt but it’s inverted in a way that it only reads correctly in the mirror. This was the only stipulation from his lawsuit, the family that he owned only demanded he wore the shirt once a week as acknowledgment of their past transgressions. I think this is the core precept of the entire episode, as funny and ridiculous as it is. White people have a tendency to write off slavery and the ways in which they benefitted from it, as Marshall has been doing the entire episode. For many, acknowledgement and an honest dedication towards righteous retribution would be enough to begin to heal. 

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Marshall is resistant to both acknowledgement and retribution, so Sheniqua begins to demonstrate outside of his workplace, repeatedly confessing the sins of his family to anyone within earshot of her bullhorn. Marshall implores her to stop but he also does not budge nor begin to try and see where she is coming from. Sheniqua continues her protest. 

Marshall asks his black co-worker, Lester, for advice. Lester tells him that Sheniqua likely won’t stop until he apologizes and compromises himself in some capacity, likely financially. Marshall rejects Lester’s advice and consults his white coworkers who tell him to fight back. She has left the parking lot of his workplace before his shift is over but Marshall has bigger problems now. 

His ex-wife, Natalie, texts him and says they have to talk. Her emojis went from yellow to black in the thread and that’s one of those sneaky, funny as hell jokes that Atlanta excels at. Natalie had spoken to Sheniqua and decided to finalize the divorce because she can’t afford to be tied up with Marshall financially. Marshall maintains he didn’t do anything wrong and that his situation could happen to anyone but Natalie disagrees. 

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“I’m Peruvian.” 

“You were white yesterday!” 

Natalie tells Marshall he has to leave and he does. The lamp he asked for is crumpled on the curb, in the trash. The divorce has been made official. Sheniqua cost Marshall his wife and a chance at a complete family life. 

song nineteen: “Make It Last Forever” by Keith Sweat ft. Jacci McBride 

Marshall rounds the corner into his apartment complex and Sheniqua’s family is staked out in front of his apartment door, having a cookout. Sheniqua alerts the men in her family that he’s the culprit and they begin to advance towards his car. Marshall begins to panic as one of the older kids, Jason, begins to chase after him on foot. Nigga runs like a T-1000. This is underscored diegetically by “Make it Last Forever” by Keith Sweat and Jacci McBride. The juxtaposition of the smooth angelic vocals and the complete panic of Marshall’s movements along with the efficiency of Jason’s strides makes for comedy gold. Marshall eventually gets away. Sheniqua has seized his work life, his family life, and his home life. 

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After being exiled from his own home, Marshall checks into an extended stay hotel. He cries while eating a cookie in bed. After a while, he goes into the lobby and sits down. Across from him is the white fisherman from the prologue of the first episode, “three slaps,” having a drink. His name is Earnest and his friends call him E. They lost his luggage. He’s running from reparations and he suspects Marshall is in the same boat as he is. 

song twenty: “The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face” by Roberta Flack 

Marshall continues to complain about his situation and malign the connection between him and the sins of his fathers. He doesn’t feel like he deserves this, but White Earnest isn't as sure of that. He continually casts doubts onto the validity of their victimhood by saying, “I don’t know” while Marshall laments himself. His grandfather and his bootstraps weren’t earned through merit and hard work but blood and tears; and they were hardly bootstraps at all but instead they were black hands connected to black dreams growing within black people. After Marshall says “we don’t deserve this,” White Earnest asks an important question: “what do they deserve?” 

White Earnest goes into a speech about how white people treat slavery like a great mystery of the past, as if the ramifications of it suddenly ended the moment it was outlawed. They don’t want to talk about it or hear about it or even right the wrongs that sprouted from it. American chattel slavery is a burden that white people do no wish to bear. But White Earnest also says that “confession is not absolution” and something must be done to wipe away the sins of their fathers or else they'll be cursed with this burden forever. 

Slavery is not a mystery, but a ghost that haunts black people in ways white people can’t see. But as White Earnest screeched in Locquareeous’s dream, “we’re cursed too.” Slavery isn't black people’s burden to carry and it shouldn’t be. The weight should be on the oppressor, not the oppressed. And this is an opportunity to balance those scales, forever. 

White Earnest draws comparisons to white people did to black people all across the world for hundreds of years and the conditions in which Sheniqua is forcing Marshall into right now. They’re similar. A complete destruction of family, wealth, legacy, heritage, and tradition. But in the end, White Earnest tells Marshall that they will be okay with this new status quo and overall, it’s better for the future of their people. Even for Katie. 

“The curse has been lifted from her, all of us. We were running from it but now we are free.” 

song twenty-one: “It Never Entered My Mind” by Miles Davis 

White Earnest excuses himself and walks outside to stand by the pool, leaving Marshall with his thoughts. We can imagine that he is contemplating just paying Sheniqua as he scrolls through her Instagram profile. Just as he is making a decision, White Earnest shoots himself in the head and plops into the pool. Everyone around them descends into disarray, except for the black waiter who says “there is more where that came from.” White Earnest’s lifeless body and bleeding head floats in the pool, arms spread in Christ-like imitation. 

The episode ends with us following a late arriving Latino waiter to work. It’s apparent that there has been a time jump. The manager of the restaurant is addressing the team, a team that accounts for Marshall. Marshall has been pushed down into a lower place but he does seem happier. Or least as though he has accepted it. Marshall pays restitution taxes, 15% of his paycheck, which is higher than his other slave-owning coworkers. Most of the patrons of the high end restaurant appear to be black. The tables have been turned or at least the playing field has been leveled. Equity is on the way. Or at least that’s the idea. 

song twenty-two: “Les Fleurs” by Minnie Ripperton. 

I think applying Atlanta’s definition of whiteness is important when considering the projected consequences of reparations. If being white is a social circumstance of where and when you are, changing the space around whiteness is more important than changing whiteness itself if white supremacy is to be defeated. The reparations are expected to do that. Most of the negative outcomes that displace Marshall are social rather than financial. If Marshall is being pushed to a “lower” place financially, socially, and economically then he has the same living conditions as much of the black community does and is no longer white, at least not white in equivalence to the current status quo. 

