Drake vs. Kendrick Lamar is the biggest rap battle of all time. Fans can argue for 2Pac vs. Biggie, or Jay vs. Nas, but the impact this current battle has had on popular culture is unprecedented. Those previous examples were relegated to fans of hip-hop, or fans of music at best. Now, celebrities are lining up to discuss which rapper they prefer. Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter, is no exception. The entrepreneur has been keeping tabs on the high-profile battle, and it appears as though he’s coming out as a Kendrick Lamar supporter.
There’s actually multiple pieces of evidence to support this claim. For one, the Twitter specialist dug back into Lamar’s account to find a tweet from 2011. The tweet was in reference to a concert the rapper was performing at. “June 16th,” he wrote. “Toronto. Grab tix here.” The concert was from Drake’s Club Paradise tour, in which Lamar was booked as one of the openers. It’s a throwback to a simpler time for both artists, and in some ways, the starting point for their dissent. Dorsey reposted Lamar’s tweet with a single heart emoji on May 3.
Fans were puzzled by this, as it was unclear whether Dorsey was co-signing Lamar over the 6 God, reminding fans that Drake helped Lamar break through, or evoking a period in which the rappers were getting along. The lack of clarification didn’t help. Dorsey provided followers with an answer over the next couple days, however.
He reposted a video of Lamar and Jay Rock performing the 2012 song “Money Trees” at a Best Buy. The video was accompanied by a caption commending Lamar for working hard to improve his performing skills. Then, on May 8, Dorsey posted a link to Lamar’s music video for “Rich Spirit.” The caption he wrote next to the link read: “turn him to a song.”
“Rich Spirit” was originally released in 2022. The song sees him navigate the pressure of celebrity, as well as the criticisms that fans had for him in the years leading up to Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers. It doesn’t hurt that Dorsey has a personal connection to the album. The entrepreneur made a cameo in the rapper’s music video for another Mr. Morale deep cut, “Count Me Out.”
Kendrick Lamar and Drake have been going back and forth, track-for-track over several consistent weeks, with some of the allegations thrown at one another hitting below the belt. Even though many fans have Kendrick in the winer’s seat in terms of the battle, the biggest allegation against him that is still a conversation is that he has been physical with his fiance, Whitney Alford. Drake even claims that the couple have now split and Kendrick’s violence against Alford is the reason why.
Shortly after the alleged incident of Lamar hitting a woman at the Hard Rock Casino in 2014, Lamar was on The Breakfast Club where he denied any wrongdoing, however, a YouTube video has surfaced in which a young woman describes being called to the scene to take care of the alleged victim.
The video is “unlisted”, but can be accessed through a new website called okliar.com, which is meant to be a spoof of “oklama”. Throughout the video, the woman claims that Kendrick was the perpetrator and that his team helped him to cover up his actions.
The new okliar website was made live about 30 minutes ago and was shared by a number of notable sources, including DJ Akademiks. The website as a “Meet The Grahams” parody on it, where it calls Kendrick the true liar. Meanwhile, there was even a shirt that said “LIAR.” on it, in the font style of DAMN, but the website the shirt is sold out. Meanwhile, there were other insinuating factor that lead to Kendrick being an alleged liar on the website. Accounts are saying this is the OVO Mole at work right now, but the source of this website remains unknown at this time.
Meek Mill is a success story. The rapper has had a great career by any reasonable measure. He’s got two gold albums, two platinum albums, and several top 40 singles. Outside of the music, though, Meek has had a rougher time. He lost a battle to Drake in 2015, served prison time in 2017, and has since become something of a walking meme. He was linked to the ongoing case involving Diddy, and responded to it with a social media rant that had fans thoroughly confused. Meek put his Twitter fingers to work again May 8, and the results were similarly confusing.
The Philly rapper went on a tear and decided to list of all his accomplishments. He patted himself on the back for accomplishments that were valid, and ones that were a bit exaggerated. “I gotta say it what I offered to the game everytime it can’t be minimized,” he wrote. “I’m starting to like these convos if we in the era of facts. I been in all the jungles lifting communities up for years. And my rap skills are incredible! Like really really good.” Meek then revealed that his PR situation has been shaky over the last few years, which actually explains quite a bit. “My pr has been off for a year or 2,” he added. “So they mutating my name but when I’m gone they will give it up! Ima just keep grinding!”
