I believed so, at the least till final week, when Kendrick launched “Euphoria,” his slow-building evisceration of Drake’s identification, marked by the hilariously dramatic, “We don’t wanna hear you say ‘nigga’ no extra.” Since then, the meat has picked up an unprecedented, live-wire tempo and reached darkish, darkish locations that I by no means imagined the meat between the previous star of a Canadian teen cleaning soap opera and a Pulitzer Prize–successful advocate for remedy would ever get to.
In the previous couple of days, we obtained practically half-hour of music devoted to this beef: Friday evening gave us Drake’s “Household Issues” and “Buried Alive Interlude” parody, a one-two-punch full with impersonation work and mafioso-style posturing as a response to Kendrick’s “6:16 in LA,” which he dropped earlier that morning. Instantly after “Household Issues,” on Friday night, Kendrick responded with the tectonic-plate-shifting “Meet the Grahams” and shot again once more on Saturday evening over club-ready Mustard beat with “Not Like Us.”
The web lit up like a pinball machine. The pace with which it was taking place simply spiked the adrenaline much more. These are a couple of of essentially the most weird, uncomfortable, overwhelming, and evil diss tracks ever. Filled with contradictions and hypocrisies. Filled with legitimately humorous, or possibly, simply surprising moments when Drake calls Kendrick’s pro-Blackness a sham and Kendrick calls Drake a degenerate deadbeat. Filled with gotcha accusations with no celebration bearing the burden of proof, allegations which are so critical they may hold over their legacies ceaselessly.
On “Household Issues,” after seven well-rapped minutes of poking holes in Kendrick’s manicured picture, Drake drops a bomb—“They employed a disaster administration crew to wash up the truth that you beat up your queen”—attempting to destroy the notion of Kendrick as our most considerate, socially acutely aware rap star. On Kendrick’s proportional response “Meet the Grahams”—a psychological, Eminem-like takedown of Drake, the place he raps like he’s scribbling on the partitions within the Barbarian basement—he gives twisted recommendation to Drake’s son (Adonis), Drake’s daughter (who might or might not exist), and Drake’s mother and father (Sandi and Dennis). At one level, he even raps towards Drake’s dad, “You raised a horrible fuckin’ particular person, the nerve of you, Dennis,” one of the crucial hateful bars to come back from a beef that’s all hate.
However the route Kendrick takes the music is far more unsettling, alleging that OVO is a hoop of intercourse predators led by Drake: “Him and Weinstein ought to get fucked up in a cell for the remainder of they life.” Lower than 24 hours later, Kendrick doubles down and comes much more immediately on “Not Like Us,” the place he chants “Licensed lover boy? Licensed pedophile,” and, “Tryna ring a bell and it’s in all probability A minor” on a cool L.A. celebration music. You’ll be able to think about folks all summer time rapping alongside to bars accusing Drake of pedophilia, with massive smiles on their faces and drinks of their arms, whereas they hit the little two-step that Kendrick requires on the finish of the music whereas he shouts “OV-hoe.” (It’s truly already occurred.)
