The dissing between Kendrick Lamar and Drake, two of the greatest rappers on the American scene, inevitably brings to mind the golden years of rap. We are talking about those of the feuds between Tupac and Notorious BIG or, more recently, between Jay-Z and Nas, and it is no coincidence that the names mentioned are in fact the pillars of the history of this genre, those who succeeded before anyone else , perhaps even better than anyone else, to translate the disruptive force of rap into a profession, into philosophy, almost into religion, certainly into a political movement. A force that initially lived on the need to give voice to the blacks of the ghettos until today it became a pure celebration of the word. It is no coincidence that one of the two protagonists of the story, Kendrick Lamar, a 36-year-old Californian, was the first musician outside the classical or jazz circuits to receive the Pulitzer Prize for music. The most intellectual of the stars and stripes music awards.
The fuse that exploded the dissing
This is not the first time that Lamar and Drake’s paths have crossed, sparks flying, culminating – for the moment – in shots fired from a moving car at Drake’s Canadian home which injured his bodyguard. However, never has there been such a disruptive fire that ended up involving the global public. Lamar begins in 2013. In the song Control, guest of Big Sean, the rapper dedicates a verse that represents a gauntlet to all his most famous colleagues of the time. There are those who take it well, not Drake. It is actually a very subtle game that walks the line of the verse, of the single bar, explicit only for those who know well the vicissitudes and backgrounds between the interested parties. But we have a certain, certain date: October 6, 2023. On the record For All The Dogs by Drake J.Cole intervenes in a verse in which he asks himself who is the best rapper of the last ten years, undecided between himself, K-Dot and Aubrey, which would be Lamar and Drake. Lamar, who after winning the Pulitzer in 2018 has shrunk his musical appearances, responds, surprisingly and without appearing in the awards, on Future’s album in a verse of Like That where he declares that in reality there is only him, even refusing comparison with others. J.Cole makes the huge mistake of replying with a whole track-diss, only to regret it when faced with the real revolt of the audience at the Dreamville Festival, which forced him to publicly apologize, despite the song having collected over 15 million streams in 48 hours. Numbers that tell us that the public was eager for a direct response from Drake, who is notoriously not a man of half measures. It comes out like this Push Ups in which Drake claims that Lamar’s career started from an old feat. with him, and then to follow Taylor Made Freestylein which Drake accuses Lamar of having sampled the voices of Snoop Dog and Tupac via AI for use in the track on Taylor Swift’s album.
Kendrick Lamar’s response
Kendrick Lamar responds on April 30th with Euphoria and at this point the attack is clear, direct. In the verses he explains that Drake’s music is insignificant, it is made for children, he accuses him of misogyny, of using a ghostwriter and of wanting to hide, with the uncoordinated use of different accents, his Canadian origin. The dose is increased by K-Dot in 6:16 LA and here the title’s reference is to Tupac’s date of birth, and bothering Tupac in American rap is like bothering Battisti in Italian pop: an icon of the genre considered unattainable. In the song, new accusations against Drake’s light writing style, Lamar claims an overwhelming superiority on a literary and exquisitely musical level, but the strongest provocation of this attack is having written this song with the same ghostwriter used by Taylor Swift , subtle but sharp move. At this point it’s war with no holds barred, Drake responds first on social media with a series of posts, then with Family Matters, but it is an uncoordinated response, from someone who, it is commented on specialized social media pages, was perhaps left disarmed by the attacks, so he takes it out on all the big names in the American rap star system including The Weeknd. Lamar’s response is immediate, and it is once again musical, the song is titled Meet The Grahams and in those 6 minutes and 32 seconds it goes down even harder. Suffice it to say that the rapper starts by addressing Adonis, Drake’s son, saying he is sorry for the father who happened to him, «It takes a man to be men and your father is not a man. I look at him and hope that in a parallel world his father used a condom. He needs guidance and it could be me » he raps. Then he turns to Drake’s mother, accusing her of not empathizing enough with all those girls, even minors, who over the years have accused Drake of violence. He then moves on to Drake’s father, accusing him instead of his son’s well-known gambling addiction, “You raised a truly horrible person” he sings, and then moves on to accuse his colleague of keeping an 11-year-old daughter hidden, a daughter who then, thanks to the explicit references in the piece, the audience even managed to find it.
The meaning in dissing in game
At this point perhaps there is a clarification to be made, especially for those less accustomed to the world of rap, not called in jargon for nothing game, that is, that dissing is a well-defined discipline, an art in itself, a gimmick to be able to stage a battle from which someone must necessarily emerge victorious. Usually at stake is honor, much more often a laugh, in this case a belt, that of the best rapper of the new generation, a battle distance to which two stars like Drake and Kendrick Lamar were destined. Belt that almost everyone in the world is assigning to Kendrick Lamar, the youngest, the most contemporary, an artist who understood how inventiveness in the creation of bars is only one musical element of the many that are needed to make rap the cultured music that it can, is and must be.
On the cover: Drake and Lamar in a graphic design by Vincenzo Monaco