My pr has been off for a year or 2 so they mutating my name but when I’m gone they will give it up! Ima just keep grinding! They boy and Kendrick have their own lanes and qualities they great at also!
All good, right? A little scattered, but more or less on topic. Then, out of nowhere, Meek Mill decides to give his two cents on the Drake vs. Kendrick Lamar battle. Never mind the fact that the rapper was trying to hype himself up. Or the fact that an hour earlier, he explicitly tried to move away from the topic of the 6 God. “I give y’all my honest without speaking on Drake,” he wrote. He abandoned his game plan and decided to heap praise on both Drizzy and Kung Fu Kenny. “The boy and Kendrick have their own lanes and qualities they great at also,” Meek added.
This isn’t the first time Meek Mill has spoken on the Drake vs. Kendrick Lamar battle. He claimed he wanted to see Lamar and J. Cole make up right after Cole issued a public apology for his diss. He also gave his thumbs up to Lamar’s Drake diss, “Not Like Us.” He left a comment under the song on IG. “I’ve never been excited for a rap battle but this got me looking,” he wrote. A bizarre comment, given that Meek literally battled Lamar’s opponent a decade ago, but a compliment nonetheless.
DJ Akademiks’ profile has risen significantly since the Drake and Kendrick Lamar battle started. He got sampled on a song, name-dropped on a song, and has been lionized as one of the main sources for new information. The internet personality was the one who confirmed that the battle stemmed from Lamar’s decision to turn down a guest spot on Drake’s “First Person Shooter.” He continued to tease his insider information on May 8. According to Ak, fans should begin preparing for brand new diss tracks.
DJ Akademiks revved up the fans when he posted a cryptic message on his Instagram Story. An all black background served as the basis for white text that read: “Waiting on a few records.” He threw a smiling emoji in for good measure, suggesting that fans are going to be in for a treat. The thing that makes Ak’s post cryptic, though, is that he doesn’t specify which rapper is dropping new music. It’s safe to assume Drake or Kendrick Lamar are the most likely candidates. This is bolstered by the fact that Akademiks said a diss track was originally supposed to drop on May 7. The only reason it didn’t was because there was a shooting at Drake’s mansion in Toronto.
“There was supposed to be some new music today,” Ak said via stream. “I’m not saying from who nor am I gonna confirm from either party that we’ve really been interested in.” There’s been widespread debate as to whether Drake will drop a second consecutive diss, after “The Heart Part 6,” or if Lamar will rattle off a response. Drake’s last diss received mixed reviews from listeners, and currently has more dislikes than likes on YouTube, so it may be in his best interest to try again. Lamar has stated, however, that he’s got plenty more songs tucked away.
Another theory circulating online is that the songs Ak teased were not from Drake or Lamar. Some have posited that they disses from two completely different artists. The Game, for example, has been throwing jabs at Rick Ross over social media. The Game loves to battle, as he’s seen from his two decade career, and he recently criticized the way that current rappers like J. Cole have gone “soft.” We could easily see a world in which Game decides to declare war on Rozay. As it stands, DJ Akademiks is the only one with the release info. Hopefully he’s telling the truth, and we get to hear these “records” soon.
Ice Cube’s venomous pen is legendary. He took on N.W.A. and beat them single-handedly with the diss classic “No Vaseline.” He took it to Common and conscious hip-hop with “Westside Slaughterhouse.”He even wrote the definitive police diss with N.W.A.’s “F**k tha Police.” If any rapper seems like they’d be all for the current battle between Drake and Kendrick Lamar, it would be Ice Cube. This is what makes his stance on the matter so surprising. Not only did Cube refuse to pick sides in the battle, but he claimed that he hasn’t enjoyed watching it.
Ice Cube appeared on Canada’s E-Talk to discuss the battle. He was forthright with the host, admitting that he wasn’t really a fan of watching rappers go back-and-forth when he isn’t involved. His reasoning? The global reach of hip-hop music. In Cube’s estimation, battles have become so big that rappers risk being humiliated in front of the whole world. That’s not something he wants to champion. “All walks of life know what’s going on,” he asserted. “And some people can’t really take that kind of humiliation. I don’t really like seeing rappers beef.”
