Kendrick FLAMED Drake.
Flamed.
Nuked.
Dragged.
Murked.
… and if you don't agree, you probably prefer a combo meal at McDonald's to the filet mignon at Ocean Prime… you don't know any better God bless. But for those of us who know that a Kendrick joint requires a sit down, a few listens in quiet, he flamed old boy. Period.
I like Drake. Well I like Take Care, Nothing Was the Same, More Life Drake. I could do without thot Drake, he's too, uh, seasoned, to be trying to be a baddie. It's just not cute. And in my opinion, Push Ups and Taylor Made were thot behavior. The former was dissing Kendrick about his splits … and when you are doing business with Baby and J. Prince, you doing the front facing splits, the ones only the cheerleaders, gymnasts, and heauxs could do. Just saying…you have no room to talk. The latter with the silly AI was just… silly.
But then yesterday, a random Tuesday before lunch, my guy… be clear, I love Kendrick and I am biased, but I love hip hop more so if he isn't honoring the culture I will call it out… dropped Euphoria. And baybee… it was atomic.
He is just different.
The entire premise of the song is that dude is a fraud, he's cosplaying being a Black man for the culture. So when some Twitter guy posted that the opening line was Richard Pryor, in The Wiz, when it's discovered he has no powers, saying "Everything they say about me is true" I knew this was about to go hard. The end of that statement in the movie is "I'm a phony"… and Kendrick lays him out for being the wiz who lives in hip hop land.
Let's see, he used the Teddy P sample from "Greatest Inspiration" to start off slow walking Drake into quicksand.
The title and many of the bars reference Drake's alleged questionable history with young girls … his texting and relationships with Milly Bobbie Brown, Billie Eilish, Kylie Jenner, and Hailey Bieber when they were 18 and under and he was well into his late twenties and early thirties has sparked controversy. Euphoria is a show he produces about teen angst, drug use, and lots of teenage sex. So Kendrick calls him out for making music that is pacifying (play on pacifier again alluding to the age issue) the masses to Step in the Name of Drake.
He basically calls Drake a thot with the demon line (a reference to Future whose middle name is DeMun and Drake's penchant for Future's old work), the Sexxy Red line, the "real women" line. He's exposing Drake's misogyny, which he's done nothing to hide, particularly lately, and it is one layer in his Drake is bad for the culture premise. He manages to paint Drake as kin to Blueface… Bust down Drakiana.
He calls him a liar and warms him for bringing up his wife, and reminds him from The Heart Part 4, "don't tell no lies about me, I won't tell no truth about you." The song implies throughout that there is a secret about Drake that Kendrick is holding on to… a tactic Drake used in Push Ups as well. Could just be talk… or not.
As the beat and Kendrick's voice changes. It's a masterful use of tone, inflection, and music to change the mood. His adlibs are memorable, kinda prep you for the next barrage of bars, and are quintessential Kenny. He also shows his creativity and versatility without using AI or there even being question… the way he delivers the line "push-a-T" and "it ain't even gotta be deep, I guess" are brilliant. You can hear the sarcasm. I was impressed, can you tell?
Then he questionsh
•his pen, which is a common diss of Drake with his ghostwriters;
•his Blackness, and not because of his biracial identity or even his light skin but his use of Black American culture that he doesn't give back to, according to Kendrick;
•and his authenticity… which he clearly believes Drake lacks. He says he doesn't raise his son (the one PushaT exposed … oops), he uses other artists like Lil Yachty and Pac's legacy for credibility, he has fake abs, he never responded to Pusha T, and his claims that he's tough are baseless, cuz dude's a former child actor from Canada… not Compton, the Bronx, the Fifth Ward, Chicago, the D, or other places where dudes get it out the mud.
Then there are my favorite parts, when he uses the DMX Breakfast Club rant to iterate how me he hates Drake too… "I hate the way that you walk, the way that you talk, the way that you dress." That is hilarious. And the last two lines Kendrick sings… "we don't wanna hear you say nigga no more." LOL. I think this line is super potent though because it extends the discussion of who can say "nigga" and why people want to, who are Black adjacent. Kendrick is basically saying as an invitee into Black American culture, you don't share the same history with the word and furthermore with the culture at-large. He pushed Drake's chest in yo.
Unless Kendrick hides infants in his attic or cooks meth in a trailer in the desert, Drake gotta come with the best lyrics of his life to beat this. While most of this wasn't new about Drake, he laid him out proper… all his biggest controversies in one place, with the stamp of Black Lack over his face. I listened to some podcasts, and much of the commentary from men was the same… this wasn't hard and it wasn't No Vaseline or Hit 'Em Up level dissing. Disagree. These dudes aren't reformed hustlers, one is a child actor and the other a conscious rapper, and the tomes are different. Yelling about smashing someone's wife is not gonna go over. Talking about being booty bandited by White Jewish managers is not gonna go over. But telling this dude that he, his actions, and his music are additions to Black American culture that harm more than do good, and that he's basically cosplaying a hip hop superhero in his own person movie, collecting dollars, and allegedly (so he implies) dropping dimes is brutal. You need more people, in other words. And "we don't wanna hear you say nigga no more."
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