Kendrick Lamar - Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers (May 13th, 2022) Album • Page 33

and they're eating them too!

 

I’d put it level with Damn too probably though Kendrick is an artist I don’t really think ranking albums does them justice. TPAB and GKMC are such cohesive records whereas Damn and MM he’s experimenting with such different sounds and styles. That said, this is chorus so TPAB > GKMC > Damn = MM > S80.

N95 is the one stuck in my head at the moment. Love when it slows down at the “hello to the big stepper never losing count” section.

 

I woke up yesterday and, for some god forsaken reason one of the first things I did was log onto twitter and I saw that someone had said something super sardonic in reference to Kendrick saying the f-slur. so I kinda like immediately went like “oh god no” and pulled the song up. I didn’t listen, but I just read the lyrics and that alone was incredibly impactful for me and I cried. I felt conflicted by the inconsistent pronoun usage and deadnaming/etc on first brush of course but the more I listened the more I understood why he used the pronouns he did at each point. he is constantly switching the tense, going back and forth between his younger, more ignorant self and current self. you have to be really, really tuning in and discerning to follow imo, but I think I have it pretty well understood by this point — and to my understanding, he never uses the incorrect pronouns for his trans uncle when referring to him in the present tense. not only that, but the level of love and respect and admiration he describes always holding for him is palpable throughout. it’s powerful for me, and far outweighs any misgivings I might have.

he does consistently refer to him as “auntie” but to be honest with you? that’s no one’s place to police that outside of Kendrick’s own family unit. maybe that’s just what is comfortable for them and it doesn’t invalidate their gender to have those terms used. maybe he’s only using it to make a point in the context of the song and outside of that he refers to him as “uncle”. we don’t know. that part I really don’t think anyone has any right to dissect unless we have more information from the involved parties, anything else is overreach and I feel that extremely strongly. Laura Jane Grace’s daughter, to my knowledge, still refers to LJG as her father/dad, and Laura honors that when speaking about herself too. imo it is no one’s job to butt into that in the interest of pushing what they feel is morally superior.

the use of the f-slur is tough, yes, but I personally do feel it adds weight and power and I don’t think you’re supposed to hear that word and feel comfortable. I do not think this is the point. I don’t get the sense that Kendrick is comfortable saying it, considering the last time he himself refers to the word (seems he’s speaking in present tense for the first time re: his relationship w the word here), he censors himself. the last line is from the perspective of one of his trans relatives (I believe he’s referring to Mary Anne). yes, the conundrum is that he’s still using it and you can call it mental gymnastics or whatever you want but sometimes you gut all the impact trying to sanitize your speech when you’re discussing such difficult subjects. I think it is totally a personal line to draw here but I am really, really fucking over seeing LGBT folks dismiss other LGBT folks takes just bc some aren’t as offended as others feel they should be. I have seen ppl w similar takes as me get called “gay/trans uncle toms” and had our own sexuality weaponized against us as a shaming tool. it’s bullshit. it is not acceptable and I am tired of how normalized shit like that is. you don’t get to be abusive and manipulative and toxic just bc you think you’re the most righteous, and it happens too often and it’s gone past the point of annoying to actually corrosive to goodwill and progress. that’s just how I feel on that.

now, upon actually listening and reading along and truly absorbing the content, the waters were a bit muddied for me because I realized he never, not once, to my understanding at least refers to Mary Anne as “she”. now, it could be that Mary Anne isn’t comfortable using those pronouns yet, who knows, I do run the risk of being hypocritical with my earlier point about the usage of the term “auntie”. it does make me think about the double standards placed on trans folks of different experience, trans women are often more reluctantly seen or taken seriously as women than trans men are as men, that’s not universal but it is a common trope. this could be playing into that, but I would like to give Kendrick the benefit of the doubt. maybe it was an oversight, as he begins to drop pronoun usage in general at a point, or maybe just because the transition is more recent he hasn’t been as great about being diligent about proper pronoun usage. idk. at a point tho, I still don’t feel like I can do anything but make a lot of assumptions here. I don’t think this is such an extreme offense, for me, that it negates the ultimate trans-affirmative power of the song.