Cube was also quick to reference the violence that rap battles could spark. He was it firsthand during the 1990s, which is partially why he agreed to make peace with Common in 1997. “Beefs are volatile,” he told the host. “You always have to be careful that a beef doesn’t turn into a murder. Back in the day, you’d do a diss record, but it would stay somewhat in the Hip Hop community.” Despite taking a mature angle to the current battle, Cube said he understood why Drake and Lamar were hashing their problems out on record. “It happens,” he added. “Hey, it’s part of the game.”
Ice Cube has voiced appreciation for Drake in the past, but he holds Lamar in much higher regard. He claimed that K. Dot has been “carrying” the West Coast since the 2010s. During a 2012 interview with HipHopDX, Cube praised the Compton rapper for quoting him on the album good kid, m.A.A.d City. “You can respect an artist like that,”Cube stated. “When true talent steps on the scene, it should be rewarded, whether it’s deep music that grips your soul or it’s just booty-shaking music.”
You aren’t a viable member of the hip-hop community if you don’t make a statement on the Drake vs. Kendrick Lamar battle. At least, it feels that way. Every notable rapper from the 1980s to the present has weighed in on the conflict and chosen sides. Some have criticized Drake and Lamar for going too far and making the battle personal. Others have championed their dedication and their willingness to push the boundaries. Charlamagne tha God dubbed it the greatest rap battle he’s ever seen. Wyclef Jean is the latest legend to give his two cents, and he mostly agrees with Charlamagne.
Wyclef Jean, who rose to fame in the 1990s, fully supports the Drake vs. Kendrick Lamar battle. He neglected to mention which artist he picks as the current winner, but he had praise for both sides. He was even okay with the fact that Drake and Lamar were hitting below the belt with their disses. Wyclef shared his thoughts on X (formerly Twitter), along with some context. “As someone who came up with Battle Rap being part of our culture in New Jersey and Brooklyn her[e] is my opinion as a Fugee,” he prefaced.
From there, the Fugees frontman laid out the ground rules for a rap battle as he sees them. The most important rule? That anything was up for grabs. “Drake Vs Kendrick,” he posited. “In True Form of Battle Rap, anything goes.” Wyclef Jean went as far as to endorse multiple responses if it meant getting the upper hand in a battle. “The key is to be ready with what’s called a Rebuttal,” he posited. “Which means you get to respond back to every Diss track as it comes out. You get to put facts to any lies that you feel your opponent has cast on you…”
Wyclef Jean may be best remembered for his genre fusions, but he does have battle experience. He went at it with LL Cool J on the 1998 song “Retaliation.” The rappers eventually squashed their beef at Big Pun’s funeral two years later. Wyclef also had tension with Fugees bandmates Lauryn Hill and Pras, with the former putting out the Grammy-winning diss “Lost Ones” about him. The group has since made up and even performed together onstage.
By now, so many shots have been fired in the brutal rap beef between Kendrick Lamar and Drake that some of the disses have been completely buried. Kendrick’s “6:16 In LA” has been largely overlooked due to the track not being available on streaming platforms, though the song does have some incredibly scathing lyrics. The track premiered exclusively through Kendrick Lamar’s official Instagram account in the early morning hours of Friday, May 3, and ultimately served as the calm before the storm, with the harshest diss tracks of the entire feud releasing back to back later that very evening.
Now that the Kendrick Lamar and Drake beef seems to have at least slowed down, it’s worth revisiting “6:16 In LA” and discussing some of the best bars on the song. Without any further preamble, here are a few of the strongest lyrical showings on the diss.
Kendrick Prays & Comes From Love
Unlike some of the other tracks to come out of this feud, Kendrick Lamar opens up “6:16 In LA” with a few bars that aren’t direct insults or ad hominem attacks. Instead, “6:16 In LA” begins with the Compton rapper offering something of an explanation to both Drake and his fans as to why he’s engaging in this beef to begin with. He states, “Three angels watchin’ me all the time/ Put my children to sleep with a prayer, then close my eyes/ Definition of peace Tell me who gon’ stop me? I come from love/ Estelle cover my heart, then open me up.” Through these bars, Kendrick asserts that he has found peace within his life and enjoys quiet luxury and family values.
