Declaration of a beat

When Kendrick Lamar released his apparent final album with Top Dawg Entertainment, Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers, the track “Auntie Diaries” drew immediate controversy. Many celebrated an openly trans-allied hip hop track by a mainstream artist, and many others were dismayed and disappointed by Kendrick’s use of language, including deadnaming, misgendering, and offensive slurs. This article attempts to reconcile these seemingly opposed characterizations by offering a cohesive analysis that integrates both lyrical and beat composition, drawing on both scholarly analysis and vernacular commentary. It argues that “Auntie Diaries” presents an “ontic rupture”: a deliberate exposure of the disjunctions between language, our understandings of self and others, and what it is possible to be. The composition contains a central contradiction between its movement toward trans allyship and its use of language that is generally understood to be phobic, underscored by the track’s evolving musical configurations that support a telos of trans affirmation, even as the overall narrative can provoke distress. Rather than offering resolution, this analysis presents these tensions as necessary terrain for supporting a diversity of trans experiences and for resisting colonializing logics of clarity, legibility, and ease of understanding. This article contains the use of strong, uncensored language relating to race, sexuality, and gender identity, as well as discussions on racism, homophobia, and transphobia. Discretion is advised for readers sensitive to these topics.