I also think he tapped a hunger for golden-era one-upsmanship that a lot of contemporary, "we don't need nostalgia" rap fans didn't realize they had. It's also fun watching people reconcile that.
― Evan R, Tuesday, 13 August 2013 23:48 (eleven years ago) link
thought the whole thing was terrible tbh
― r|t|c, Tuesday, 13 August 2013 23:53 (eleven years ago) link
i don't particularly want this song to inspire any diss records, or more 'competitive' rap -- i dunno where you guys have been that you think rappers saying they are the best/want to be the best has been scarce. he basically says the same kind of thing that you could find in a dozen other songs by himself, kanye, cole, drake, all these other post-jay wannabe kings of rap, only difference really is he names names, although i don't think the naming names itself makes the song better or even more an act of aggression per se.
― some dude, Wednesday, 14 August 2013 00:01 (eleven years ago) link
radio caller said that this would raise the WHOOOLE game, all those rappers he called out will suddenly... become better rappers cause they were called out, which, lol (can u imagine drake trying harder)
but kendrick does always sound to me like he wishes he was in the early/mid 90s and he's lonely no one else wants to play his game. should really stop calling it a diss track
― ty based gay dead computer god (zachlyon), Wednesday, 14 August 2013 00:09 (eleven years ago) link
idk i feel like in the buddy-buddy my-cosign-will-help-you-crack-my-demographic type shit it's nice to just have dudes competing rather than guesting for branding purposes
― rap steve gadd (D-40), Wednesday, 14 August 2013 00:11 (eleven years ago) link
i don't get how this is that much different than Drake doing his little "watch me take it" shots and then having Jay photo ops and Kanye concert cameos to make sure people know it's not that serious. you know Kendrick is gonna be on new songs w/ damn near everybody he named in the next 6 months. like literally half of all rappers spitting constantly rap about being the hottest/greatest, it's only when they're really in contention for the title that people talk about who they're putting themselves above.
― some dude, Wednesday, 14 August 2013 00:18 (eleven years ago) link
xp does kendrick really think of j cole and wale as his "competition" tho, like if he's really trying to place himself next to nas
― ty based gay dead computer god (zachlyon), Wednesday, 14 August 2013 00:24 (eleven years ago) link
well that's a semantic question, he's saying he's already on nas's level and has left the coles behind or at least is aspiring to that, just depends on whether you're taking him at face value or figure he knows he's kind of inflating things for fun.
― some dude, Wednesday, 14 August 2013 00:26 (eleven years ago) link
― some dude, Tuesday, August 13, 2013 7:18 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
fwiw i like when drake does it too although i wish he'd name names
and there is something backhanded about the exclusions in kendrick's lists fwiw ...
― rap steve gadd (D-40), Wednesday, 14 August 2013 00:29 (eleven years ago) link
i mean, also, kendrick raps circles around drake
there's this part of it that just strikes me as standard backpacker vs pop rap ranting that people aren't really latching onto. could've called out every indie crit rapper he used to get lumped in with, instead he chose the most successful recent freshman listees and drake. if he's treating these guys like he's the head of the A-list but they're not even on that list, not a lot of people are going with that. also he's like buddies with half of them lolol
― ty based gay dead computer god (zachlyon), Wednesday, 14 August 2013 00:30 (eleven years ago) link
he's trying to find a cross between 'skillful, craft-oriented rappers' and 'actually popular.' i think that's a fair goal for a rapper of his particular tradition. i don't think its 'backpacker vs. pop'. its basically him vs. all the other current successful rappers who aspire to the same vague approach to hip hop
― rap steve gadd (D-40), Wednesday, 14 August 2013 00:35 (eleven years ago) link
i kinda just assume kendrick just wrote what he felt like writing and put in the first names that popped into his head without doing some special checklist -- guys like kanye or wayne that aren't on that jay/em/nas lyrical pedestal but aren't in his immediate circle of newer peers just didn't fit into the 2 categories he talked about, doesn't mean he needed to be more thorough or think about their feelings, shit doesn't matter.