The idea that an even playing field for the future would provide absolution for the sins of white people is an interesting one, but I think it even falls short of what is truly required for equity. But it’s a step in the right direction. It’s a big payback for sure, though I don’t think we are even. 400 years can’t disappear overnight. I’m not sure there is anything white people can do to be free. Bringing black people into the same social circumstances as white people would certainly bring equity and improve the quality of life for a race that has been disenfranchised for far too long but forgiveness would have to be there for absolution to be complete. And the crux of forgiveness is always on the victim. I don’t think that’s fair. Some things deserve to be held onto. Payback’s a bitch.  

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EPISODE V: “Cancer Attack” 

Directed by Hiro Murai, Written by Jamal Olori 

We are at a Paper Boi concert in Budapest, Hungary. Earn is instructing a runner to bring him ginger beer rather than ginger ale for Paper Boi’s dressing room. Earn looks tired and generally unhappy as he has through much of the season so far, he’s managing a very big production. Darius has found a blueprint of the venue and wants to explore it, he thinks the venue is haunted and exploration holds an enlightening adventure. Darius and Paper Boi laugh and joke around, they’re having fun sans Earn. Socks is still around. It’s good vibes. He’s busy worrying about Van’s whereabouts and busy being angry with her for not letting him in. It’s been 6 days. Paper Boi senses this and he’s trying to talk to him about it but Earn isn't really hearing him. Earn has a job to do and Paper Boi.. Alfred has become that job rather than his cousin.  We spend a lot of time with Alfred in this episode. 

twenty-three: “Doja Cat” by $NOT 

But for now, we stick with Paper Boi. Paper Boi is doing a meet and greet with a kid dying of cancer and his parents. The kid is a big fan of Paper Boi. The meet and greet ends, Paper Boi gets hyped up by Darius to get on stage. While he’s getting hyped up, a strange skinny white man comes on stage and gets the crowd riled up. Earn, already irritated, is not amused. 

“Get the fuck off of the stage!” 

Paper Boi has a great set and he’s feeling good, good vibes persist. That is, until he realizes his phone is missing. Darius, Paper Boi, and Earn frantically scour the dressing room but come up empty. Socks says he’s going to help them look for it and suggests that the make-a-wish kid, Marvy, may have stolen it before the set. Earn makes a call and it turns out the kid is being rushed off the premises due to a “cancer attack.” Earn deduces that Marvy was guilty and raced out to catch him before he was able to leave. 

Turns out, Marvy is on a stretcher on his way to the ambulance. In a hilarious moment, he requests Marvy’s assistance then pats him down as the crowd boos him before Marvy’s father pushes Earn away. Marvy did not steal Paper Boi’s phone and cancer attacks are apparently real. 

The reason Paper Boi is so bothered about losing his phone is because Darius forbade them from having an iCloud because of his conspiracies. There is information on the phone that cannot be retrieved. Socks suggests that maybe the fan that had crashed the stage had the phone. This is the second time Socks has offered a suspect.  Folk, the venue manager, tells them about Wiley, the fan that was onstage. Wiley is Folk’s nephew through marriage and he was backstage getting interviewed about a job. He tells them to get his number from the rigger and they do. 

Earn calls him and tries to coax him into coming back to the venue by promising a meet-and-greet with Paper Boi. Wiley is dubious about the whole situation and the whole procedure starts to feel like pulling teeth. Socks comes and grabs the phone and threatens to kill Wiley. He’s aggressive and animated and angry. He’s “the white Liam Neeson bruv.” 

Paper Boi snatches the phone from Socks to alleviate the situation and calm Wiley’s nerves to get him to return to the venue with the phone. Wiley hangs up before telling Paper Boi whether or not he’s coming back. But he does come back. Folk tells them to come and speak with him. The room is set up interrogation style. Before going in, they tell Socks he can’t enter because he’s too hot. 

Wiley says he does not have the phone and he just came back to meet Paper Boi and to be honest, he’s weird as hell. When Earn attempts to put him at ease, he immediately inverts energy and puts everyone on edge even more than they already are. The contentious environment is further cloaked in anxiety with every word that spills out of Wiley’s mouth. 

“Nobody is gonna die.” 

“We are all gonna die someday. Maybe my end should come at the hands of Paper Boi.” 

It becomes clear pretty soon that Wiley is a big fan of Paper Boi. He says he feels like he’s dreaming and a frustrated Paper Boi asserts that nobody is dreaming this. Then Wiley says something that startles Paper Boi. He asks him if he dreams of box-top Chevys or kissing a thorn on a rose. Something sweet, but it hurts. It’ll make you never trust anything too beautiful again. Paper Boi rounds up Earn and Darius and goes back out to the hallway to re-group. Folk walks by and reminds them that he’s just “19” (lol). Darius notes that Wiley is blinking every five seconds on the dot. Socks is still angry as hell and eager to enact violence on Wiley, settling for slamming his fists against the wall. They write this off as white boy intensity. Earn wonders what the hell Wiley was getting at about the dream stuff. 

Paper Boi says his boy from high school, Pookie, fucked his high school girlfriend who was named Rose and that a box-top Chevy was his dream car in high school. He says he only rapped about this information on some early tracks that he never released. Those tracks are on his phone. Earn and Paper Boi are now convinced that Wiley has the phone and plan a “good cop, bad cop” routine. 

When Earn, the good cop, approaches Wiley with a can of coke and begins his line of questioning; Wiley immediately upends him by asking him about his accent or lack of it. Earn doesn’t have the stereotypical Atlanta southern dialect. Wiley asks him if he was told that he talked white growing up and if it made him feel separate. 

“I think it’s interesting when people aren’t allowed in the universal group.” 

Donald Glover has expressed feelings of being othered by black people more aligned with traditional African-American culture through his music as Childish Gambino, so this feels like a bit of that coming through onto the screen. Notably, in a season with a heavy concentration on race, this is the only time race or racial dynamics are explicitly brought to the forefront of the conversation. Paper Boi fumes on the side as Wiley continues to derail their investigation. 

