Fans are Trying to Decode Kendrick Lamar’s “Top of The Morning” on The New Baby Keem Album
Twitter can’t seem to arrive at a consensus on the meaning of Kendrick Lamar’s “Top of the morning” line on Baby Keem’s the melodic blue.
Less than 24 hours into the lifecycle of Baby Keem‘s debut album, the melodic blue, Twitter is already spilling over with half-baked thinkpieces about Kendrick Lamar‘s contributions to the project. But one specific Kendrick line appears to be getting the bulk of the focus.
On “range brothers,” the first of three collaborations featured on the melodic blue, the Compton rapper is mostly just Keem’s hype man. He doesn’t even get a full verse to himself. Instead, Lamar offers some brain-scatching adlibs, splits time with Keem in the track’s third movement and holds down the hook, where he delivers what is quickly becoming the album’s most resonant line, repeating “Top of the morning” seven times before the song’s closing stanza. Many fans laughed it off. But that’s all it took to send Rap Twitter into a decoding frenzy, pulling threads between disparate Kendrick features to make sense of the typically poignant rapper’s line.
Some have theorized Lamar’s line is a reference to his soon-to-be former label, Top Dawg Entertainment. Some took the number of repetitions (seven) to be some sort of statement about his work ethic. And others are just picking up the overthinking gag and running with it, which may have been the actual intention of scattering short, but memorable, Kendrick adlibs throughout their songs together; a feature tailor-fit for rap and r&b’s very clippable TikTok era. One thing’s for sure, though. Wherever you land in the debate, the responses have been wildly entertaining.
Steam Baby Keem’s new album, the melodic blue, below. Scroll on for some of the standout takes on Kendrick’s “Top of the morning.”
This brudda Kendrick Lamar said “top of the morning” 7 times to represent everyday of the week so you know he’s always getting to it. Went right over y’all heads smh. https://t.co/X2hZmZhvSC
— Junior Maruwa (@juniormaruwa) September 9, 2021
Kendrick Lamar says “top of the morning” 7 times on Range Brothers. The neominimal-expressionism serves as a representation for the 7 days a week, a characterization of Kendrick’s constant hustle. In addition, “top of the morning” sounds like “top of the moment”, which shows how-
— CAST (@TotallyNotCast) September 10, 2021
Simpson audio dub, Homer barging through door to wake up Bart with Kendrick Lamar Baby Keem song Top of the morning part pic.twitter.com/vKRN2x24yE
— for the culture reactions (@findareaction) September 10, 2021
Kendrick Lamar repeated “top of the morning” on Range Brothers. On Untitled 02, Kendrick Lamar said “get top on the phone”, Top is the owner of TDE. Morning often means the beginning of a new day. Kendrick Lamar recently announced that he left TDE. Kendrick trying to say-
— Dedee ? (@thoughtfulbae) September 10, 2021
Kendrick Lamar’s ‘top of the morning’ bit was just built to be a tiktok transition
— ????????. (@StrappedHH) September 10, 2021
After 5 years all Kendrick Lamar have to say is “Top of the morning”???
— . (@OhThatMarco) September 9, 2021
kendrick lamar is about to have another top sound on tiktok just from saying something funny on a song randomly again and the track isn’t even out yet. man has broke the normie simulation and got the normies in the palm of his hands. top of the morning.
— THE MOB (@RapDose) September 9, 2021
people not even 24 hours was clowning the ”lets get this shit/top of the morning” on range brothers, now people are loving it. I’m convinced Kendrick Lamar can say anything and it’ll pass lol.
— Doug Lyfe ✨ (@DougLyfe) September 10, 2021