Kendrick Lamar allegedly left a lot of Easter eggs in his 2022 album Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers that fans still haven't discovered, or at least, that's what one of its mixers Manny Marroquin thinks. But there are also plenty of details that didn't end up manifesting, and many different ideas that were swapped out for others. For example, we now have a look at some more outtake pictures from Mr. Morale's cover shoot from photographer Renell Medrano, the same session that gave us the official artwork. In them, K.Dot holds his son Enoch (in a weirdly warped and pic-combining edit), stands over his partner Whitney and the little one, and also holds a shotgun while standing behind Whitney and their two kids on the couch.
Maybe this last one was too heavy or tonally clashed for the final cut. Nevertheless, it's still interesting to see what other creative ideas were floating around the "Not Like Us" MC's head, and what his team was bringing to the table. Medrano showed off these newly unearthed pictures from the Kendrick Lamar Mr. Morale shoot at a New York City exhibition.
Kendrick Lamar's Mr. Morale Cover Outtakes
Elsewhere, though, Kendrick Lamar is focused on the future rather than his past work, and wants to cement his recent releases into the history books... Well, more than they already are, anyway. He recently submitted both "Not Like Us" and his Future and Metro Boomin collab "Like That" for consideration at the 2025 Grammys in various categories. These are Record/Song of the Year and Best Rap Song/Performance, with the former also up for consideration as a Best Music Video nominee. However, just because he submitted these picks doesn't mean that the Grammys will actually give him the nominations.
Meanwhile, Kendrick Lamar will probably spend a lot of time preparing for his Super Bowl halftime show performance next year. Maybe this comes along with an album or new release at some point, but at press time, that's only for fans to speculate. We don't actually have any concrete information on what will happen next. But these old snapshots of the Mr. Morale days made us wonder as to what other curious diversions, alternate takes, and scrapped ideas are within this discography.
