If you’re looking to watch the latest chapter in the latest hip-hop feud unfold, tune in to this year’s BET Hip-Hop Awards, airing Tuesday, for good old-fashioned bragging and dissing. It comes courtesy of Kendrick Lamar and is aimed at Drake.
With Compton, Calif., native Lamar clocking up blanket critical acclaim and more than 1 million sales of his major label debut “good kid, m.A.A.d city,” released a year ago, you’d think he’d be happy to soak up the swag and get cozy with rap’s A-list.
But back in August, hip-hop’s newest star served notice that he has no plans to get comfortable when he popped up alongside Jay Electronica on the Big Sean track “Control.”
During the 7 ¹/₂-minute song, the 26-year-old audaciously called himself the “King of New York” before dropping the mother of all diss bombs. In one breathless blast, Lamar laid waste to the lyrical skills of Drake, J. Cole, Big K.R.I.T., Wale, Pusha T, Meek Mill, A$AP Rocky, Big Sean, Jay Electronica, Tyler the Creator and Mac Miller. The fact that most of these artists are his friends and contemporaries (with two of them actually being part of the same track), made no difference. Instead, Lamar let his competitive spirit take over, saying “I got love for you all but I’m trying to murder you n - - - as/Trying to make sure your core fans never heard of you n - - - as.”
In the cliquey world of modern hip-hop, this pointed, cage-rattling call for Lamar’s peers to step up to the plate is virtually unheard of.
Since then, “Control” has created a firestorm of controversy that will not die down. “The song itself has become the most debated, dissected and responded to song in maybe 10 years,” Hot 97 news director Miss Info tells the Post. Those responses flooded in within hours of the track surfacing online. A “reaction” meme quickly did the rounds with fans posting pictures of people slack-jawed or passed out in shock, supposedly at Lamar’s verse. Def Jam co-founder Russell Simmons said the verse was an “instant classic.” Even LeBron James felt compelled to comment, saying Lamar was “real hip hop at his best.”
In an interview with Hot 97, Lamar himself tried to play down the controversy a little and disagreed with the idea that the named and shamed MCs would be angered. “I aspire to be the best,” he explained. “If they’re competitive and they respect the culture of hip-hop, I don’t feel like it should be any type of ill feeling they should have towards it.”
The West Coast/East Coast face-off has long been a point of contention, too, and at its worst, it ended in the slayings of Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. in 1996 and 1997, respectively. But this is not about who can claim to be the toughest, it’s more about who is the most talented.
“I went to Nas’ 40th birthday recently and I asked him about the drama,” adds Miss Info. “His eyes lit up — I could tell he was really enjoying it. I think the old-schoolers like him, Jay-Z and 50 Cent don’t feel threatened by Kendrick saying he’s the King of New York, they’re excited by it. It’s taken hip-hop back to being a competitive sport.”
But not everyone is amused. Responses have been hurled back at Lamar from the likes of Joe Budden, Lupe Fiasco and B.o.B., but the tracks “Kendrick You Next” and “Ooh Kill ’Em” by Philadelphia rapper Meek Mill have been especially withering. Mill argues that he has more street credibility than Lamar. “You do it for the n - - - a with the backpack/I do it for the n - - - as on the corner, trying to make a meal ticket with a crack pack.”
Drake has also been dismissive of Lamar’s verse, telling a Los Angeles radio station that it “came and went” and that it was merely a “floating Twitter frenzy.”
Lamar, in turn aimed his lines at Canadian rapper Drake during the BET Hip-Hop Awards, which were taped Sept. 28 in Atlanta.
During a freestyle cipher rap, Lamar went at it: “Nothing been the same since they dropped ‘Control’/And tucked a sensitive rapper back in his pajama clothes.”
What is certain is that Kendrick Lamar has shaken even the most lethargic of MCs into action and the fallout from his incendiary verse looks set to continue. “Kendrick has forced a lot of artists who have been comfortable in their fan adulation and corporate sponsorship to step up,” says Miss Info. “It is forcing them to be a part of the challenge.”