are you saying that prodigy and arguably the greatest lyricist alive Kendrick Lamar of To Pimp A Butterfly fame was able to publicly humiliate pop rapper and child predator Drake? im shocked.
alright actually i was dismissing this because i dont really keep up with celebrity beef so most of it goes over my head but after listening kendrick did just release the most scathing diss track in rap history (not an exaggeration, i am speaking entirely non-hyperbolically when i say this).
and, to be clear since kendrick has released several diss tracks in a row over the course of the past few days, i am referring to Meet the Grahams, a song not directed at drake, but is instead Kendrick speaking slowly, softly, and sadly towards Drake’s family members over a somber piano about how him being a terrible person has fucked up their lives while also revealing some incredibly direct and personal sexual misconduct allegations in the portion addressed to his mother, Sandra.
this is, like, historically important to rap music and it’s kind of astonishing.
update:
i think it’s important to recognize Meet the Grahams not as a piece of a dunking campaign, but as a sincerely heartbreaking and terrifyingly stark glimpse into the life of someone who has had predatory, vile behaviors enabled and had enough power to ignore anyone trying to get to him. i don’t know that i’m capable of putting it into words, but this one feels a bit too important and sincere to treat as a “drake’s funeral” anthem, even in an ironic tone.
that is reserved for the OTHER diss track that he released in the SAME DAY which has a much bouncier and “point and laugh” tone, which will have you going “OOOOOOOOOH MY GOOOOOOOOOD” in the first 90 seconds, regardless of whether or not you know anything about the beef.
that’s this one:
okay FINAL thing i’ll say on this:
i think it’s extraordinarily impressive how sophisticated Kendrick’s execution of this PITCH PERFECT social execution has been, and i don’t even think it’s over. to quote youtuber Scru Face Jean here, “[Kendrick is] making it too culturally cool to not like Drake right now,” and like. i guess all this is to say, i think it’s important to emphasize how major this accomplishment is on a, like, societal level.
to put it into perspective, i saw somebody comment “the beef has finally breached containment” in the tags, and i think that an excellent visual metaphor for what Kendrick’s done is, very simply, ripples in the water. to emphasize his point, using his long experience in battle rap and his generational mind for putting societal issues into art (they’re going to be talking about him for decades after he’s dead, he’s that kind of important), he crafted a split multimedia diss LP with such precision that it’s created an explosion across mainstreams of media.
he reached into the brain of the zeitgeist and rewrote Drake’s public image into exactly what he wanted it to be. even if it’s all game (im pretty sure it’s definitely not, but if it is) it’s GOOD FUCKING GAME.