Kendrick Lamar will kill your favorite rapper for money

There’s better be something going on at Drake’s Comet Pizza, or it could blow up for Kendrick, especially when his own potential domestic abuse (hinted at in the Drake tracks) gets a spotlight on it.

drake has BEEN so much of a punchline that even he was in on the joke years ago.

kendrick is punching down with everything he's got...

...why?

― interstellar anthropologist+music philosopher, (Austin), Saturday, May 4, 2024 8:32 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

come on, man, he’s still the most popular rapper in the world, there are plenty of people who do not think he’s a joke.

for now

one thing this beef has taught me is that there are a lot of people who have no idea what free jazz is

I blame Spongebob.

one thing this beef has taught me is that there are a lot of people who have no idea what free jazz is

― the defenestration of prog (voodoo chili), Saturday, May 4, 2024 8:50 PM

no malice whatsoever: i genuinely can't tell if this is sarcasm.

There were a lot of people who seemed the second diss counted as free jazz for Zack Fox's tweet

seemed to think

drop and give me 50 (diss tracks)

i don't see why kendrick should be pulling punches? he seems to try to avoid low blows, a lot of his disses are moralistic, in line with his rap persona

he's just on an entirely different level than drake, who was never good at acting tough

Wild that it hasn’t even been 48 hours yet since the Al Green one dropped.

Lmao the moralising from some people in this thread. Rap was built on battling and beef. Next you’ll be saying that we should take The Bridge is Over off streaming to think of poor MC Shan’s feelings.

OTMfingM

Every person I know deep into hip hop and/or actually in the game is loving this and it's like the goddamn 12 days of Christmas.

This has been building up for a decade, for those paying attention. Absolutely loving that Kendrick finally popped. Some of his best bars ever, and the attention to detail is incredible, especially for such a quick turnaround on these tracks. Even if there are no significant financial or legal consequences for Drake, many won't never be able to see him the same again, which is at least something.

yeh this has been an amazing few days, one twist after another
I'm still amazed Drake had a career after the cover of Adidon came out tbh

“not like us” feels like a death blow, the first of these tracks that you can actually hear getting some traction out of the context of this beef. funny after drake came after him and said “i’m hotter than you in your city,” kendrick finishes him off by rapping like drakeo over one of the best mustard beats in a while

this mf said “i like the way your breasts feel against my chest” to a 17 year old and y’all are wondering if the rumors are true https://t.co/pLlSecwWHh

— luck (@johnwells__) May 5, 2024

Lmao the moralising from some people in this thread. Rap was built on battling and beef.

this ^^

the first of these tracks that you can actually hear getting some traction out of the context of this beef.

besides “like that,” obviously

everlasting bass is still such an epic track

Drake (texting): What's yo favorite Crayola color

Millie Bobby Brown: Wild Watermelon

Drake: Damn they just letting anything be a crayon these days huh. Hahaaa. Hard for a guy like me to keep up

— Nicolas_Dream (@afraidofwasps) June 6, 2021

“Surely, on a Sunday - the Lord’s Day! - beef can be set aside, right? Surely we -“

kendrick is punching down with everything he's got...

...why?

― interstellar anthropologist+music philosopher, (Austin)

because people like _me_ are paying attention. like, the fact that i'm even posting in this thread says something about how big this is. seeing this ripple out over the past day or so has been really really interesting, because people who clearly know nothing at all about hip-hop are starting to be aware of it. like, these conversations start and i'm the only one there who's _heard_ of "the story of adidon". drake and kendrick lamar are household names in a way that even someone like pusha t isn't, and something like "meet the grahams", you don't need to go on genius to figure out what kendrick means when he says "drake you are a bad person and you should die". which is interesting because people who don't know...

i swear to god, last night this server i'm on is talking about it (which two days ago they wouldn't have, because they have no idea what the hell any of this stuff is about), and this white lady up in the yukon says "wait, if what kendrick is saying is true, why doesn't he just call the police? why is he saying this stuff on social media?"

and then the rest of us who are all SA victims try and explain how that works in practice until we have to peace out and use our TIPP skills, i mean, people gotta learn this shit somehow, i'm not judging this lady in the yukon for being ignorant, we're all born ignorant

i don't know hardly anything at all about rap beefs, but overall my impression that... like, when white people in the yukon who don't really know anything about any of the people involved start forming opinions, that's generally not a desired result

except the other thing that happens is that... someone like me, i've _heard_ of "the story of adidon" but i don't really pay attention because i don't really keep up with hip-hop and i _don't_ think it's my fucking business what the fuck goes on in the community

this shit drops and i think well god maybe i should figure out what's happening here

and y'all know way more about this than me, so, like. please check me if i'm talking out of my ass on any of this.

drake is incredibly popular. one of the most successful and popular rappers of all time. i mean what i know about drake is that someone asked obama what he thinks of kendrick and obama said "i prefer drake". that's kind of the impression i have of drake. but Serious Rappers don't respect him, and it's easy to look at it and say, you know, oh well it's because he's canadian, because he's half-black, because he never shot anybody

except, if i get what kendrick is saying, that that's _not_ why people don't respect him. it's not a situation where people roll their eyes at him and say "look at that fool acting like he's one of the best rappers in the world just because he's got a lot of hits". it's a situation where people who know him fucking _hate_ him, not just because he's a lying hypocrite, but because he is a terrible person who does terrible things and gets away with it, not necessarily on a harvey weinstein level but not that fucking far off either.

