Kendrick Lamar will kill your favorite rapper for money

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBvngg87998

This has got to be the flow of the year and I figure he deserves a thread of his own like Lil B.

Wiki says Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre and Game crowned him the "New King of the West Coast" in August and also that Lamar has seen Tupac in a dream telling him to "Keep doing what you're doing, don't let my music die".

I'd like to see if this goes somewhere!

the fuck your ethnicity beat has been in my head for the last couple of days

yeah, i guess besides being really good it has sort of an embracing feel

i like this guy

need to finally download his album plus maybe a mixtape or two

Lamar has seen Tupac in a dream telling him to "Keep doing what you're doing, don't let my music die"

say no more

did i miss some era of pac's career when he was in freestyle fellowship or something?

kendrick is good... he def seems like a cool person, like hanging out w/ currensy & kendrick would just be really fun

"rigamortis" is really cool too, would like to see him do it w/ an actual live band

album is sneakily one of the better rap albums of the year too, certainly for a debut

Yeah, def. top 5 rap albums this year.

He has this knack for pulling off corny backpacker shit w/o coming across at all like a corny backpacker. But really, he's exactly the black hippy he claims to be.

Thing about this dude is he's not only a skilled rapper, obviously, but his beats/tracks are SO much more interesting (to me, at least) than, like, A$AP Rocky, Spaceghost, Mr. Exquire, and most of the other current, blog-buzzy hip-hop acts. And I like what Clams Casino is doing; I like the Rainforest EP. But I don't know ... I was trying to listen to that Spaceghost record the other day, and I didn't hate it, but ... just how dumb are we gonna allow the rhymes to be before we say enough is enough?

To me, this guy elevates up into the Shabazz Palaces / Serengeti realm rather than all the buzz stuff that just doesn't hold up.

(Tyler/Goblin/OFWGKTA left out of this post on purpose. Dig the beats, but overall, not for me.)

am i the only person who thinks "The Recipe" is kind of a shitty, awkward-sounding song?

yeah, i'm not really a big fan of it

it's okay, nothing really special

the part where dre raps is still just really ill fitting

I put it on my "faves of 2012" playlist without really listening to it and it really doesn't belong there

lol

the production is gorgeous enough to overcome the not-especially-memorable rapping imo

tho obv it's no "cartoon & cereal"

see it doesn't sound very gorgeous to me! drums are so clunky

hmm never noticed the clunkiness before, the strings are what i think of though

just listening to it now, Dre sounds like Kendrick's bored grandpa and Kendrick sounds like he's imitating Lupe Fiasco poorly

Man, you guys are jaded! This track doesn't fill you with joy? The stings? Kendrick's kinda weird sorta singing voice? His constant flow switch-ups? The no-hurry pacing? The shameless summeriness of it all? None of this does anything for you guys?

like I said, it's okay

and the Lupe Fiasco compare is just harsh! I mean, yeah, dude is in entertainer mode here, but the shit coming out of his mouth still makes sense

i had no concept of it being summery in any way until i listened close enough to figure out what the words in the chorus were. the flow in KL's first few bars is really really awkward imo.

I actually like how off the drums are, too. They're mixed to sound the way all drums do when you're driving really fast with the windows down and the radio turned way up

i didn't really get into it until i heard it on the radio driving down the freeway and then i decided i loved it

recipe is awesome

'drums are so clunky' this sounds like criticism for dummies type shit

recipe is one of the best songs of the year imo

i would like it way better if it just didn't have dr. dre on it

i dont see why this is the best he's sounded in years

ive said this elsewhere (or here maybe, too, i don't remember) but dre's parts on it sound 100% like kendrick karaoke, which makes sense since kendrick of course wrote the verses.

but idk i find it distracting and kinda embarrassing... not as much as "i need a doctor" but it def has the feel to me of an old baller trying to do a bunch of and 1 tricks or something

Yeah, I agree with that; the verse is not Dre's voice (in so much as Dre even has a voice these days). I give it a pass, though, just because his presence is so iconic and it's a key part of the song's Visit L.A. sales pitch

Dre's verses have always been karaoke

u sound young

he used to be better at hiding it

thats silly. ppl used to criticize his rapping all the time & they were wrong then too

xpost I dunno, 2001 was pretty much all Dre karaoke and it was awesome in part because of that (this was the beginning of his "so what if I use ghostwriter? no shame in it phase.") I think the problem is he's never had a ghostwriter with a voice as distinct as Kendrick's

i dunno, he used to seem less slavish in his imitation of his writers. i kind of put the fault on kendrick for writing dre something so obviously in his own voice tho.

eminem?

xp i don't buy that. jay-z, eminem, snoop, cube, doc?

yeah, eminem/snoop/cube were all strong voices too, obviously, but their personas heavily overlapped with Dre's in a way that Kendrick's doesn't. They all have their quirks, but there are a lot of interchangeable verses among the four of them. Kendrick is a real outlier

i kind of put the fault on kendrick for writing dre something so obviously in his own voice tho.

