All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.

They all have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts.

These enduring words from William Shakespeare likened life to a piece of theatre, where each

of us take on roles and perform according to the script of our

environment, tradition, and societal expectations. We play the customer or the clerk, boss or

employee, husband, wife, parent, child. Some roles are appointed, like your gender, your ethnicity,

your class, your genetics and family history. Other roles are adopted.

You identify yourself as an activist, an athlete, a Christian, a victim, a killer.

Like actors in a play, we switch seamlessly between our various masks and behave accordingly.

And our proclivity to perform only intensifies in the age of social media, where we curate

idealized personas for an ever-present audience. Both on and offline, we're constantly

being watched, judged, and applauded for how well we stick to the script. And for many of us,

seeking those applause influences our behavior. We mask our real thoughts and motivations in order

to stay in character and avoid judgment. This is the rich subtext of Shakespeare's metaphor,

why it's endured for centuries. It questions the balance between authenticity and performance

and the human experience. Is what we show the world a true reflection of who we are or a carefully curated

act? Are we more than the accumulation of the roles we play? Who are we behind the masks we wear?

When it's just you in the mirror, who is it that you see? In the years between 2018 and 2022, these are the kinds of questions Kendrick Lamar seemed

to be asking himself. But we didn't know it at the time. That's because during those years,

Kendrick Lamar had quietly exited the public stage. From afar, Kendrick seemed deserving

of a break. The previous decade of his life was the typical grind of an

aspiring artist turned global superstar, a rigorous non-stop schedule of music-making, world tours,

...