Wiley asks for a cigarette and Folk obliges. Wiley takes one tote before coughing his lungs out and inquiring why anyone smokes, further infuriating Paper Boi who is on the brink of attacking Wiley. He charges him but Folk and Earn get him to calm down. Wiley requests one phone call and maintains that he left his phone at home, but when he says the number, it’s a 404 number. It’s Paper Boi’s number. Paper Boi charges Wiley and roughs him up by his sweater. Wiley nervously farts amongst the scrum. Wiley apologizes with tears in his eyes. Folk excuses Wiley’s actions by noting his age and reiterates that he’s 19. Wiley tells them that he’s 32. 

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They leave the room again to catch their whims, the “good cop, bad cop” routine didn’t work. Socks emerges again and tries to attack Folk before they drive him away. He almost says nigga. Earn and Paper Boi go back into the room alone with a new plan to record the conversation and get Wiley to incriminate himself. Wiley made a crane while they were in the hallway. 

As soon as Paper Boi sits down, he tells Earn to excuse himself. Alfred comes out and gives a beautiful, magnificent monologue where he reveals the primary reason he is so pressed about getting his phone back. 

“I haven’t written anything in seven months.” 

“I can’t find the words.” 

“Bah, nothing.” 

“I don’t know what’s bad or good anymore.” 

“I was never into rapping. And now it’s what I do. It’s all I do. Too late for me to anything else. “ 

This new information and peek inside of Alfred’s head reveals that earlier that day on the docks, Alfred had a breakthrough. 

“I heard him, my voice, loud and clear.” 

He found a melody and his voice was singing. He was singing with it. Like a kid on the bus. 

“I’m afraid imma lose it forever if I don’t get it back now. I NEED that phone.” 

Wiley does not directly respond to anything Alfred had to say. He seizes this moment of emotional vulnerability and anger and sadness and honesty to plug in a few emotions and memories of his own. He reveals to Alfred that they have the same birthday, April 28th and that they’re Tauruses. Bull-headed. He takes off his coat and Folk comes in with a guitar for Wiley. Wiley requested it while Alfred was talking. Wiley discloses that once upon a time he got his heart broken and he was lonely and lost and he heard The Postal mixtape and it inspired him.  Alfred’s music brought him out of that dark place. 

“I felt the same. I didn’t sympathize. I didn’t empathize. I felt the same.” 

song twenty-four: “Cancer Attack” by Samuel Blenkin 

Wiley dives into an emotional acoustic song, an original song. The lyrics are haunting and bewitching and enchanting and melancholy and oh so sad. 

“There’s a fire on the mountainside, I can see the smoke rising.” 

“I swear I seen the other side and I never wanted less…” 

“I never needed less…” 

“I don’t need more of you, I don’t want more of you.” 

Once Wiley finishes his song, he rises from his seat and thanks Alfred for meeting him. He wishes him good luck on finding his phone. He honestly did not steal it. They were chasing a red herring, Wiley is innocent. Darius, Earn, and Alfred head back to the tour bus as their failure sinks in.  Socks apologizes for his angry outbursts and they forgive him. Van finally texts back Earn but it’s only a lone “thumbs up” emoji. 

song twenty-five: “Dedicated To The One I Love” by The Temprees 

It’s revealed that Socks had the phone the entire time. Socks finishes his cigarette and throws the phone into the trash. Everyone boards the tour bus. In probably the best use of music in the whole series, “Dedicated To The One I Love” underscores the emotional weight of the scene. Alfred seems to be measuring the viability of his own happiness as he sits down and his team sits around him. The bus has an overhead mirror on the ceiling and everyone rescinds from sight in the reflection as they sit down, except for Alfred. It’s a poignant shot. Alfred is all alone in a room full of people. 

I cried on three different occasions on three different viewings while watching this episode. The first time I cried was on my first viewing, when Alfred was explaining to Wiley about how he lost his voice and how he fears that he’ll never find it again. I understood this, maybe more than I wish to. I’ve been in and out of many funks in my life and recently, all my funks feel deeper than the ones before. But he found a melody and he sang with it. Brian Tyree Henry is awe-inspiring and his performance as Alfred in this episode is the highlight of the entire season, especially during his monologue. The pacing of his speech hums like a slow murmuring saxophone on a blues record. His voice trembles, but it's strong. He acts so much with his face but it still feels restrained and cool. He doesn't make eye contact, not until he needs to. The way he communicated pain, loss, devastation, desperation, hope, anger, and perseverance resonated with me in ways past empathy or sympathy. I felt the same. That’s probably what brought me to tears. I rewatched this scene the day after the episode premiered a few times, just to see if it hit me the same way and it did. A voice is a hard thing to find, in the sense that it normally comes to you without you having anything to do with it. A voice is a hard thing to lose, in the sense that you will be lost without it. A voice is a hard thing to recover, in the sense that our ears have the tendency to go deaf to our own voices.  Silence is a death in a way. Alfred has died without his voice and Paper Boi is what’s left.  

I finally cried during Wiley’s performance of “Cancer Attack” on my fifth viewing. I’m not entirely sure why it broke me when it did. I was going through a time. I am going through a tough time. I am welling up with tears, even as I listen to the song and write these words. There is a lightness and confidence in Wiley’s singing voice that wasn’t there when he spoke. And as lugubrious as the lyrics were, his voice was even more desolate and hollow. I feel a chill, like a ghost has clutched my shoulder and whispered in my ear and said, “it won’t be okay and sometimes that’s okay.” 

The solo conversation between Alfred and Wiley felt like a cloud. Words and ideas just floated around. Whatever weighed too much rained down on both of them. They couldn’t be any more different yet they managed to find the same emotions. That’s human. 

