RAPPER'S DELIGHT: CIVIL WAR! KENDRICK LAMAR AND FUTURE VS DRAKE AND J. COLE
Who won? Is a beef happening? Investigating the events over the weekend...
Let’s start with a deep cut on For All the Dogs: subliminal track galore. Drake, although known for his ability to slyly poke at a would-be opponent, was originally thought to be congratulating Future on “What Would Pluto Do”, a song where Drake brags about having sex with a woman who used to have sex with Future. This fraternity brother-esque tale of two men high-fiving after becoming eskimo brothers is not outside of the realm of possibilities in the Future and Drake partnership; in fact, it is practically the whole point. Both men are reputed playboys who have had public relationships with women; some of those relationships, like when Future’s engagement to R&B star Ciara ended with hostile breakup, become a part of their music and lore — thus, becoming fodder for online fandom and enthusiastic boosterism. They both specialize in music for men who have no problem being passionate with a woman, then sadly croon about romantic decay in the age of loneliness and narcissism, with some of that narcissism being their own doing. They’ve done excellent music together too. “Life Is Good” is one of the best singles to come out in the past five years in all of music; “Diamonds Dancing”, from their collaborative effort What a Time to be Alive, would be on the short list for either of their best songs. I don’t imagine Future particularly loves Drake; he told good friend Big Bank Black on Beats 1 Radio that Young Thug was his best friend in the rap game. But they had solid chemistry together; in the midst of both of their partying, Drake gives Future a more sensitive buffer in the midst of his tragically monstrous persona, and Drake — who can shape shift so easily that he can feel inauthentic at times — gets to be a craft wonk next to a rawer artist.
Fast forward to the new Future album, WE DON’T TRUST YOU, and we have reason to believe that “What Would Pluto Do” has a bit more spice to it. In the second verse of the title track, Future raps with smooth defiance: “You a nigga number one fan, dog/Sneak dissin', I don't understand, dog/Pillowtalkin', actin' like a fed, dog/I don't need another fake friend, dog
Can't be 'bout a ho, 'cause we sharin', dog.” The internet now believes this to be about Drake, and the woman that he and Future had carnal knowledge of. Granted, This could be about someone else — I wouldn’t be surprised if Drake shows up on the upcoming follow-up to this album set to drop on Friday — but, it has given both fan armies things to hash out on Twitter. Did Future ever like Drake? Is Drake pillow talking?
I think Drake will always make other people weary of him and his motives. There is a fine line between paying homage and outright stealing somebody flow, and Drake has crossed that line several times. For every time he endearingly pays homage to one of his rap heroes (one of Drake’s best attributes is that he is a huge rap head), he can also sneakily steal. More Life’s “KMT”, which takes XXXTentacion’s flow, is still embarrassing; X responded by saying misogynistic things about Drake’s mother. (Knowing what we know about X, Sandi Graham got off easy). He's an anomaly and he’s used that to become more famous than any rapper not named Eminem. This is now the fifteenth year of him being on top; making hit records is now a matter of when, not if. He is a biracial Jewish Canadian who used to be a main character on a popular TV show for teenagers. His relative class privilege gave him worldly pleasures: his uncle would take him to the golf course as a kid, and his other uncle was in the group Sly and the Family Stone. If he wasn’t musically inclined, with comedic chops, he might have made a pretty good SNL cast member in a different life. Along with his in-house producer 40, who has always been an underrated part of his success, he is a man of color with an innate understanding on how to capatalize on his celebrity, and how to be presentable and in relative control of his behavior and emotional vigor to the masses. Drake is Kanye West without the agitation; the light-skinned nigga you love to hate. When it comes to his music, we can get used to dissing him because of his unfair and enormous amounts of wealth and success, forgetting how nimble and crafty he is as a pop artist and lyrical rapper.
Enter Kendrick Lamar, who is definitely someone who finds Drake immensely corny. On “Like That”, the sixth song on WDTU, the Pulitzer Prize award winning rapper goes for the jugular, dissing Drake and by extension, J. Cole: “Fuck sneak dissing, first person shooter, I hope they came with three switches”; later, he says: “fuck the big three, it’s just big me.” To me, a Drake and Future beef is a little more compelling — think of the interesting music that could come out of two men singing about each other! — than a Drake and Kendrick beef, which would feature prototypical diss tracks, or sneak dissses. Kendrick and Drake don’t seem to see the world the same way, which is understandable; despite their history together (Drake brought Kendrick on tour with him in 2011), they’re two wildly different people. Lamar has two children with his high school sweetheart. He comes from a poor Compton family. “I’ve been on section eight, I’ve been a welfare case”, he says on “Really Be Smoking” with YG. He’s a man who keeps things mostly private and quiet; we still don’t know what drove him to leave TDE and start his own company, pgLang, with his manager Dave Free. (I have some ideas on what happened but I am afraid of “Top Dawg” so I will keep my mouth shut). With his heavy ideas and therapeutic albums, Lamar can be quite tedious to listen to sometimes, but he’s objectively an exciting rapper when he openly snipes at people. Taunting is his most underrated attribute; he sounds like Lil Wayne or DMX when he raps like this. This is his most easily digestible mode.
Who knows what will come of this? It was somewhat surprising that Lamar included Cole in his lyrics. My guess: Mr. Lamar finds Cole choosing Drake to be a betrayal of their humble beginnings and unassuming attitude about hedonistic pleasures. Cole has clearly decided to compete harder in the past couple of years, by working with artists that you would not expect him to want to make music with. Cole has relatively strong verses on Lil Yachty and Lil Durk songs, removing his 90’s biases for something more current and harmonious. Cole, like Drake always knows, realized he needed the youth to stay relevant; Kendrick goes at his own pace with literally everything. To Lamar, Cole decided to be a part of the competitive and capitalist fraternity, and turned his back on Lamar’s eccentric and artistic group of men. (In fairness, Lamar’s hit “The Hillbillies” with Baby Keem is produced by SURFGANG’s evilgiane. That’s a youth movement).
Until Drake responds, if he ever does, everything is up in the air. Last time he went up against someone, the conceit of Pusha T’s “Story of Adidon” defeated him. But, Kendrick is not Pusha T; he’s a bit more sensitive to the classy decorum of polite society. He’s not a brawler, he’s an occasional jabber. You can’t help people get through their traumas if you are also sending shots at the biggest artist in rap.