Familial and spiritual relationships rapidly became a focal point of the feud between Kendrick and Drake, as the PGLang founder has accused Drake of being a deadbeat father with no spiritual connection to god. Kendrick centers this lack of godliness with Drake’s many flaws and alleged lifestyle missteps and later commands the Toronto artist to seek therapy and look within.
Kendrick responds to some foul play within the music media industry in this track, arguing that Drake has streamers and podcasters on his payroll, including DJ Akademiks. He raps, “Yeah, somebody’s lyin’, I can see the vibes on Ak/ Even he lookin’ compromised, let’s peel the layers back/ Ain’t no brownie points for beating your chest, harassin’ Ant/ F*ckin’ with good people make good people go to bat.” Kendrick also takes this opportunity to defend his manager Anthony Saleh, whom Drake shaded multiple times on social media following his release of the track “Push Ups.” This lyric seems to be the last warning shot to Drake that things are about to escalate far beyond a simple showing of rap skill, as Kendrick takes issue with his opponent making the beef personal by calling out the people in his corner.
Kendrick first alluded to his willingness to take things further with lyrics such as “you a master manipulator and habitual liar too. But don’t tell no lie about me and I won’t tell truths ’bout you” on “Euphoria.” Kendrick later reiterated this position in the explosive song “Meet The Grahams,” where he raps, “This supposed to be a good exhibition within the game. But you f***ed up the moment you called out my family’s name. Why you had to stoop so low to discredit some decent people? Guess integrity is lost when the metaphors doesn’t reach you.”
Kendrick Claims To Have A Mole In The OVO Camp
Kendrick continues on the scathing record, “Are you finally ready to play have-you-ever? Let’s see/ Have you ever thought that OVO is workin’ for me?/ Fake bully, I hate bullies, you must be a terrible person/ Everyone inside your team is whispering that you deserve it.” This is one of the most fascinating bars in the entire beef, as Kendrick claims to have multiple moles within Drake’s camp who are only pretending to like Drake for his money and popularity.
At first, fans assumed this lyric was in place just to stoke Drake’s paranoia. Of course, the release of “Meet The Grahams” later that very evening seemed to confirm what Kendrick had to say in “6:16 In LA.” Kendrick seems to have had insider information regarding Drake’s next moves, as he was able to drop a diss record responding to Drake’s “Family Matters” in less than an hour’s time, with direct rebuttals to lyrics from the brand new song.
Kendrick caps this bar off with a flat and absolutely scathing “you must be a terrible person” which cuts directly to the core. Here, the former TDE signee confirms once again that this beef goes much deeper than rap and stems from his unabashed purported hatred for Drake as a man, an artist, and everything Drake represents.
Kendrick Is Too Boring In His Personal Life To Get Cancelled
By now, both sides have accused the other of scrounging around in the streets to dig up dirt. Kendrick and Drake have both levied some incredibly serious accusations at one another, though neither of them have provided receipts to fully back up the claims that they have made. Regarding this, Kendrick preemptively raps, “It was fun until you started to put money in the streets/ Then lost money ’cause they came back with no receipts/ I’m sorry that I live a boring life, I love peace/ But war-ready if the world is ready to see you bleed.” On these bars in “6:16 In LA,” Kendrick seems to confirm that Drake offered money to people who know him in his personal life in return for salacious gossip. Kendrick claims that Drake came up short on this front, as no such dirt exists.
Fans can assume that this is at least partially true, as Drake famously executed this strategy back in 2018 while trying to get back at Pusha T for the groundbreaking release of the diss record “The Story of Adidon.” Ultimately, Drake never managed to find any scathing dirt on Pusha T and never crafted a response to the record, essentially conceding the win to Push. Kendrick lives an incredibly private life and often refuses to make any of his personal business public, meaning it would likely be even more difficult to get any inside info on him.
In perhaps the most scathing bars of the entire track, Kendrick nears the conclusion of “6:16 In LA” with the lyrics, “Your entourage is only to hustle you/ A hundred n****s that you got on salary, and twenty of ’em want you as a casualty/ And one of them is actually next to you/ And two of them is practically tired of your lifestyle, just don’t got the audacity to tell you.” Here, he suggests that Drake’s camp is full of disloyal opportunists, secretly rooting for his downfall. Kendrick takes things a step further, arguing that a large percentage of Drake’s so-called friends actually want him to outright die. The cover art of “Meet The Grahams” also confirms the suggestion that some of Kendrick’s moles are in extremely close proximity to Drake, featuring some of Drake’s personal belongings and even a few of his prescription medications.
