Songfacts®:

• The N95 mask is a type of respirator popularly used during the COVID-19 era. Here, Kendrick Lamar offers his take on the government's response to the pandemic and fake inauthenticity within contemporary American society.
• Lamar starts off the song by questioning the Trump and Biden administration's narrative concerning the pandemic.
  
  I got some true stories to tell
  You're back outside, but they still lied
• The first verse sees Lamar listing various designer items, materialistic ideals, and other contemporary infatuations. He implores the listener to take them off and ditch them because such unnecessary baggage doesn't truly serve us.
• Lamar starts off the second verse with an explicit reference to the COVID-19 pandemic.
  
  The world in a panic, the women is stranded, the men on a run
  The prophets abandoned, the law take advantage, the market is crashin'
  
  With billions forced to lock down worldwide and unable to earn an income, coupled with economic recession, many ended up in dire financial straits. Lamar then criticizes the rich elite who made money out of the pandemic and coldly treated the state of affairs like a Monopoly board game.
• During the third verse, Lamar goes into frenzied overdrive as he vents against fakes who sell their souls to make it big.
• Kendrick Lamar originally wrote the bridge and the first half of the third verse for his cousin Baby Keem's "Vent." In the end, K-Dot only provided vocals on the chorus and the outro of The Melodic Blue track.
• Baby Keem contributes the repeated "let's go" exclamations in the second half of verse three. Lamar's cousin also co-produced the song along with Jahaan Sweet, Boi-1da and Sounwave.
• Lamar and longtime collaborator Dave Free co-directed the video. It starts with the rapper hovering over crashing ocean waves in a pose closely resembling that of Jesus Christ on the cross. This ties in with the Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers cover art, which shows Lamar holding a child while wearing a crown of thorns on his head.
• Frequent Drake collaborator Boi-1da also worked on another Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers track, "Silent Hill." Boi-1da and Lamar have collaborated for years on cuts like "The Blacker the Berry."
  
  "Anytime I'm in LA, I always got to tap in with Dot," the producer told MTV News. "So we were just having fun and cooking up some ideas in the studio. He's a mastermind. He took everything we did and just went into his hut, master-crafted it, and put it all together. But it's always effortless working with Dot. He's one of my favorite people to work with."