― some dude, Wednesday, 14 August 2013 00:37 (eleven years ago) link
yeah i mean thats the other thing hes not a damn rap historian, hes a rapper, who basically just mentioned his friends
i mean why else would he mention (fellow LA resident) tyler the creator but not someone like idk danny brown
― rap steve gadd (D-40), Wednesday, 14 August 2013 00:49 (eleven years ago) link
OH SHIT KENDRICK BEEFING WITH DANNY BROWN
― ty based gay dead computer god (zachlyon), Wednesday, 14 August 2013 00:50 (eleven years ago) link
i realize SD might also be responding to my implication that the exclusions are backhanded but i do think that implicit in the diss is the idea that if you weren't mentioned you don't matter but that's more for his peers, IMO, than legends like Tip or Wayne. Although I still think it's kind of odd he wouldn't consider them
― rap steve gadd (D-40), Wednesday, 14 August 2013 00:53 (eleven years ago) link
yeah i suppose it's meaningful in a inkblot kind of way. but it also makes sense to me how Kendrick would see himself in the lineage of Eminem and Jay but not T.I.
― some dude, Wednesday, 14 August 2013 00:57 (eleven years ago) link
i always thought T.I. was a dude who saw himself in that lineage ... i mean for awhile ppl were calling him the jay of the south or whatever
― rap steve gadd (D-40), Wednesday, 14 August 2013 01:05 (eleven years ago) link
yeah...i think a lot of the status afforded to Jay or Em (or even Wayne) is that they kept making blockbusters even after the fell off, and T.I. ended up without that kid of longevity at that level. obviously doesn't mean much about music, but it has let him gradually slide out of those conversations.
― some dude, Wednesday, 14 August 2013 01:14 (eleven years ago) link
all i typed was "k" in youtube search box and it suggested this
― johnny crunch, Wednesday, 14 August 2013 01:16 (eleven years ago) link
i guess ill listen to it
― johnny crunch, Wednesday, 14 August 2013 01:18 (eleven years ago) link
did Paul McCartney really tell him he was a black Beatle?
― President Keyes, Wednesday, 14 August 2013 01:23 (eleven years ago) link
im trying to imagine being a music writer having to generate a thousand or something words on this
― johnny crunch, Wednesday, 14 August 2013 01:29 (eleven years ago) link
its pretty easily done tbh
― rap steve gadd (D-40), Wednesday, 14 August 2013 01:35 (eleven years ago) link
i mean it's a hot button topic for ppl ... kendrick was trending worldwide & claimed to be the king of another city. thats a big deal in rap, so its easy to talk about the state of the genre or whatever
no, i get it i guess. im just personally bored to death by kendrick more often than not. also i just realized i think ive been walking around w my fly unzipped for the past few hrs so prob dont deserve 2 haev an opinion abt anything much at all
― johnny crunch, Wednesday, 14 August 2013 01:39 (eleven years ago) link
bitch, don't kill our vibe
― Neanderthal, Wednesday, 14 August 2013 01:44 (eleven years ago) link
looking forward to response tracks that are all adverbs, prepositions, articles, quantifiers, and adjectives.
― "Dave Barlow" is the name Lou uses on sabermetrics baseball sites (s.clover), Wednesday, 14 August 2013 01:51 (eleven years ago) link
(can u imagine drake trying harder)
hahahahah
― what does ;_; mean in remorse code (m bison), Wednesday, 14 August 2013 01:52 (eleven years ago) link
― rap steve gadd (D-40), Tuesday, August 13, 2013 8:49 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark
everyone mentioned in this song is someone he is personally friends with, which he says explicitly before he starts listing names
― J0rdan S., Wednesday, 14 August 2013 04:33 (eleven years ago) link
which, i think that's basically the long and short of it
He still didn't mention anyone in his own crew though. I guess that was polite of him but it also implicitly places them below the people he did mention.
