Written by: Morgan Delva

TW: Mentions of abuse, sexual assault

Introduction

Hip hop’s complicated relationship with representing Black masculinity is part of what makes the genre unique as a form of Black American self-expression. Although its issues with misogyny and toxic masculinity and delivery of social commentary are well-documented, hip hop’s capacity to promote healthy Black masculinity has received much less focus. However, there is hope for a shift in the trend this decade with the response to albums like Kendrick Lamar’s 2022 Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers, which brought conversations about positive depictions of Black masculinity closer to the forefront of mainstream hip hop discourse. With that in mind, this article examines how Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers illustrates hip hop’s ability to be a vehicle for both the deconstruction of the toxic tendencies often associated with the genre as well as the portrayal of healthy and positive expressions of Black masculinity. The album plays this role by critiquing the perception of Black masculinity as a universal and essential trait among men that stands in opposition to all forms of femininity. I believe that through these critiques, Kendrick posits on the record that emotionality, vulnerability, and honesty can and should be considered masculine traits, especially if Black men hope to break free of the generational cycles of violence and trauma generated by historical and ongoing systemic racism.

Braggadocia as Cope

Before the lead-up to his explosive appearance on Baby Keem’s Family Ties in 2021, Kendrick Lamar had been out of the public eye for years, with his last solo studio album Damn being released in 2017. Lamar was no stranger to subverting expectations with his releases, but his feature on the Baby Keem song as well as his subsequent features on Keem’s 2021 album The Melodic Blue seemed to indicate that he was going to take a more confrontational and braggadocious approach to his next album, especially given lyrics on Family Ties like  

2021 I ain’t takin’ no prisoner…

Who went platinum? I call that a visitor

Upon the release of Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers, however, it became clear that this would not be the case.

The album sets the tone immediately with its opening track United in Grief, which covers Kendrick’s tendency to ‘grieve’ and cope with the helplessness associated with institutional racism and trauma through material purchases in his early career, now watching his cousin Baby Keem doing the same at a similar stage in his own rap journey:

So what? 

Paralyzed, the county building controlled us

I bought a Rolex watch, I only wore it once

 I bought infinity pools I never swimmed in

I watched Keem buy four cars in four months

You know the family dynamics on repeat

Lyrics like these, along with the repetition of the refrain “I grieve different” following each description of Kendrick’s erratic purchases and decision-making early in his rap career reframes the braggadocia and displays of opulence associated with male hip hop artists as coping mechanisms. Meanwhile, the comparison to his cousin demonstrates how these behaviours can turn into a generational cycle when trauma goes unaddressed regardless of material circumstances. This is called back to later on the album in the song Mother I Sober through the following lyrics:

I know the secrets, every other rapper sexually abused

I see ’em daily buryin’ they pain in chains and tattoos

So listen close, before you start to pass judgment on how he move,

learn how he cope  

Although Kendrick delves into a variety of ways in which cycles of abuse have affected his and others’ behaviour the album, focused thematic songs like Father Time, Auntie Diaries, and the aforementioned Mother I Sober each cover particular issues in ways that function as commentary on the social phenomena which in part produce the behaviours and tendencies in young Black men and hip hop artists that are often viewed as harmful expressions of masculinity. 

Societal Pressures and Enforced Stoicism

Father Time, for instance, discusses how societal pressures can lead to Black fathers teaching their sons to develop unhealthy relationships with their emotions, as ‘toughness’, stoicism, and a tunnel-visioned focus on financial success are often seen as necessary to achieving stability and protection from institutional forces that suppress Black communities. This idea is conveyed through lines like 

His momma died, I asked him why he goin’ back to work so soon?

His first reply was, “Son, that’s life, and bills got no silver spoon.” 

Kendrick further discusses the way emotionality and financial stability were placed in opposition to each other, with the message he internalized from his father being “Fuck everybody, go get your money son; protect yourself, trust nobody, only your momma’n’em.” Kendrick notes that 

this made relationships seem cloudy, never attached to none

So if you took some likings around me, I might reject the love

 In addition to this, Father Time also explores how Black fathers can go against the wishes of their partners to drive these kinds of lessons home: 

Momma said, “That boy is exhausted,” 

he said, “Go fuck yourself

If he give up now, that’s gon’ cost him 

life’s a bitch

You could be a bitch or step out the margin,” 

I got up quick

The song ends with a call for Black men who share trauma from similar experiences to avoid letting their effects bleed into their relationships with women, stating 

It’s crucial, they can’t stop us if we see the mistakes 

‘til then, let’s give the women a break, 

grown men with daddy issues

Ignorance and Learning 

The notion that trauma from harmful understandings of Black masculinity can negatively impact Black boys and men’s relationships with people in their lives is also examined in the highly impactful and controversial Auntie Diaries. Here, Lamar takes an unflinching look at how pervasive casual homophobia and transphobia were in the communities he grew up in, and how this meant he had to overcome the prejudiced notions that stemmed from these forms of bigotry in order to accept and stand up for two members of his family who came out as transgender, these being his transmasculine uncle and transfeminine cousin. Kendrick recounts how growing up, his friends and family would consistently use homophobic and transphobic slurs and even direct them at his transgender family members, with him and his friends following suit at the time. In the song, Lamar initially claims it was because he and those around him were kids who “didn’t know any better,” and points to the role that religion could often play in justifying this kind of behaviour. The influence of religion is represented in the climactic story of the song, where Kendrick stands up during Easter Sunday Mass to reprimand his pastor for deadnaming and insulting his cousin Mary-Anne while insinuating that her status as a trans woman devalues her faith in God.