The final time I cried was the final scene, when “Dedicated To The One I Love” by The Temprees began to play. I cried on my sixth viewing. The song is beautiful and I felt an instant attachment to it even on first viewing. The tears however… I think I was just swept up in my feelings of isolation and loneliness, even amongst people. Even amongst people I love. I went back to Georgia recently and I didn’t feel at home, at least not totally and that scared me a bit. I’m terrified of the idea that maybe I’ve lost my home there and I don’t have a home here (New York). Alfred has become Paper Boi and now he’s completely alone. 

I think “Cancer Attack” is the strongest episode of the season and arguably the best episode in the history of Atlanta. The idea of someone who stole your phone helping you look for it is SO Atlanta. The ability to imbue such a familiar story with heavy emotional touchstones is special. I feel better for having experienced it. This episode is probably the most isolated from the “curse of whiteness” storyline for the season. I am not sure that it’s a coincidence that this one also happens to be the best. 

EPISODE VI: “White Fashion” 

Written & Directed BY Ibra Ake 

Marcello is a French fashion designer for fictional high fashion house, Esco-Esco. He is explaining to his boss the genesis of a new design. It’s a hockey jersey. The jersey is the number 5 for the fifth anniversary of the brand. It says Central Park because it was inspired by Central Park. The mascot is an anthropomorphized raccoon with gold teeth named “Mr. Spagooti,” by a manga from Tel Aviv. It only takes a few moments for a trained eye to realize what’s wrong with this picture. 

The Central Park 5 is a nickname for the five black teenage boys who were wrongfully convicted of a rape that occured in Central Park on April 19, 1989. Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, Korey Wise, Yusef Salaam, and Antron McCray. Their case re-entered the spotlight due to Netflix and Ava Duvernay’s 2019 mini-series, When They See Us. All five were eventually exonerated but their case survives as a profound example of racism within the American judicial system. 

The sweater is insensitive and the design is a direct reference to the racial failings from Gucci and their blackface sweater from 2019 or Moncler and their sambo collection from 2016. A lot of times these things could be avoided if they had a single black person in the room. It’s hard to believe that these offensive images weren’t purposely perpetrated as part of an outrage marketing scheme. But I guess white people don’t hear the truth all that often, especially when they need it. That’s part of the curse. 

song twenty-six: “Fake Jersey” by Teni 

Earn, Paper Boi, and Darius meet with the heads of Esco Esco. They want Paper Boi to be part of an anti-racist intiative. They are extremely hospitable. They ask them what they want to eat. Earn declines. Paper Boi wants ribs with a simple mac and cheese. Darius wants Naija jollof rice. They’re confused about what “jollof rice” is. He tells them it’s as if your “taste buds have been scammed by a Nigerian prince at a Burna Boy concert.” 

This isn't the first time an ethnic food that holds a special meaning to a certain subculture of blackness has been moved into a folkloric space by Atlanta. Lemon pepper wings, specifically lemon pepper wet, were infamously used to depict luxury and taste during season 1 in the “streets on lock” episode. 

Paper Boi agrees to be part of Esco Esco’s diversity board in exchange for 3 exclusive tailored suits and free clothes whenever he wants. Darius wants the Central Park 5 jersey but they decline his request. Earn wonders why Paper Boi is agreeing to an “uncle tom” photo op. Paper Boi doesn’t care what the streets think, “I shot niggas,” he notes. Earn tells him that if he’s going to be part of this, he should at least take it seriously. Start a “re-invest in your hood campaign” and learn the infrastructure to really make a change. Paper Boi shrugs him off and says the nigga organizing the people always gets shot. 

Sharon, the head of hospitality at Esco Esco, fails to find jollof rice for Darius. She asks if it’s Ghanaian and it was funny as hell to see Darius’s response to the question. She enlists Darius’s help and he gives her a spot in the city. This is the start of storyline B. 

At the presser for the diversity board, Paper Boi meets Khalil. Khalil is a social justice activist (for hire). He is inspired by famed black lives matter activist, DeRay McKesson. DeRay is known for walking around with a blue bubble vest on, Khalil wears a life jacket with “BLM” written on it in sharpie. There is Demarco, a racially ambiguous pro-black activist, likely inspired by Shaun King. And there is Rose, a disabled social justice activist. They’re all there to apologize for white people and tell other white people the things they need to hear. 

“Is racism over?” 

“Fuck no.” - Paper Boi 

“With our initiative, we believe racism will be over by 2024!” - Khalil 

Applause. 

Darius takes Sharon to a Nigerian cuisine restaurant, Eko Chops. He explains Naija, Nollywood, Igbo, jollof, and okra soup Sharon looks around at the restaurant and says it has “growth potential.” Darius doesn’t seem to understand what she’s getting at. 

Paper Boi is not enjoying his time on the diversity board. The social justice activists are all asking for material things; Black Panther 2 tickets, plane tickets, 1000 book purchases, or signed off-white sneakers, rather than trying to enact real change. Paper Boi asks an important question, how does any of that help black people? 

Meanwhile, Earn is trying to fix his apple watch and enlists the concierge service at a nearby hotel to help him. While there, he spots Van and abandons his initial mission. He’s angry with her and she doesn’t seem to understand why, or at least she pretends she doesn’t. She’s completely nonchalant about the entire situation. A white woman comes into the hotel lobby, hysterical, and accuses Van of stealing a wig. Earn and Van play the race card and Earn pretends she’s his fiance to parlay their inconvenience into a free night’s stay at the hotel. The hysterical white woman is escorted off of the premises. Storyline C has emerged. 

Esco Esco actually hired a competent black woman, Eniola, to run the diversity board and she secured 60k in discretionary funds to use towards a movement of their choice. Paper Boi proposes a “re-invest in yo hood campaign” that mirrors what Earn had brought up earlier. They all get on board with it. Khalil and Demarco each have charities and each want to run the campaign through their charities. Paper Boi chooses Khalil because he doesn’t like the way Demarco says nigga. They tell Paper Boi to record a promotional video for the cause and he does it. 