― longneck, Wednesday, 14 August 2013 07:07 (eleven years ago) link
in some ways this "healthy, mutually respectful competition" model exposes how silly the traditional beef model is...not that beef driven by real personal animus isn't compelling, but surely in most rap beefs, fans of one artist will also be fans of the other...there's a sort of, who exactly is being pitted against who pointlessness to a lot of them. nicki vs kim, for example. (would looooove to see kendrick vs nicki tbh.) fanbase beefs seem much more common in pop now (and it makes sense that the most personally aggressive rapper out there is prob az banks).
anyway the thrill of kendrick's verse isn't necessarily that he's calling anyone out or naming names - for me it's purely his delivery.
― lex pretend, Wednesday, 14 August 2013 09:47 (eleven years ago) link
Tangentially, re: beefs, I love how Angel Haze has become the anti-Azealia Banks and befriended everybody: Haim, Grimes, Iggy Azalea. She's probably just nice but I like to think she's doing it to wind up Banks.
― Deafening silence (DL), Wednesday, 14 August 2013 09:53 (eleven years ago) link
oh i'm 100% sure Haze and Azalea bonded over that, iirc AZB actually tweeted something like "WHY ARE MY ENEMIES ALL TEAMING UP" when that happened
― lex pretend, Wednesday, 14 August 2013 10:12 (eleven years ago) link
though tbh if anyone wanted to wind up AZ Banks, I'm not sure they'd need to go out of their way to do anything. Merely existing seems to do the trick most of the time.
― lex pretend, Wednesday, 14 August 2013 10:14 (eleven years ago) link
― longneck, Wednesday, August 14, 2013 3:07 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
i think it's the opposite really. he's not trying to murder schoolboy, absoul, etc. because that's his team, he wants them to win too.
― some dude, Wednesday, 14 August 2013 10:47 (eleven years ago) link
i think the thing that initially set rap twitter on fire was the "king of new york" claim, not necc the calling out of specific rappers
― max, Wednesday, 14 August 2013 10:59 (eleven years ago) link
Wanting to be the King of NY in 2013 is kinda sad though.
― longneck, Wednesday, 14 August 2013 11:04 (eleven years ago) link
the king of ny stuff has been a part of it but there's also just been a lot of #rapperskendrickdidntmention type trending topics
― some dude, Wednesday, 14 August 2013 11:10 (eleven years ago) link
yeah obviously the naming became a part of it but on monday night the first set of tweets i saw were about king of ny. but it could just be my wing of rap twetter
― max, Wednesday, 14 August 2013 11:11 (eleven years ago) link
i think it seems like a more audacious claim at first than it really is
― rap steve gadd (D-40), Wednesday, 14 August 2013 14:33 (eleven years ago) link
There are already like four responses by rappers not mentioned in the verse
― President Keyes, Wednesday, 14 August 2013 14:42 (eleven years ago) link
lol what do yall think of Lupe's
― rap steve gadd (D-40), Wednesday, 14 August 2013 14:44 (eleven years ago) link
Just in case you were wondering what joell ortiz thought about the situation
― President Keyes, Wednesday, 14 August 2013 14:45 (eleven years ago) link
okay Lupe's 2 Chainz ghostwrite is kind of hilarious
― OH MY GOD HE'S OOGLY (DJP), Wednesday, 14 August 2013 14:50 (eleven years ago) link
in some ways this "healthy, mutually respectful competition" model exposes how silly the traditional beef model is...not that beef driven by real personal animus isn't compelling, but surely in most rap beefs, fans of one artist will also be fans of the other...
― lex pretend, Wednesday, August 14, 2013
99% of canibus' fans to thread
― resulting post (rogermexico.), Wednesday, 14 August 2013 20:02 (eleven years ago) link
99% of his fans don't exist
― Hooks on Phoenix worked for me (Spottie_Ottie_Dope), Wednesday, 14 August 2013 20:29 (eleven years ago) link
http://1-media-cdn.foolz.us/ffuuka/board/tg/image/1337/55/1337555274370.jpg
― resulting post (rogermexico.), Wednesday, 14 August 2013 20:57 (eleven years ago) link
kendrick lamar will passively aggressively mention your favorite rapper for money
― usic for 18 magicians (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 14 August 2013 20:58 (eleven years ago) link