my final point, I think, is that towards the end Kendrick describes a scenario in which he stands up to his pastor in defense of his trans cousin in front of an entire congregation. this is a powerful move and it is a braver act of advocacy and activism than most trans people are used to from their loved ones. many of us would absolutely kill to have family that is that willing to stand in defense of us. that’s just reality. not only that, but many of us have conflicting, but loving, relationships with family who aren’t always perfect with pronoun or proper name usage but do earnestly love us and try their best and try to see the full breadth of our humanity. it’s far from an ideal situation, and despite the fact that we ultimately shouldn’t have to feel compelled to accept anything less than the full respect of our identities we deserve, sometimes it’s a choice between imperfect support and absolutely none at all. I know which I prefer.

the very last thing I will say, is that having one of the biggest, most respected icons in rap dedicate an entire song to lifting up his trans loved ones and decry (and to some level hold himself to account for) the bigotry that’s normalized against LGBT folks in our culture is a pretty massive event. it is heartening to me. and in the current climate we’re in, that’s the energy we ultimately need, imperfect as it may be. it has the power to reach and move people that, just due to status if nothing else, most trans-affirming music probably wouldn’t. it is provocative and it is undoubtedly going to make some people take a step back and think. and the people who hate gay people and think saying the f-slur is fun aren’t going to like rapping along to this song bc they will absolutely read the messaging as affirming and either disown Kendrick outright or just skip the song. I don’t see anyone engaging with this the way some of the most bad faith arguments I have seen online have tried to hypothesize. to my estimation, it is a net win.

 

@nohandstoholdonto very well written and thought out. Was hoping a trans/non binary member of the site would share their take.

 

iirc, i think Kendrick does refer to Mary-Ann as "she" in the line "i recognize the study she was taught since birth, but that don't justify the feelings that my cousin preserved". definitely would've liked to see him use her pronouns more though.

 

good point. I wasn’t sure who he was referring to by “she” here but that makes sense. that whole section is a bit hard to parse in some regards, so I kinda missed that.

 

agreed. that's how i felt when going through it.

 

didn't say too much because my friend Beans basically summed up my take but hi!

 

My bad!

 

yeah this shit is clicking for me now lol. i appreciate the big swings he’s taking on this one — there are some ugly moments and he’s showing some real flaws but there’s a fearlessness to it that is really uncommon for a rapper of his stature

 

I adore crown

 

This is dope

 

hell of a video

 

THIS SHIT HARD

 

I totally get not wanting to hear the word, but that music vs films argument doesn't really gel for me. I don't see a future with that many people singing along to "Auntie Diaries". It's presented as a narrative, I'm not sure how much handholding he's responsible for doing.

 

is it just the beat instrumental

 

Solid double entendre, it’s definitely hard to work through what he’s working through.

 

I finally listened to this whole thing and imo it’s great and engaging and deeply thought-provoking from top to bottom

 

I pretty much only listened to disc 1 friday and disc 2 today. Its hard to write about such a large piece of work and ive already written and deleted this multiple times so i'll just say I think its overall messy but fantastic.

 

Messy but fantastic is the perfect description

 

Going into this it had been so long since he released anything and I’ve mostly gone away from listening to lyrical/conscious hip hop so it took a few listens to remember how insane his ability to get messages across while also experimenting with so many flows and catchy aspects, so many cool beats here too. Gonna dominate my listening for a while

 

hearing ghostface on this almost makes up for kodak. almost.

 

my initial impressions is that there are a TON of really, really fantastic high moments on here, but just a few low points that really leave me scratching my head in a way kendrick albums never really have before. yeah, kodak being here is one of those, but theres some other stuff going on that i just do not fuck with at all. still, theres really no doubt this is one of the greatest rappers of all time and certainly the greatest of his generation and the best amongst the wave he came up with, but that doesnt necessarily make him my favorite. thats neither here nor there, very very solid record at the end of the day imo.