Darius goes back to Eko Chops but the door won’t open. They’ve closed. Across the street is a food truck, called “Naija Bowl.” Sharon quit her job as head of hospitality and bought Eko Chops then gentrified the food into African fusion cuisine. Her replacement lacks all authenticity. White people do this everywhere. She offers Darius a bowl with jollof rice with a peach barbecue reduction and “chunks.” The meal is named “The Darius”  because he is from Georgia. Darius is shaken by this information and throws the bowl away without trying it. 

The same way Eko Chops was gentrified, so was the “re-invest in yo hood campaign.” They “all lives matter” the movement by whitewashing it, decentralizing it, and over-diversifying his message in a black and white ad. A social crime committed against black people has now been used to apologize to all people. Paper Boi sees this and he’s mad but Khalil calms him down with the truth. Truth that he has been hiding from his white cohorts. Khalil asks Paper Boi a crucial question: why would they fund their own demise? 

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song twenty-seven: “Red Room” by Hiatus Kaiyote 

Van and Earn are enjoying a romantic evening in their free hotel room, even though they’re not together. Van tells Earn he worries about everything too much after Earn apologizes for being angry with her for going AWOL. 

song twenty-eight: “In Your Eyes” by BADBADNOTGOOD ft. Charlotte Day Wilson 

Van slow dances with Earn to the music. They breathe on each other. Earn’s mind is elsewhere and he almost ruins the moment. 

“Did you steal that wig?” 

Van kisses Earn instead of responding and they have sex. In the morning, she’s gone and Earn once again left to wonder where she is and worry about where she’s headed. 

song twenty-nine: “Next Time/ Humble Pie” by The Internet 

This episode felt formulaic but it was good to see our main characters again, in a lighter setting. I feel as though it provided supplemental examples of the curse of whiteness and how they often manifest it against themselves in self-destructive ways that frequently go on to consume others as well. Whiteness does not assimilate or fuse into anything, it eats. It ate Paper Boi’s campaign and it ate Eko Chops. Whiteness and culture is like water and oil, it simply does not mix. 

Darius and Paper Boi had funnier storylines but Earn and Van’s storyline was interesting to me. We haven’t gotten a very good peek at what Van has actually been up and we could only assume she has been destroying herself. Seeing Earn make the effort to connect with her and seeing her continue to pull away is disconcerting. In the first two seasons, you would think that everything Earn is now is everything Van ever wanted for her and for their daughter, Lottie. But it’s not enough, probably because this isn't the same Van from seasons 1 and 2. 

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Last postscript thought, when Earn asked Van if she stole the wig amidst their romantic moment, it reminded me of Larry David asking Cheryl if she “respected wood” in the last scene of Season 7 of Curb Your Enthusiasm and I mean that in the best way. 

EPISODE VII: “trini 2 de bone” 

Directed by Donald Glover, Written by Jordan Temple 

song thirty: “Black Harlow” by Sada Baby 

We follow a middle-aged white man’s jog home in Manhattan, NY.  This man is Miles. His son, Bash or Sebastian, is watching The Proud Family but he isn't even supposed to be home. Normally the nanny, Sylvia, has taken him to school by this point but she is nowhere to be found. Bash’s mother and Miles’s wife, Bronwyn, has to cover Sylvia’s slack and she’s annoyed because it has made her miss morning yoga. They’re a fairly wealthy family. 

Bash won’t eat the eggs benedict that Bronwyn bought for him because he says that they’re bland. When asked what they can do to remedy that, Bash suggests they top it with “spicy curry mango.” Surprisingly, they have some in the fridge marked “slight pepper.” Miles tries some and it’s too spicy for him but Bash loves it. Miles gets a phone call and receives the news that Sylvia has died. As Bronwyn and Miles assess the news, there is a loud knock at the door. When they answer, there is a mysterious package addressed to Sylvia with no apparent messenger. They bring the package inside with intentions to return it to the doorman. 

song thirty-one: “Into The Shore” by Micheal Palmer and Samuel Dubois 

Bronwyn takes Bash to school. She’s flustered and Bash does not know why. He asks her if she needs an “ocean breath.” 

The doorman has no idea who the messenger of the package was. Bronwyn and Miles debate over telling Bash about Sylvia’s death. I get the feeling that they use Sylvia to be absent parents, a luxury only afforded to upper class people. They even complain about the teacher’s at Bash’s school pressing them for not being there on family picture day. They finally settle on telling Bash about Sylvia’s death because she meant a lot to him. But they don’t know how. Dinosaurs? Old dogs? Wooly mammoths? They settle on the truth. 

“Sylvia died.” 

“Can she come back and say goodbye?” 

They decide on taking Bash to the funeral so he can give Sylvia a proper goodbye. Later that night, the mysterious messenger drops off the mysterious package again. They bring it back into the house and vouch to return it in the morning. Sylvia left a lot of things at their apartment, a sign that she spent a lot of time there. Bronwyn doesn’t seem very concerned about Sylvia or very sad about her death. She selfishly laments her for being too old and pines for a younger, more metropolitan, Asian nanny that can teach Mandarin to Bash. Miles does not seem fazed by Bronwyn’s lack of compassion, he only notes that her vision sounds expensive. 

Bronwyn struggles to do everything that Sylvia used to do for them, like put Bash to sleep or comfort him in his bed. Bash has to teach his mother how to care for him, he asks her to sing the “sweet and T” song to him how Sylvia used to. 

Miles, Bronwyn, and Bash all go to Sylvia’s funeral. Some of the black people at the funeral are confused. They call them cockroaches which Bash explains to mean, “cockroach has no place at fowl party.” Khadija, one of Sylvia’s daughters, greets the family and shows Miles where to park after she and Bash bond over Sylvia’s memory and odd sayings she used to teach them. Khadija forces them to stay for the wake. 

