{"id":21251,"date":"2024-06-04T17:34:31","date_gmt":"2024-06-05T01:34:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/?p=21251"},"modified":"2024-06-04T17:36:38","modified_gmt":"2024-06-05T01:36:38","slug":"poetic-justice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/poetic-justice\/","title":{"rendered":"Poetic justice"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Written by: Taylor Duff | Staff Writer\u00a0 \u00a0 Sophie Taylor | Designer<\/span><\/p>\n

Content warning: <\/b>this article contains mentions of violence and sexual assault\/grooming.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Kendrick and Drake have a tangled past that includes almost 10 years of static. As Kendrick Lamar\u2019s popularity increased, Drake embraced him \u2014 giving him an interlude on his 2011 album, \u201cTake Care,\u201d and inviting him on the ensuing Club Paradise tour.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The beef between the two began when Kendrick made a personal attack on Drake and 11 other rappers during his feature appearance on Big Sean\u2019s song, \u201cControl,\u201d in August 2013, and tensions escalated. In October 2023, Drake, with fellow rapper J. Cole, released \u201cFirst Person Shooter.\u201d In the song, J. Cole boasts about his proficiency at rapping. He calls himself, Drake and Lamar the \u201cbig three.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Lamar responded to \u201cFirst Person Shooter\u201d in March 2024 by criticizing Drake and J. Cole during featured verses on \u201cMetro Boomin\u201d and Future\u2019s song, \u201cLike That.\u201d Lamar rejected the notion that there was a \u201cbig three,\u201d stating, \u201cf–k the big three, it\u2019s just big me.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In response, Drake released a song titled \u201cPush Ups (Drop and Give Me 50),\u201d in which he mocked Lamar\u2019s height. Within hours of Drake\u2019s diss, Rick Ross responded with a single called \u201cChampagne Moments,\u201d claiming Drake had undergone plastic surgery, including a nose job, false abs and a Brazilian Butt Lift.<\/span><\/p>\n

Drake\u2019s \u201cTaylor Made Freestyle\u201d implied that Lamar was too cowardly to release music in the same week as Taylor Swift\u2019s \u201cThe Tortured Poets Department.\u201d Drake used artificial intelligence to hurl insults in the voices of Lamar\u2019s heroes: Tupac and Snoop Dogg.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Lamar released \u201cEuphoria\u201d \u2014 after the HBO show of which Drake is an executive producer \u2014 which read like a laundry list of grievances against his sparring partner. Lamar described Drake as \u201cpredictable,\u201d a \u201cmaster manipulator\u201d and a \u201chabitual liar.\u201d Less than 72 hours after \u201cEuphoria\u201d dropped, Lamar released a second song, \u201c6:16 in LA.\u201d In this track, he alleged that someone within Drake\u2019s organization was leaking negative material.<\/span><\/p>\n

Drake\u2019s response was the song, \u201cFamily Matters,\u201d which elevated the conflict to new heights. He quotes: \u201cYou mentioned my seed; now deal with his father,\u201d Drake said. \u201cI gotta go bad, I gotta go bad.\u201d Drake hypothesized in the song that Lamar could be a perpetrator of domestic abuse \u2014 the star has never faced such an allegation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Within 20 minutes of Drake\u2019s release of \u201cFamily Matters,\u201d Lamar responded with a third diss track, \u201cMeet The Grahams,\u201d which began with the foreboding warning, \u201cYou messed up the minute you called out my family\u2019s name.\u201d Each verse was addressed to one of Drake\u2019s closest family members, including his mother, father and six-year-old son, as well as an alleged \u201cdaughter\u201d no one knows about. Lamar claims Drake covertly fathered a second child and was hooked on gambling, sex and drugs.<\/span><\/p>\n

On his fourth diss track, \u201cNot Like Us,\u201d Lamar accused Drake of having connections with underage women. This is one of Lamar\u2019s most popular quotes from \u201cNot Like Us\u201d: \u201cAin’t you tired? Tryna strikes a chord and it’s probably A Minor.\u201d Drake alleges that an informant purposefully fed Lamar several statements with the expectation that the star would rap about them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The \u201cNot Like Us\u201d cover art is also an overhead picture of Drake\u2019s house marked with red tags that would normally represent sex offenders on such websites, making more allegations about Drake. Producer Metro Boomin entered the battle by releasing a beat dubbed \u201cBBL Drizzy,\u201d urging fans to rap over it. Drake had previously criticized Boomin on \u201cPush Ups,\u201d instructing him to \u201cshut up and make some drums.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Drake countered with \u201cThe Heart Part 6\u201d May 5, denying Lamar\u2019s claims of grooming accusations and saying that his crew deceived Lamar over the secret child. Matters took a bad turn when a security officer outside Drake\u2019s home was shot. It is unclear whether the incident was related to the rappers\u2019 dispute. The latest, Drake raps over \u201cBBL Drizzy,\u201d halfway through his part on Sexyy Red’s \u201cU My Everything.\u201d Shots going back and forth make this a rap battle for this generation and it\u2019s apparent everyone has chosen a side: Kendrick or Drake.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Contact the authors at tduff23@mail.wou.edu or howldesigner@wou.edu<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1094,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3413,3399,3412,3414,3398,3395,3397,3402,3403,3138,1627,3400,3411,3410,3415,3416,3405,3409,3406,3404,3396,3407,3401,2854,3408],"class_list":["post-21251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-616-in-la","tag-bbl-drizzy","tag-big-three","tag-champagne-moments","tag-club-paradise-tour","tag-drake","tag-euphoria","tag-family-matters","tag-first-person-shooter","tag-future","tag-hbo","tag-j-cole","tag-kendrick-lamar","tag-meet-the-grahams","tag-metro-boomin","tag-not-like-us","tag-push-ups-drop-and-give-me-50","tag-rap-battle","tag-rick-ross","tag-sexyy-red","tag-snoop-dogg","tag-taylor-made-freestyle","tag-the-heart-part-6","tag-the-tortured-poets-department","tag-tupac"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1094"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21251\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}