While no hip hop fan wants to see this battle escalate into physical violence, Kendrick seems to be offering a stern warning to Drake throughout all of his diss records. The warning asks that Drake change his lifestyle and find god before something unfortunate happens to him, whether that means a possible assault from a rival rapper or even a loss of life.
Kendrick Lamar’s brutal rap feud with Drake has led to a number of unnerving accusations from both sides. The beef has thrust Kendrick Lamar’s long-time fiancée Whitney Alford into the spotlight, despite her generally leading a quiet and unpublicized life. As shots fly and Drake continues to drop Whitney’s name multiple times, many fans of the PGLang founder have become curious to learn more about her.
There’s not much public information regarding Whitney Alford’s personal life available on the net. However, she has popped up at a few red carpet events, and even made vocal appearances on several of Kendrick Lamar’s hit songs. Let’s take a moment to examine who Whitney Alford is, and how she factors into Kendrick’s beef with Drake.
While the general public doesn’t know Whitney very well, she has been a fixture in Kendrick’s life for over two decades. Though the exact date of their coupling is unknown, Kendrick Lamar and Whitney Alford have romantically connected since their teenage years, attending Centennial High School in Compton, California together. After the couple graduated high school in 2005, Kendrick began pursuing a rap career, while Whitney attended California State University for a bachelor’s degree in accounting.
Kendrick’s earliest lyrical references to his fiancé include bars on the 2009 track “She Needs Me,” wherein the Pulitzer Prize winner raps “Five years later, an accounting major, work at a firm/ Abundance of paper, she got a career/ She look in the rear view mirror of a Mercedes that she can steer.” Since then, Kendrick has repeatedly referenced Whitney in his music and in interviews, praising her for her patience and spirit guidance, and calling her his “day 1” on multiple occasions.
Kendrick & Whitney Have Been Engaged For Nearly 10 Years
Kendrick Lamar and Whitney Alford announced their engagement in 2015, shortly after the release of Kendrick’s groundbreaking rap album To Pimp A Butterfly. While the details of their engagement remain scarce, Whitney has been photographed wearing a large diamond ring in many photos taken between then and now. If Drake’s claims on tracks such as “Family Matters” and “The Heart Part 6” hold true, it suggests that Kendrick and Whitney may have actually split up sometime in the last year. Still, there seems to be no concrete evidence to these claims, as the pair are famous for keeping their family lives intensely private. It’s also possible that Kendrick Lamar and Whitney Alford have tied the knot in a private ceremony since their engagement was first announced as Kendrick has repeatedly referred to her as his wife in the last several years.
Whitney maintains a public Instagram page with the handle @blushedbywhit, where she occasionally shares photos of herself alongside her family. Often these posts celebrate mindfulness and family values. One particularly adorable post from 2022 highlights her gratefulness towards Kendrick specifically. In the Father’s Day upload, Whitney writes “Today I am more than happy to celebrate the men in my life… I choose to celebrate them for stepping up instead of stepping out, for providing, for assisting us women, for healing, for showing up physically and most importantly for showing up emotionally… I am grateful for the men that are showing me a different picture, my lens was very narrow before but not anymore.”
Kendrick Lamar and Whitney Alford share two young children both pictured on the cover art for Lamar’s 2022 album Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers. Their first child is a girl named Uzi, who was born in July of 2019, and their second child is a boy named Enoch, born some time in mid to late 2021. Kendrick has boasted about the joys of fatherhood on numerous songs, including the Drake diss record “Euphoria.” Drake responded to Kendrick’s harsh words by suggesting, with no evidence, that one of his children was actually born out of an affair between Whitney Alford and Kendrick Lamar’s long-time business partner Dave Free, though most fans find this claim to be patently absurd.
In an interview with W Magazine, Kendrick Lamar offered his first public comments about fatherhood, expressing, “My children allowed me, in their development as human beings beginning to walk and talk, to remove my ego… To know that my children, too, will have their own independence, that allows me to understand the unconditional love on my end.”