It’s an open casket funeral, Sylvia’s loved ones cry hysterically. As Miles, Bronwyn, and Bash sit down, the family offers their condolences and tries to make them feel at home. In what is perhaps the funniest moment in the whole episode; Curtis, played by Chet Hanks, introduces himself to Bash’s family with a thick and very bad Trinidadian accent. Chet Hanks seized internet infamy when he posted videos of him speaking patois and warning us of a “white boy summer.” The videos garnered a lot of criticism due to the fact that he has a history of violence against black women and he is a white man appropriating Caribbean cultures for comedy (seemingly). Atlanta completely leans into this to add a layer to a pretty funny joke, albeit problematic. When Miles asks him if he’s from Trinidad or Jamaica, Curtis corrects him and says it’s “Trinidad and TOBAGO. And no, I’m from Tribeca.” 

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Curtis used to be cared for by Sylvia as a child and now as an adult man, he has completely wrapped himself in a culture that is not his own. Culture is an inheritance and their high class values have caused them to be completely disconnected from passing that along. Curtis could be a warning of what Bash could be in the future. 

Sylvia has three children of her own: Khadija, Princess, and Steven Jr. She also has a nephew, Oswald James, who is a wide receiver in the NFL. Princess looks angry while her siblings look somber and grateful. A phone by the name of “gooch lickman” airdrops Miles a photo of his booty hole. I spent a lot of time researching this and extensively looking for clues about what it may be in reference to but I’ve come to the conclusion that it was just supposed to be an absurd moment in an absurd series of events. It comes and passes very quickly. 

She believed in tradition but is not at all traditional. Bronwyn and Miles learn a lot about Sylvia and her passions outside of taking care of their child. It’s easy to imagine that this is their first time really registering that she is a human being. 

song thirty-two: “Trini 2 De Bone” by David Rudder 

Due to Sylvia’s passion for dancing and her history as a dancer for various dance companies, a group of Trinidadian dancers perform at the ceremony. Princess is still angry and lets the resentment she harbored towards her mother drive her to interrupt the ceremony. She complains of being left behind while Sylvia raised white people’s kids. She laments being one of her mother’s many sacrifices. 

“Who do you think she sacrificed? …Where was she?” 

“She was providing for us.” 

“She should’ve been taking care of her own.” 

Princess begins to bash the coffin out of anger which causes a riotous reaction from everyone else. A fight breaks out between the family and they war and Sylvia’s sister, Nancy, tries to climb into the coffin. Curtis yells out “world star” as he starts recording, a dated reference for sure but it fits for a white culture vulture and it’s a possible reference to Childish Gambino’s Because The Internet. The fight finally subsides when the Pastor exclaims that they’re “scaring the white people” while Miles tries to lead his family out of the service. 

There is a moment of awkwardness and confusion and even dishonesty, but Bash pushes that away when he admits that he was scared. The pastor says that they’re just sad. 

“This is how we sad.” 

Miles mutters “Trini 2 De Bone” to himself on the way home. They tuck Bash in for bed and he says goodnight to Sylvia’s empty seat in his bedroom. In their bedroom, Bronwyn tells Miles that she never wants Bash to feel the way Princess feels about Sylvia, about her. This seems to be a possible path for their relationship because she has been pushing her parental duties off to other people for Bash’s entire life. When she asked what Bash wanted to be when he grew up, he said he wanted to “play steelpan like Uncle Samuel.” She has no idea what that means and neither does Miles. They don’t know their son at all. 

The knocking comes back in the middle of the night and this time it is rampant and droning. knock knock knock knock knock knock knock knock knock knock knock knock knock knock. Miles answers the door and the package addressed to Sylvia is back, marked “final notice.” It’s a school family picture with Sylvia and Bash. A melancholic rendition of “Trini 2 De Bone” starts playing as Miles looks down the hallway to see who left the package. Who’s watching? 

I feel like this is the most self-contained Atlanta episode. Aside from Paper Boi street posters in the background in the funeral parking lot, there are no main characters. In addition to that, the other anthology style episodes of Atlanta take place in Atlanta so the story maintains the same texture. This story takes place in Manhattan so it feels pretty different. It’s a good story though. A restrained horror exercise, I would say. 

The axis on which the story spins is that of distortion. Miles and Bronwyn have given their child to Sylvia and haven’t seemed to give much thought to what that really means. Culturally, Bash has much more Trinadadian sensibilities than white ones. Curtis could be a look into the future for what Bash will be. Bash watches black cartoons, says black sayings, has black tastes, and even carries the cadence of someone much older than him. Bronwyn seems to think of cultures as different hats for Bash to try on. But it’s deeper than that, it’s in his bones now. She has taken him and not with anything sinister, only with love and attention and adoration. 

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[end of part two] 

notes on: Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers

MEDIUM: Music GENRE: Rap TRACKS: 18 RUNTIME: 73 minutes 

FAVORITE TRACKS: N95, Father Time, Rich Spirit, Count Me Out, Crown, Mother I Sober, Mirror 

LEAST FAVORITE TRACKS: Worldwide Steppers, Rich (interlude), Auntie Diaries   

FEATURES: Blxst, Amanda Reifer, Sampha, Taylour Paige, Kadhja Bonet, Summer Walker, Ghostface Killah, Kodak Black, Baby Keem, Sam Dew, Tanna Leone, Beth Gibbons 

Release Year: 2022 

“Tell them the truth.” 

Kendrick Lamar has returned from his five-year hiatus with Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, a double LP release that picked up exactly where his Pulitzer Prize winning album, DAMN, had left off. Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers seems to hit on the same motifs as his previous albums, spirits and heritage and demons and genetic memory and a cursed people, but it comes to a drastically different conclusion than his prior offerings. DAMN concluded with Kendrick Lamar recognizing and accepting his role in America as a modern day prophet. Kendrick Lamar realized that in order to be the best prophet for his people, he needed to look at his past and exorcize the demons placed on his lineage by both himself and his ancestors in order to save his future. This was the penultimate destination of his journey towards God and his true self started way back in 2013 on Good Kid, Maad City and further realized through To Pimp A Butterfly. 