that's a really frustrating situation, not just because when people look at the community they think of someone like drake, but because this person is hurting people within the community and there's no mechanism of accountability. because drake is so powerful, most people within the community _don't_ have the ability to even call what he's doing to other people's attention. if drake's victimized someone, they have no recourse. nobody's going to listen to them. someone in drake's position can do what they want, can serially abuse people and take advantage of them and _hurt_ them, at least _within the community_, and...

and the only person who can say something about it and get listened to is someone like kendrick. and the only way to do that is to _not_ handle one's beefs within the community, to take it outside the community, by saying "look, look at this famous person within the community, this is a Bad Person"

is that great? is that a great way to handle a situation like that? not really. because "Bad Person" is an oversimplification, it always is, the world isn't made up of good people and bad people, and if one has a choice, it's better to heal than hurt. because one doesn't know what's going to happen, what the consequences are, of doing something like that. because one is appealing to, i mean, a dominant culture that _doesn't_ have the community's best interests at heart, that's oppressing and holding down the community, dividing the community against itself. no, that's not great, and what's the alternative? to let drake keep doing what he's doing forever and maybe piss on his leg every once in a while?

i could see how someone could feel conflicted in a situation like that.

I don’t necessarily know what’s right or wrong, but, Kate OTM.

I think it's simple: younger fans have never been privy to a hip-hop beef. It's fun. Like any artist Kendrick's using his anger as a vessel to write furious rhymes over good beats; by the third track even Drake himself starts to disappear.

i mean what i know about drake is that someone asked obama what he thinks of kendrick and obama said "i prefer drake".

not super important here, but isn't true. afaict he actually said the opposite?

It’s hard for me to believe that Kendrick has some secret info about Drake’s alleged victims. It seems he’s playing off the same internet rumors that rise up whenever Drake does something weird, like texting Billie Eilish or whatever,

I think it’s super funny that they are doing NPR segments on this

people sticking to "BUT BATTLES ARE PART OF HOPHOP!!" sound a lot like the damagingly staunch "I BELIEVE IN THE CONSTITUTION THE WAY IT WAS WRITTEN!!" crowd.

lol does it?

lol yes totally the same thing austin

also yes Rob is right for the record, Obama took Kendrick

"If Drake and Kendrick Lamar got in a rap battle who do you think would win?"

Obama (2016): "I gotta go with Kendrick." pic.twitter.com/5AgUjbiarp

— Complex Music (@ComplexMusic) May 4, 2024

"BUT BATTLES ARE PART OF HOPHOP!!"

https://i.imgur.com/V3IR6wk.jpg

It's kind of ingrained into the art form (like braggadocio), diss tracks are just a more serious version of battle rapping which existed from the very beginning. The difference being this isn't playful, it has *stakes*, man.

Also keep in mind, although whispers about Cosby existed for decades, the one incident that actually got the ball rolling and lead to people speaking out was Hannibal Burress's viral comedy special where he mainstreamed these whispers.

Some of these things about Drake have been whispered but aren't known widely by more casual listeners

I think other genres should do this more often. In high school, my brother was in a ska band and they disliked this guy, we'll call him Mark Dan

They wrote a song called "MARK DAN, SHUT YOUR YAP FLAP"

didn't Taylor Swift just release an entire diss album?

“Dear John” came close to calling John Mayer a pedo

this is good beef has stakes, but doesn’t seem likely to result in violence. i mean i guess i wouldn’t put anything past anyone

Phoebe Bridgers' breakout hit was a Ryan Adams diss track

xpost Drake might pay someone to tp Kendrick's house

https://s2.dmcdn.net/v/T2F9x1Xi9yAK4EDGo/x360

Found a photo of the exact moment drake decided to start a beef w/kendrick

here u go #bbldrizzybeatgiveaway pic.twitter.com/7kpUDFY0DN

— romeo (@luvkurby) May 5, 2024

Lmao omar

#bbldrizzybeatgiveaway
uh.. take that drake? you scallywag! pic.twitter.com/cRZRopT0QD

— juju (@ynvurse) May 5, 2024

i am basically a kendrick fan and i don't think all artists need to be political heroes, but in this very particular specific moment – a multi-part drake beef? actually feels like a psyop

— dj intercity disco (@chalravens) May 4, 2024

Can't wait for the eventual pivot when Drake drops the introspective "It's Hard Being a Bad Person"

damn Not Like Us is crazy, I keep catching things like the John Stockton reference, which calls out the Instagram I posted upthread where Drake is posing with his neighbor, Stockton's teammate Karl Malone who got a 13 year old pregnant

Layers upon layers

The one I keep coming back to is, "trying to strike a chord and it's probably A-minor"

many xposts:ofc it's not the same exact thing, i used the word "like" intentionally. i should think all you super knowledgeable hiphop heads would be able to understand some light simile.

lil kim used the "a minor" line back in the 90s.

kendrick wins this one, but doesn't come out looking very dignified.