With the release of his song “The Heart Part 6” on Sunday, Drake might have finally waved the white flag in his battle with Kendrick Lamar. Now that the dust has seemingly cleared, it looks like a good time to take stock of the damage. Here are six things we learned from the Drake and Kendrick Lamar beef.
Nobody Wins When The Family Feuds
Depending on who you ask, the winner of the battle remains a toss-up. Fans are divided by personal loyalties and favorites, of course, but also along lines of regionality, generation, and background. Some fans don’t feel there could be a winner after the battle became increasingly noxious. Whether you believe a rhyme fight should focus on punchlines and metaphors or mean-spirited mudslinging, both rappers went for broke, accusing each other of horrible crimes against women and children (going for the ol’ catch-22 loaded question, “Have you stopped beating your wife?“). Fans ascribed all sorts of symbolism to the battle — the future of the culture, philosophy of hip-hop, etc. — but ultimately, it all just came down to two guys who don’t like each other (despite having spent very little time together, to the best of my ability to ascertain) and put their problems on front street.
Drake’s Popularity With Fans Has Waned
For the past 15 years, one thing that could be relied on is that Drake would be the biggest thing in hip-hop anytime he dropped. Every one of his eight studio albums has debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. He’s had thirteen No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, all but one of them coming in the last six years. Fans still anticipate every release like kids do Christmas morning, and let’s just say if Kendrick Lamar had spent the past four weeks dropping bombs on just about any other rapper, the press coverage would probably have gone from “breathlessly recounting every move” to “middle of the local news section in an indie weekly” levels in comparison.
But one thing the response to the war of words showed was just how much resentment against Drake has been simmering just under the surface. He’s always had his fair share of haters — people for whom hip-hop has always stemmed from a place of animosity and struggle, however ahistorical that outlook may be. But over the past few years, he’s alienated a great many more who’ve grown tired of his maudlin, paranoid subject matter, his faux-gangster posturing, and his insidiously misogynistic view of women (more on that later). Most of the interest in the battle had little to do with proving which rapper was the best — people just wanted to see Drake lose.
Kendrick Hates Not Only Drake But Also Drake’s Whole Family
I’m not sure when exactly being a hater went from a vice to a virtue — consider it a function of the goalpost moving many fans were willing to do to ensure a Drake loss. But if “hating” was an Olympic sport, K. Dot would be its Michael Phelps after spending no less than 20 minutes across four tracks detailing all the ways he dislikes Drake, Drake’s dad, Drake’s friends, Toronto, Canada, Nickelodeon, and anything else he deemed responsible for his rival’s rise to stardom.
Calling Drake a “horrible f*cking person” is by far the most direct attack on his character, but turning mean-spirited social media gossip fodder into outright accusations of literal crimes is … a lot (especially for someone who has been determinedly vague about whether or not he actually killed another human being). There had long been rumors of friction between the two but no one had any idea just how deep it went until Kendrick rhymed “I hate the way that you walk, the way that you talk, I hate the way that you dress.”
Drake May Have Leaks In His Camp
Part of how methodically Kendrick picked his opponent apart stemmed from his assertion that he had moles in OVO feeding him information. Drake himself both denied and took credit for the leaks in “The Heart Part 6,” claiming that he’d seeded false information knowing Kendrick would pounce on it in his haste to find dirt to throw on Drake’s name.
But Drake should still find it concerning that anyone would be so invested in his downfall they’d sell him out — especially after the way Pusha T dug up the info concerning his son, Adonis. While cooler heads might attribute both rappers’ angles to them just being predictable as people — the jokes about jazz raps and Drake’s friendship with former child star Millie Bobbie Brown have been floating around on social media for years now — Drake’s “no new friends” policy probably hasn’t yielded all the results he’s hoped.
Kendrick Has Been Sitting On Entirely Too Many Fire Beats
The part of all this I found personally infuriating was learning just how much heat Kendrick has in his vault, especially after the navel-gazing disappointment that was Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers. Say what you want about having grand artistic vision, but we’ve had enough high concept albums that still had bangers on them that we should be holding Kendrick accountable for having had a Mustard-produced C-walk anthem on his hands and wasting it on something as petty as rap beef.
