During a concert in South Florida last night, Drake delivered his first “public statement” addressing Kendrick “K-Dot” Lamar’s verse on “Like That” from Future and Metro Boomin’s new album, “We Don’t Trust You.” K-Dot takes shots at Drizzy and J. Cole, the other two “Big Three” Hip-Hop legends of the 2010s.
Did Drizzy debut a new song? Perhaps a nice, quick freestyle clapping back at Kung-Fu Kenny? Nah … just a little motivational speech—with his whole chest.
“I got my head up high, my back straight, I’m 10 toes down…I know that no matter what, there’s not a n***a on this Earth that can ever f*** with me.”
Fine work if he’s looking to be the next Tony Robbins, but Hip-Hop is a lyrical bloodsport. And if this is all Drake has to say in response to Kendrick, he’s frankly proven that he doesn’t belong in the Big Three of anything.
First off, this beef is great in that it woke up a sleepy first quarter in Hip-Hop: Folks are doing forensic examinations of bars by Cole, Kendrick and Drake and ruminating on why Future seemingly destroyed his working relationship with Drake by allowing Kendrick’s verse on his album (if this is all indeed over a woman, both men need an ass-whippin’.)
But the beef needs to be fed: Whatever (de)evolutions Hip-Hop has undergone over its last half-century of existence, rap squabbles have always been handled in the booth. If a rapper drops a track talking shit about you, your mama and your shih-tzu, you simply must respond in kind. Bitching on social media in response constitutes an automatic L.
Furthermore, the best diss tracks in the annals of Hip-Hop all involve naming names and incisive lyrics with zero ambiguity: Think Nas’ “Ether,” (which became a verb), Ice Cube’s “No Vaseline” or 2Pac’s “Hit Em Up.”
Though Drake makes music for folks who sprinkle lavender in their baths and close the refrigerator door with their hip, dude can rap when he wants to—just peep his series of “timestamp” cuts. He’s definitely not considered one of the Big Three for his aggressively light-skinned singing (full disclosure: I am light-skinned, myself).
Many assume that J. Cole is putting pen to pad in response to Kendrick as we speak — his output of late has been amazing, so we hope he’ll have baaaaaars for K. Dot. But considering Drake’s history of rap beef – his real feuds, not the 32,407,674 people about which he’s dropped subliminals—we’re less optimistic.
His first “official” beef — with Common in 2012 — started with subliminal shots at each other and ended with Com calling out Drake by name and catching a body over the “Stay Schemin” beat. Drake did nothing … perhaps because Com is simply a better rapper.
Drake won his lil’ squabble with Meek Mill back in 2015, when Meek accused him of having a ghostwriter. He went viral when he hit Meek with the two-pack “Charged Up” and “Back to Back.” But Meek’s hollering ass will never been in anyone’s top five and Drake was in his post-“Nothing Was The Same” apex of his career. It was a lion grabbing up a field mouse.
But Drake’s back and forth against Pusha T in 2018 proved homie might not be cut out to finish a real battle against a real rapper. Years of subliminal bars and verses from both men culminated in Push’s direct Drizzy headshot on the Kanye West-produced “Infrared.”
Drake responded with the decent “Duppy Freestyle,” clapping back at Push and Kanye. But Push responded to that with “The Story of Adidon,” a cut that would make J. Robert Oppenheimer proud. It contained the one-two punch of revealing to the world that Drizzy had a son that he was “hiding” and making fun of his longtime producer Noah “40” Shebib’s multiple sclerosis diagnosis.
Drake responded to that deeply personal hit with … an Instagram post explaining the blackface he wore in the photo Push used for “Adidon.”
Drake later claimed that J. Prince stopped him from going too hard on a response to Pusha T…which is like saying you were gonna beat the ass of the kid who stole your lunch but your mama stopped you.
It’s a touchy time for Drake to weather a rap beef: He’s in his late 30s and struggling to reconcile his status as a global legend with the fact that Father Time comes banging on all our doors. His albums are getting progressively worse and reminding everyone that he’s only ever rapped about maybe three or four topics.
His attempts to stay relevant (*cough* Sexyy Red *cough*) are increasingly and obviously desperate, and his creative flourishes like the painted nails and ponytails aren’t really going over well with fans. He gets publicly bitchy at folks like Joe Budden who level fair critiques of his music when 2014 Drake wouldn’t even acknowledge it.
If he’s really trying to prove his rap bona fides, which so many have questioned throughout his career, Drake needs to clap-back with hellfire for Kendrick. It might be his last chance before he’s put out to pasture.