yeah, this is kind of true, but I give him a pass since I like the verse well enough anyway

i dont think kendrick is an outlier, its just a new voice
'forgot about dre' is super obviously a bunch of em verses in like every way, we just give it a pass cuz we heard it a bunch & its a dope song

yeah i don't know how you could consider kendrick's flow more distinctive than now "eminem" dre's verse in forgot about dre was

i dunno, maybe it's just that i didn't realize he didn't write his own raps at the time, but dre sounds way more "himself" on the chronic and 2001 to me.

totally agree; the ghost verses on "Forgot About Dre" were all angry and defensive, so they played on the popular image of Dre in a way that was believable enough

it must have been hard for eminem to channel than angry and defensive vibe dre wanted

for me it's less about the content than the rhythms

otm

some spin on the ball here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwamhuY6Yy8

Everyone in a KL video looks like they’re having fun. Every drake video is dreary iirc

the fart part 2

xp the rich baby daddy video is fun

It would be crazy if these lawsuits ended up (1) blowing open modern streaming payola practices; and/or (2) proving that Drake is, in fact, a pedophile.

theres plenty of evidence of drake being inappropriate with underage girls meanwhile he released a song accusing kendrick of beating his wife based on absolutely nothing he should be suing himself

is this the first time someone sues over losing a rap battle?

I like that the 'squabble up" video is an hommage to The Roots video. Both videos are cool.

potentially “funneled payments” to iHeart as part of a “pay-to-play scheme” to promote the song on radio.

it's illegal in the us but allegations of it happening are pretty regular and the labels have often tried to find loopholes in the laws

i think drake, who specifically mentions nfr podcast in his suit, is mostly referring to the social media landscape. basically every big rap social media account is pay-for-play these days, and labels inundate these accounts with cash to promote their artists. they do this for all of their artists, not just drake or kendrick. here's an example of this sort of thing in action. that post probably cost atlantic records 5k or so.

whats drake trying to accomplish here

Trying to get out of his contract maybe?

I'm intrigued by the whole idea of streaming payola, because is it even "payola"? Streaming services aren't like radio. You can listen to their selections or you can listen to whatever you put on. I just always assume there's tons of marketing and promotion going on, and I don't mind it. I've found good songs through various playlists or just through letting it keep playing after something I selected ends.

Hmm at this part of the filing:

“And in a sea-change for UMG's internal policy, UMG removed the Song's copyright restrictions on YouTube and Twitch, thereby "whitelisting" the Song (for the first time in UMG history), which further incentivized influencers to spread the Song."

xpost Getting a song on a popular playlist is pretty important though

Oh for sure. I'm just not sure what the objection would be. Absent the FCC regulation that made payola a crime (and radio being a really different medium), isn't it all just marketing?

And UMG removing the copyright restriction, that's just marketing too. They should do it more!

drake is alleging there was radio payola (illegal) and streaming payola (legal)

dying at every usage of “the Song”

"The Song...that haunts my dreams. I gasped for breath — and yet the officers heard it not. I talked more quickly — more vehemently; but the noise steadily increased. I arose and argued about trifles, in a high key and with violent gesticulations; but the noise steadily increased. Why would they not be gone? I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observations of the men — but the noise steadily increased. Oh God! what could I do? I foamed — I raved — I swore! I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and continually increased. It grew louder — louder — louder! And still the men chatted pleasantly, and smiled. Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God! — no, no! They heard! — they suspected! — they knew! — they were making a mockery of my horror! — this I thought, and this I think. But anything was better than this agony! Anything was more tolerable than this derision! I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer! I felt that I must scream or die! — and now — again! — hark! louder! louder! louder! louder! —"

“…Here, here! It is Mustard on that hideous beat!”

And scene.

lmao

lol

Icy dead people

lmao Ned and OEO

The Tell-Tale Heart Pt 6

Lol

Apparently Not Like Us just re-entered the top 20 on Apple Music

Now Drake will sue the Beatles

Lol at Drake's own Streisand effect moment.

Streisand effect for sure.

Drake should also read up on Oscar Wilde and tread very carefully.

This is all a pre-suit request for info, so understandable that his lawyers would be throwing a lot of spaghetti at the wall to widen the scope of what they can find out.

I’d guess the ultimate aim is to sue UMC and Kendrick (possibly Spotify) for defamation and the fishing for info on how the song was marketed / boosted is to influence any punitive damages, but who knows? It’s obviously a high-risk strategy, as you’re not in a great place if you lose, but much as I dislike him, if Drake isn’t actually a paedophile and hundreds of millions of people now think he is, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to sue.