He also threw away a perfectly good Alchemist album on this nonsense. After getting a half-dozen incredible Alchemist-produced projects since 2020 (with such luminaries as Curren$y, Earl Sweatshirt, Freddie Gibbs, and Larry June), the idea that we could have had a Kendrick album produced by Al should be borderline unconscionable for all the so-called “real hip-hop heads” crowing about a battle. Bring that man up at The Hague and force him to put out all the material he has right now on the threat of life imprisonment. I’m only barely joking.
This may be controversial, but considering Questlove (who has forgotten more about hip-hop in the time it took me to write this feature than most of us will ever learn in a lifetime) thinks this too, I’m okay with whatever comes. I don’t think people who say that beef is “good for hip-hop” have ever considered what is or isn’t good for hip-hop. They’re just repeating a talking point, like “lower the rims” or “build the wall.”
The fact is, according to Audiomack co-founder Brian Zisook, “Multiple releases previously scheduled for next Friday, May 10, have already been delayed.” He further pointed out how the battle overshadowed releases from the likes of both rising stars like Chris Patrick and Foggieraw and underground veterans like NxWorries and Saba. How is that good for hip-hop? I joked that Detroit rapper Bfb Da Packman was just scamming with his much-touted Drake collab, but if Drake really did pull his feature — a feature that could have made Packman’s career — how does that help hip-hop?
Did the battle establish a new top dog in rap? It didn’t seem like that was even the goal after the initial jabs taken on “Like That” and “Push Ups.” Instead, both rappers seemed more intent on proving who was the bigger scumbag. Rap’s long-documented history of misogyny and homophobia reared its head yet again as they both used women as props, neglecting to acknowledge them as people, and used the very possibility of being gay as a weapon. This is good for hip-hop?
The recent shooting at Drake’s Toronto mansion may have nothing to do with the beef — but what if it did? I’m old enough and have been loving hip-hop long enough that I remember the slew of interviews from rap radio luminaries expressing their regrets at hyping up the beef between Biggie and Pac after both had been slain. Their deaths also may not have stemmed from their feud, but they let that feud define and consume the final year of Tupac’s career. B.I.G. went to his grave regretting losing a friend and that the last words they’d exchanged were hateful.
Competition might well be baked into the fabric of the genre and culture, but that personal vitriol has never been part of hip-hop. Wishing someone would die — which Kendrick straight-up said on “Meet The Grahams” isn’t hip-hop. No rap feud stopped either Jay-Z or Nas from being two of the most respected names in hip-hop to this day. But just imagine if they’d been helping each other the whole time instead of tearing each other down.
Everyone is talking about the biggest story in rap this year. Drake and Kendrick Lamar have been going back and forth for weeks now and it resulted in one song after another packed full of disses from the most comical to the most scathing. Everyone in the rap world has shared their takes on who is winning the beef, with some commenting on the very idea of rap beef itself. But that’s also extended beyond the rap world where millions more are paying attention to the pair, including comedian Seth Rogen. Earlier this week the comic took the stage as a part of Netflix’s Netflix Is A Joke comedy and music festival. During his set he talked about the beef that’s captured the hearts and minds of many rap fans out there.
“If you’re not a rap fan, allow me to explain. There are two very famous rappers in Drake and Kendrick Lamar, and they’re in a fight right now. They are in a big fight with each other, and the way rappers fight with each other is they write mean rhymes about each other, which is an objectively funny way to fight with another person,” Rogen begins. He discusses how the beef began and how it escalated to some pretty serious allegations that ended up with Drake playing defense. “You don’t hear rap that’s like, ‘I am a good father … I should not be a registered sex offender.’ I would say as soon as you’re asserting in a rap song that you should not be a registered sex offender, you’ve lost the rap battle,” he concludes. Check out the full clip of his explanation below.
The diss tracks finally seem to have slowed down after an extremely busy week for rap fans. The final release came from Drake, who dropped “The Heart Part 6” on Sunday. Many of the songs are off to incredibly strong starts commercially and will likely litter the top half of the Hot 100 for the next few weeks.
What do you think of Seth Rogen’s hilarious take on the Drake and Kendrick Lamar beef? Do you think he does a good job of explaining how all of the events have unfolded so far? Let us know in the comment section below.