However, we know it did not exactly turn out that way. Kendrick Lamar receded into his bubble, away both creatively and from the public eye. While his music remained a rallying point in the fight against police brutality and for improved race relations, Kendrick Lamar didn’t say or do much of anything as the world turned to shit around him. In his time away, Kendrick Lamar looked into the mirror and realized that he was in no position to be the prophet he ordained himself to be. He was dealing with his own vices, curses, and demons that needed to be addressed. He was no longer himself, he was “oklama.”  

Oklama originates from the Chahta Anumpa tribe. “Okla” means people and “ma” means my. The phrase “oklah ma” is often used in the Choctaw translation of the Bible when a prophet is addressing a community on God’s behalf. If Kendrick Lamar is oklama then he is his people. But who are his people? Black people? Compton? Humanity? I think the answer lies on the cover of the album. Shot by Renell Medrano, Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers’s album cover has Kendrick Lamar on the cover with his fiance and two children. Kendrick Lamar wears a thorny crown, invoking the image of Jesus Christ (the savior). He also has a pistol in his waistband. He looks out the door into the world, ready to protect what he has, his people. Kendrick Lamar had two young children since the release of DAMN and he has realized that he is now more than just himself and what he carries with him will be inherited by his children. It is up to him to break the generational curse and make a new clean world for his wife and kids, even if it is at the expense of his prophethood. 

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The double album tells that story. The first album, Mr. Morale, covers tracks 1-9. It begins with “United In Grief,” where Kendrick Lamar chronicles the mental and spiritual hole he fell into following his last album. The first words are “I hope you find some peace of mind, in this lifetime” and the voice of his woman, Whitney, urges him to “tell them the truth.” Kendrick expresses his grief and how he felt trapped. He’s been going through it himself, too much to save the world. He follows that up with the quick paced “N95” where he spits quick lines, telling us to shed the fake and the superfluous vices of the flesh and see what we still have left to offer. We need to shed the fugazi for purification and practice authenticity and honesty no matter how ugly it makes us look. He follows this with “Worldwide Steppers” where he raps about fucking white women (lol) and possible anxiety that he is not living up to his ancestor’s dreams of him and that his actions are hurting his people.

The album finally pivots towards full repentance on the fourth track, “Die Hard.” He recognizes his demons and hopes that it isn't too late to atone for his sins and save his bloodline. Kendrick says, “I have some regrets but my past won’t keep me from my best.” After this he looks at his past on the fifth track, “Father Time.” He raps about his daddy issues, specifically a basketball game he played against his father when he was an adolescent. His father was rough with him and let him know the world would be rough as well. His father was a hard man who didn’t think he had the luxury of emotion. Kendrick Lamar thinks he inherited this from his father along with a plethora of other hyper masculine traits. But at the end, Kendrick Lamar still loves his father and was grateful for having him in his life, something a lot of young black men did not experience. He follows this with some Kodak Black spoken word poetry and the 7th track, “Rich Spirit.” 

“Rich Spirit” brings Kendrick Lamar back to the present and back into braggadocio rather than the reflective nature of the previous tracks. He further explores the idea that being rich in spirit is more rewarding and real than having material wealth. Lasting memory and eternal salvation are all we have. The song reads as a warning of sorts, as if he’s striving towards the Buddha or Christ figure, but opposition keeps pulling him back towards the flesh.  The next track, “We Cry Together” is an argument song where Kendrick Lamar uses two personas, one voiced by him and the other by Zola actor, Taylour Paige. He uses these two characters to reveal a world at war and in the end, he comes to the conclusion that we should shut the fuck up and let love talk. On the final song of the first album, “Purple Hearts,” Kendrick Lamar along with Ghostface Killah and Summer Walker lets us know that love conquers all and that we should lead our lives with love in mind. Kendrick Lamar seems to surmise that this love shouldn’t come from just anywhere, but should be born from God’s love of his people.  

The second album, The Big Steppers, leads us with God’s love lighting the path towards salvation. The road is dark but he has a starting point now. It begins with “Count Me Out.” Kendrick Lamar forgives himself for his demons and he realizes that nothing can complete him but him. He finishes his internal struggle and gathers that he can’t be anyone but himself. Kendrick Lamar says  “this is me and I’m blessed.” Kendrick is his people but is not our savior and he can’t please everybody, let alone himself. This radical path of self-recognition is first explored on  “Crown.” Kendrick once again invokes the image of the Messiah’s thorny crown but this time, as an idea he cannot live up to. 

Baby Keem channels this idea on “Savior-Interlude” and Kendrick Lamar reiterates this again on “Savior.” He lets us know that he cannot save us despite what he has done for us. And neither can J.Cole, Future, or LeBron James. Kendrick Lamar draws attention to celebrity culture as well as his own impostor syndrome. He questions the labels that have been placed on him due to the conscious nature of his music. He maligns the expectations of the celebrity-activist. He argues those expectations were never his intentions. Kendrick Lamar aligns his personality closer to being like Kodak Black than being woke or pro-black. He tells us “Tupac’s dead, gotta think for yourself.” He protects himself in his valley of silence. He declines to speak on the world. 

The next track, “Auntie Diaries,” tells the story of two transgender family members of Kendrick Lamar who were ostracized by his community. He (somewhat clumsily) preaches love and acceptance of the LGBT community. He expresses his desire to unlearn hate. He chooses humanity over religion. On the seventh track of the second album, Kendrick Lamar speaks directly to his children. He wonders how his actions would affect them and how past life transgressions have affected him. He uses R.Kelly’s molestation victim to rapist story as an example of how negative actions can completely change the direction of someone’s life. Kendrick Lamar argues that actions in the now are a direct result of the vices and traumas of our ancestors. 

We are either building atop of one another or burying our bloodline even further. Kendrick pledges to step out of the hole. Kendrick Lamar watched his cousin struggle with addiction then helped her son, Baby Keem, make a million dollars. Kendrick has raised his family out of poverty but he still needs to finish healing himself in order to heal his people. He sacrifices himself to start the healing. The next track is “Mother I Sober.” This is where Kendrick loses all of the walls he put up to protect himself.  He reveals that an older family member was once suspected of molesting him, and although Kendrick wasn’t touched, no one believed him. His mother tells him years later that she was touched and that was why she projected that trauma onto him. He forgives his mother for abusing him. He forgives himself for cheating on his woman. He grabs his chance at transformation. Kendrick Lamar frees himself from his guilt and expels the demons from his people, healing everyone. He breaks the generational curse that haunted his family for the past few hundred years and healed the trauma within himself. Kendrick Lamar has built a clean and unfettered foundation for his children to build upon. 

