Kendrick Lamar, the most influential MC of our time, returns with his fifth studio album "Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers". Five years after his last album-length statement, the U.S. rapper, who was the first hip-hop artist to win the Pulitzer Prize and has long been one of the few hip-hop icons to enjoy maximum respect across genres, presents a work that has matured over many years and comes across as correspondingly monumental and weighty. Over the course of the 18 tracks on the two-track "Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers" album, he gets support from very different guests like Beth Gibbons (Portishead), Summer Walker, Ghostface Killah, Baby Keem, Kodak Black, Sampha and Taylour Paige, just to name a selection. While Sounwave, Duval Timothy, Boi-1DA and Kendrick himself (as OKLAMA) contribute most of the production, Pharrell Williams, The Alchemist and Thundercat are also among the producers and co-writers of the longplayer, which has long been considered a contender for album of the year.