He singled you out to prove his point, saying 

“Demetrius is Mary-Ann now. Church, his auntie is a man now.” 

It hurt 

you the most ’cause your belief was close to his words, forcing me to stand now

I said, “Mr. Preacherman, should we love thy neighbor? 

The laws of the land or the heart, what’s greater?

 I recognize the study she was taught since birth 

But that don’t justify the feelings that my cousin preserved” 

The building was thinking out loud, bad angel 

That’s when you looked at me and smiled, said, “Thank you.” 

The day I chose humanity over religion. 

However, despite this defense of Mary-Anne helping mend Kendrick’s relationship with her, he describes how she later called him out over how he had lampshaded his younger self’s aforementioned use of slurs both in the song and in real life, arguing that Kendrick shouldn’t absolve himself of responsibility by claiming ignorance when he demonstrably hasn’t done the same for white people using racist slurs:

I said them F-bombs, I ain’t know any better 

Mistakenly, I ain’t think that you’d know any different 

See, I was taught words was nothing more than a sound if ever they was pronounced without any intentions 

The very second you challenged the shit I was kicking 

Reminded me about a show I did out the city

That time I brung a fan on stage to rap

But disapproved the word that she couldn’t say with me

You said, “Kendrick, ain’t no room for contradiction 

To truly understand love, switch position…

we can say it together

But only if you let a white girl say ‘Nigga’

Through the storytelling on this song, Kendrick confronts his own hypocrisy and acknowledges that excusing the use of harmful language by claiming ignorance does nothing to break the cycle of those words being accepted as common vernacular. He also depicts the ways in which religious institutions can impose a heteronormative vision of Black masculinity, which in the song is shown to have negatively affected Kendrick and those around him by normalizing the use of demeaning language used to ostracize transgender people while framing their ‘lifestyles’ as artificially feminine no matter their gender identification. The effect this heteronormative construction of masculinity had on Mary-Anne in particular is emphasized with the lines 

I knew you was conflicted by the feelings of preacherman, 

wondering if God still call you a decent man

The word “man” in this case can be interpreted as another word for ‘person’, or as an intentional representation of Mary-Anne’s fear that God now sees her as neither a ‘valid’ man nor woman. 

Reframing Black Masculinity

When examining the critiques Kendrick Lamar levels at heteronormative understandings of Black masculinity, it is important to ask what (if any) positive alternative visions of Black masculinity he offers on Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers. As seen in the lyrics and themes of the album examined above, Lamar seems to particularly take issue with how these rigid views of what Black masculinity ought to look place it in opposition to femininity. Many of the traits and behaviours Kendrick states were discouraged by people in his community like his father are often associated with traditional conceptions of femininity. A poignant example of this is Lamar’s father’s aforementioned use of the word “bitch” in Father Time as the representation of what Kendrick would be if he does not live up to his expectations as a man. This statement coming from an interaction in which he ignores Lamar’s mother’s pleas for him to allow his son to rest can be seen as a representation of the confrontation between these constructed understandings of Black masculinity and femininity as oppositional forces. Auntie Diaries further reflects this idea through Mary-Anne’s inner conflict about still being seen as a ‘decent man’ by God post-transition. 

With examples like these in mind, I hold that one of the central claims presented throughout Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers is that this heteronormative way of seeing Black masculinity firstly essentializes gendered roles, in turn discouraging alternative explorations of one’s gender and thus enforcing conformity to arbitrary standards; secondly, puts Black women down by framing the characteristics associated with womanhood as weak; and thirdly, causes young Black men to develop unhealthy relationships with both their emotions and their loved ones. Through these critiques, I believe that Lamar attempts to develop a more positively-framed alternative vision of Black masculinity, specifically one that accommodates expressions of frustration and pain, but calls for them to be released through the healthier outlet of honest communication with and trust in loved ones rather than avoidance, coping mechanisms, and lashing out. 