“You broke a generational curse.”

The final track, “Mirror,” is about self-preservation. In the face of the world and with the burden of his family placed upon his shoulders, Kendrick Lamar chose himself. Being oklama, himself includes his family and his responsibilities. He rejected the pressure. In response to the first track when Whitney implored him to “tell them the truth,” he replies “I choose me, I’m sorry.” Kendrick Lamar turns his back on prophethood, societal expectations, celebrity life, TDE, and the world. He couldn’t handle the pressure and excused himself from the spotlight for family and generational wellbeing. He says he has more to live for now and he shouldn’t be responsible for the world’s misplaced faith in him. 

“I’m sorry I couldn’t save the world my friend, I was too busy building mine again.” 

I didn’t come into Kendrick Lamar’s seventh LP with any particular expectations about the thematic content and I think that served my listening experience well. Following Kendrick’s release of “The Heart Pt. V” a few days before the release of Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, I had a friend text me and say that she didn’t care what Kendrick Lamar had to say next unless it addressed the evils of capitalism. She surmised that was the next logical step in his conscious evolution and that it was his responsibility as a “woke” rapper. It struck me as odd that he is viewed this way. His music was never educational in my estimation. He didn’t rap about police brutality statistics or redlining or gerrymandering or try to explain how congress turned a bill into law like some south central LA schoolhouse rock. He spoke his truth and his pain and tied it to a history, a history of a people that have been disenfranchised and left behind. His albums have acted as spiritual journeys to inspire change more than anything else, and in that respect, Kendrick’s latest album is a conceptual success.  

I don’t have too much to say about the intentionality behind Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers. I think some of the woke elements worked but much of it didn’t. Kodak Black being a muse and feature for the album despite his numerous rape allegations was disheartening. The messaging behind songs like “Worldwide Steppers” and “Auntie Diaries” were elementary and didn’t offer any perspective that absolutely needed to be heard, despite the positive intentions. The use of homophobic slurs was odd as well, even if the context wasn’t pushing towards a negative point against the LGBT community. To be completely honest, I think I would have preferred a completely personal album rather than the more ambitious and encompassing projects from the past. Even if Kendrick had a responsibility to be woke, now that he was branded a woke rapper, I think he conquered the racial mountain that Langston Hughes wrote about long ago. Artists and creatives should have the independence to move in any direction they desire. 

Even saying that, Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers is Kendrick’s most personal project yet. There are hardly any songs where he takes the camera off of himself. It sounds off like we are overhearing a therapy session between himself and Whitney as he lays himself bare and commits the ultimate sacrifice, honesty. Despite how freeing the expression must be, it has to suck to have to be honest about such complex emotional topics as Kendrick Lamar is doing across this album. As he muttered to himself on “Mother I Sober,” I felt a heaviness and a chill in my heart. The pain from his experience magnified by the melancholic chords of the piano pushed me into Kendrick and I became him, in a way that I have become very artists before. 

As of writing, I have listened to the album 8 times over (obviously I’ve replayed my favorites a few times by themselves). The highlight of my listening experience was probably the first time I heard “Father Time.” Kendrick Lamar rapped about a basketball game and made it sound like war and love and longing and murder. There was a grit, tenacity, and tenderness to the way he said his words on the song and helped deliver his message just the right way. The track samples a reversed loop of “You’re not there” by Hoskins ‘N Crowd and it hits my ear like tears throughout the song. Sampha’s softness on the chorus is a strong antithesis to Kendrick’s rigid voice. 

I really love how “Rich Spirit” makes me feel. The lyrics feel fun and soft. I can see myself walking through the park on a sunny day just bobbing my head and having a good time. I love music that has the power to take me somewhere else. His flow and cadence has the bounce of classic Cali rap but the voice is smooth. I feel like he channeled Snoop Dogg in some way for the song. Shoutout to music that makes you feel cool. 

I feel like The Big Steppers was more successful than Mr. Morale in executing Kendrick’s concept. A big part of that was “Count Me Out” and “Crown.” My mind has somehow conflated both tracks into a single song. I relate to being unsatisfied despite myself and my successes. Because Kendrick found his way out his hole, it gives me a bit of hope for myself. I feel like I have a lot I need to forgive myself for. The questions he asked himself on these tracks seemed to be addressed directly to me. Questions that probably still need to be answered. 

In Oscar Wilde’s Critic As Artist, Wilde theorized that an artist must concede a piece of reality to ascend the art. He said that we are allured to art by mystery and that it becomes complete in its beauty through incompleteness. Music is special in a way that it never reveals its secret. Every performance is different and every emotional feeling is different. We’ve never felt the same thing twice. Wilde suggests that the worst thing we can do for art is to realize its ideal too absolutely. And I think Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers is an absolute success in that department. Kendrick Lamar sits at the axis of the whole project, seeking to scrub away his public perception. He wants us to know that we never knew him. And in a way, he keeps that mystery alive, both about himself and about his music… in defiance of his honesty. 

Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers is an honest album that tells us that we know nothing and that he’s going to leave us on our own to figure it out. I feel abandoned by Kendrick Lamar by the end of this album. I never saw him as my savior but “Mirror” felt like a swan song, not only to TDE but to music as a whole. This is probably not it, I’m certain that I’m overreacting. But Kendrick’s latest offering was a blast to listen to. And if this is it, I’m satisfied. The album is beautiful even if Kendrick failed at saving the world. Kendrick Lamar has a real connection with millions of fans like me. Our connection was built out of music, 

And so not built at all, 

And therefore built for ever.   

4.5 APPLES OF 5 APPLES

published May 16, 2022