Daddy Issues - An Analysis of Father Time by Kendrick Lamar

Taken from Vol. 48, Issue 3 of my schoool publication Cuspidor.

“When I’m a dad, I’ll treat my kids so much better than how you treated me!”

I can still remember shouting that at my father, with tears in my eyes after one of our countless arguments. Just like most other teenage boys, I love my dad to death, but I fight with him perhaps more than anyone else. Regardless of whether or not I believed it at the moment, all of us at some point have believed that we could take on the difficult task of raising a child better than our parents. When they were kids, your parents had probably felt that way about their parents, just as your grandparents had felt that way about theirs as well. We like to believe that the life we create for future generations will be better than past ones, but ultimately we will end up passing on most of the values, traditions, and methodologies with which we were raised.

If you happen to enjoy hip-hop, R&B, soul, or just vulnerable and thought-provoking music, I would urge you to listen to the song “Father Time” off the rapper Kendrick Lamar’s highly anticipated album, “Mr Morale & The Big Steppers.” In this song, Kendrick describes his childhood relationship with his father, his struggles, and how they have affected his outlook on traditional masculinity. It’s his version of a therapy session over an almost lofi-like piano beat, representing the pressures of masculinity with rawness never seen before.

“That man knew a lot, but not enough to keep me past them streets
My life is a plot, twisted from directions that I can’t see
Daddy issues ball across my head, told me, “F–k a foul”
I’m teary-eyed, wanna throw my hands, I won’t think out loud”

These four lines effortlessly sum up the relationships that most young boys experience growing up with their fathers. Tough love is not an uncommon prescription for most children, but some fathers won’t always consider the potentially damaging effect it can have on them. For many, it was tough love that told you to hold back your tears so as to not be seen as weak. It was the tough love that bred aggression in young boys and caused their egos to collide. It was the same tough love that Kendrick describes manifesting as toxic masculinity in his daily life. He describes the values that his father instilled in him: to avoid trusting others and to succeed on his own. He admits later that this very attitude also made his relationships feel toxic and detached. No matter how successful he becomes, he will never be able to completely rid himself of this mentality.

“Early mornin’ wake-ups, practicin’ on day-offs
Tough love, bottled up, no chaser (neat)”

The chorus by English singer Sampha is infectiously catchy, but not without its own lyrical insights. It’s the passion displayed by Kendrick’s father, among others that force their sons to get up and work before anyone else does. That passion is bottled up for a long time, until it has to be ingested suddenly, like a shot of liquor served neat (no ice, no mixers, no chasers). For Kendrick, he didn’t have anything to numb the sting, but was just told to suck it up and move on. It even extends to the intro of this track, where his longtime partner Whitney Alford tells him to go to therapy which he rejects, claiming that he’s too “real”. This speaks to an issue that too many men face today, a world where they are scared to open up about their emotions in fear of being seen as weak or soft. It’s a world which causes Kendrick to dismiss the suggestion of seeking help for his trauma, which ironically, is as much a consequence of his trauma as a solution.

Of course, fathers like Kendrick’s were not without their reasons. His father knew the harsh environment that his son would grow up in, and he knew that there could be no room for weakness if he were to make it out. This attitude is also reflected in modern immigrant or minority families, where as a means to combat societal injustices, children are told by their parents to adopt a “head down and work hard” mentality to pull themselves up. This is something Kendrick even alludes to in his opening line (“I come from a generation of home invasions”), and the “culture” of African-American communities that he critiqued in his promotional single, “The Heart Part V.” He even expresses confusion at the conclusion of Kanye and Drake’s feud ⁠— two of the most famous African-American rappers that are completely transparent with their childhood issues. It’s hard for him to comprehend the actions of his contemporaries, how they are able to put their egos aside and reconcile in a manner so foreign to him. Too many children are told from a young age to “suck it up” and never show weakness, to feel shame for showing emotion, and to trust no one. When a father raises his son the same way that his father raised him, they continue an endless cycle of intergenerational values, the very cycle that Kendrick wishes to break.

Finally, something that we should probably also understand is that not all masculinity has to be toxic. For me, the hardest-hitting lyric of the song describes its necessity:

“His momma died, I asked him why he goin’ back to work so soon?
His first reply was, “Son, that’s life, the bills got no silver spoon”

Perhaps it’s a bit extreme, but these lyrics serve as an example of what many men strive to be: the calm head in times of crisis. The vigilance that Kendrick’s father shows in the wake of tragedy is the same vigilance that keeps the lights on when the rest of his family is grieving. For other men however, the burden to be a boulder that others can lean on is a noble one, but not one that should be forced onto them all. We should encourage men to be strong, but never bully them for showing weakness.

The idea of toxic masculinity is not at all novel in music, but Kendrick’s lyricism brings the issue to depths it’s never seen before. After all, what better of a genre than hip hop, which glorifies masculinity more than any other, and forces artists to be as “manly” as they can? Just like every other rapper, Kendrick’s take on masculinity can show itself in tracks in the form of confidence and braggadocio that can be empower young, insecure boysing to listen to, but he is able to strike a fine balance. Realistically, his success in the industry is caused by precisely the opposite: throughout his career, he has been thoughtful, emotional, introspective, and vulnerable, allowing himself to gain such a strong following. In his own words, “everything [my father] didn’t want is everything that I was”. That’s not a bad thing though, because in a world where men are told to never show weakness, vulnerability, and emotion, it is truly a blessing to have such an influential artist do the exact opposite and encapsulate the male experience so well.