While the importance of honesty, trust, and emotionality is hinted at throughout the album, these characteristics are truly put forth as a remedy for toxic masculinity and generational trauma in Mother I Sober, which culminates in Kendrick finally confronting what he identifies as one of the central sources of generational trauma among Black families and calls for them to have conversations about it to avoid repeating cycles of abuse:

A conversation not bein’ addressed in Black families

The devastation, hauntin’ generations and humanity

They raped our mothers, then they raped our sisters

Then they made us watch, then made us rape each other…

So I set free myself from all the guilt that I thought I made

So I set free my mother all the hurt that she titled shame

So I set free my cousin, chaotic for my mother’s pain

I hope Hykeem made you proud ’cause you ain’t die in vain…

So I set free the hearts filled with hatred, keep our bodies sacred

As I set free all you abusers, this is transformation

These lyrics, along with the musical and vocal crescendo that accompanies them, indicate that Kendrick believes that young Black men can be ‘set free’ through the act of opening up and trusting their loved ones, which is seen in the fact that these lines directly follow the aforementioned lyrics about Black male hip hop artists coping with generational trauma through material purchases and committing to their music. Lamar uses himself as an example to deliver this message, with Mother I Sober telling the story of how he was affected by the experience of his family members believing he had been molested by his cousin, despite him clarifying that he hadn’t been:

Family ties, they accused my cousin, “Did he touch you, Kendrick?”

Never lied, but no one believed me when I said “He didn’t” 

Frozen moments, still holdin’ on it, hard to trust myself

I started rhymin’, copin’ mechanisms to lift up myself…

I asked my momma why she didn’t believe me when I told her “No”

I never knew she was violated in Chicago, I’m sympathetic

Told me that she feared it happened to me, for my protection

Though it never happened, she wouldn’t agree

Now I’m affected, twenty years later trauma has resurfaced

Amplified as I write this song, I shiver ’cause I’m nervous

I was five, questioning myself, ‘lone for many years

Nothing’s wrong, just results on how them questions made me feel

This story is meant to contextualize Lamar’s references to his inability to be honest with his loved ones, since experiences like this one made him feel he was unable to even trust his own perception of reality. This personal example thus highlights how Kendrick himself was ‘set free’ by finding the strength to be honest with those around him about his shortcomings and internal struggle.

The Power of Hip Hop and Potential Shortcomings

Lamar’s exploration of the damaging effects toxic masculinity had on him as well as others in his circle growing up extends beyond his particular environment. As seen above, Kendrick makes various statements throughout the album making clear his intention to relate his experiences to those of the wider Black community, especially young Black people involved in the hip hop world. The album’s ambitions are even more evident with the context of Lamar’s 2024 feud with Drake, during which he dedicated a verse to Drake’s alleged hidden child on the song Meet the Grahams, stating in it that: 

This the reason I made Mr. Morale

So our babies like you can cope later

Give you some confidence to go through somethin’

It’s hope later 

The thematic approach of Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers, along with Kendrick’s desire for the album’s messages to have a wide-ranging positive impact on young Black people, are each emblematic of hip hop’s power as a form of radical Black artistic expression. Through the subversion of various common tropes in the genre, Lamar delivered a complex and challenging project that aimed to both criticize and contextualize hip hop’s accommodation of toxic masculinity in the hopes of paving the way for those who love the genre to move forward with honesty, self-awareness, and empathy. 

However, it is important to note that to truly understand Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers as the self-critical and emotionally vulnerable album it is, going beyond a generous reading of its thematic content and Lamar’s intentions is necessary. Amidst his attempts to tackle controversial subjects in the hopes of promoting a more positive alternative representation of Black masculinity, it can be argued that the Kendrick made various crucial missteps that undermined his messaging. I will thus explore these critiques of the album in a follow-up article that tackles the controversies associated with the album and the implications they have for its thematic approach.

References

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NPR. “Kendrick Lamar’s New Song ‘Auntie Diaries’ Divides the LGBTQ+ Community,” May 19, 2022. https://www.npr.org/2022/05/19/1099997253/kendrick-lamar-auntie-diaries-lgbtq-community-deadname-mr-morale-big-steppers. 

Genius. “Kendrick Lamar – Auntie Diaries,” n.d. https://genius.com/Kendrick-lamar-auntie-diaries-lyrics. 

Genius. “Kendrick Lamar – meet the grahams,” n.d.  https://genius.com/Kendrick-lamar-meet-the-grahams-lyrics. 

Genius. “Kendrick Lamar (Ft. Beth Gibbons) – Mother I Sober,” n.d. https://genius.com/Kendrick-lamar-mother-i-sober-lyrics. 

Genius. “Kendrick Lamar (Ft. Sampha) – Father Time,” n.d. https://genius.com/Kendrick-lamar-father-time-lyrics. 

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Rebollo‐Gil, Guillermo, and Amanda Moras. “Black Women and Black Men in Hip Hop Music: Misogyny, Violence and the Negotiation of (White‐Owned) Space.” The Journal of Popular Culture 45, no. 1 (February 1, 2012): 118–32. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5931.2011.00898.x. 

Ritchie, Matthew. “Baby Keem / Kendrick Lamar: ‘Family Ties.’” Pitchfork, August 27, 2021. https://pitchfork.com/reviews/tracks/baby-keem-kendrick-lamar-family-ties/. 

Slingerland, Calum. “Kendrick Lamar Returns on Baby Keem’s New Album ‘The Melodic Blue.’” Kendrick Lamar Returns on Baby Keem’s New Album “The Melodic Blue” │ Exclaim!, September 10, 2021. https://exclaim.ca/music/article/kendrick_lamar_returns_on_baby_keems_new_album_the_melodic_blue.