We probably don’t need to ask how much Drake likes gambling, at this point.

im sure drake can get a quick settlement from umg they dont want their shady business exposed but it doesnt answer the question as to why hes doing this obvious career self sabotage, i mean maybe hes just an idiot idk

idk, I think if there’s a non-negligible amount of people out there who now think Drake is a paedophile, either winning the case or having Kendrick’s defence be ‘it was obviously not meant to be taken seriously’ might offset the damage from looking like a big baby for suing. He hasn’t actually committed to bringing a case yet, though, so might not go through with it.

I mean, before NLU even came out Drake posted a song with an AI Tupac telling Kendrick to talk about how Drake likes young girls.

yeah i dont see the technically its not pedophilia its just grooming argument going over well in the court of public opinion or the court of law

we're gonna get reddit creep levels of discourse on this topic aired out in public and it's going to be awful

if he had just taken the L been like haha ok you win good stuff laid low for a lil while then come out with some classic drake style music people wouldve been all oh a return to form how wonderful but he seems intent on dragging the L out as long as possible

i think drake is unique in that he was able to straddle the line between pop and legit rap, and kendrick essentially attacked him from both angles (cant be trusted to do pop bc hes a predator, cant do legit rap bc hes a culture vulture and interloper), classic rich guy move to go to the courts out of financial self-preservation even if it means cementing your legacy as a shitty person

It is difficult for most of us to fathom the ego of someone like Drake.

i still think there is some grander ulterior business motive here that has nothing to do w/ kendrick and is just drake using this as a cudgel against UMG. perhaps UMG putting its weight behind "not like us" was some sort of final straw for him -- drake i'm sure had every right to expect preferential treatment from UMG -- but he joked about the song on multiple occasions on his IG story this summer, i don't think he is so offended by the pedophile thing that he would go to these lengths legally. we've seen him navigate beefs before and yes this one turned out very bad for him but people have said and/or revealed a lot of crazy shit about him over the years and it's never gotten to this level. so i don't think this is really about anything kendrick said. i'm not a legal scholar so perhaps there is another explanation but the fact that kendrick isn't named as a defendant in any of the suits is imo a tip of the hand in terms of what this is all actually about

i think it's also worth noting that in the song kendrick says "pedophiles" not "pedophile" and it comes after he talks about a bunch of other people who aren't drake. all of that seems like a really important distinction if drake's aim is to go to great lengths legally over the use of that term, which also makes me believe that it's not really about that, and instead his lawyers know that invoking that very loaded term in the lawsuit is a way of making it seem like it's about something that it's not

It is difficult for most of us to fathom the ego of someone like Drake.

― Grape Fired At Czar From Crack Battery (President Keyes)

maybe? like, i'm super fuckin' insecure. and part of that means is that i'm like a praise sponge. constantly trying to be great, constantly trying to prove to other people i'm great, constantly looking for people to reassure me. the less self-conident i am, the more i seek out external praise and validation. the more i'm bothered by criticism. even if it's not serious or personal, i take it personal, sometimes. i think that's, like, a normal thing! to want external validation and praise when one feels poorly about oneself. some people just take it to extremes. sometimes, you know, i feel so bad about myself, sometimes i can even kinda lose touch with reality, do stupid, self-destructive things.

that's a lot of what i hear when kendrick says "Fuck a rap battle, this a long life battle with yourself". i mean it is. it is and he's losing, he's Ramos Clemente in the Twilight Zone episode "The Mirror". drake just seems, idk, _fragile_.

I just figure after the Cave Diver v. Elon case it’s sort of been established that no one takes “pedophile” seriously as an online taunt. I got called a groomer by a lady on Facebook last week for saying there was nothing scary about all-ages drag shows. I am not suing her.

champagne papi? more like sparkling ephebophile

xp

i will always take it seriously when it's employed by the homophobic and transphobic brigade - because of the obvious gross implication made even more gross by the fact LGBTQ2S kids are abused at a higher rate.

so not only you have these people trivializing evil and thinking child abuse is just a way to slander others - but what's worse, it is these very people that are often responsible for the worst child abuse.

not applicable to this situation, but otherwise people that use it as a taunt need to be told in no uncertain terms that they are human trash.

If someone called me a groomer to my face I'd slap them. I don't resort to physical violence readily, partly because I believe in non-violence, and partly because I'm physically weak and basically anybody could beat the shit out of me if they wanted. Hell, they could fucking kill me, in that kind of a situation. Escalating to physical violence is seldom appropriate and is often abusive. Someone calls me a "pedophile" or a "groomer" though? That's warranted. I don't fucking care if I get killed for it. Don't fucking call me a pedophile or a groomer.

Of course, nobody's gonna call me that to my face, not in a way where I could respond by slapping them. It's either online, or people shouting from cars on the street. No opportunity to respond in the way I'd like to.

Unsolicited advice: if someone calls you a groomer they have no fucking place in your life.

this is a thread about kendrick lamar…

Kate will kill your favorite accuser for money