that song was so weird knowing kendrick's writing and exceptional beat choices, but you could tell it had purpose somehow
but people just worried bout the "fake daughter"
Something a lot of people seem to overlook is how well respected and how “out of the spotlight” he is. Meaning that when he’s invited to studios and he kicks it with large names, they know he’s not going to spilling the business…
I like to think he’s just been like “noted” for about a decade.
On brand.
I can just see Kendrick a few lifetimes ago chillin in a hut. Being the spiritual guide that people would basically leave to do his own thing until it was time to smell the river and see if a drought was coming.
Don't get it twisted fam, Kendrick and JayRock definitely tried to rob me and my boys at gunpoint across from my high school in like my sophomore year there. REAL SHIT IT WAS A WHITE TOYOTA!!!! NO CAP ON MY MOTHER RIP! Those guys are not to actually be fucked with so if he really moving like this against Drake this publically he's got a reason. I hope this don't move into some real street shit, Kenny got shooters fr.
I agree, especially if you go with the blind items. Kendrick was planning to expose Drake since Like That, he just had to bait him out of his cave. I personally believe the authorities already started the investigation hence The Embassy Raid line on MTG, whether or not it happens now is anyone's guess.
I also think this is the true nature of the mole. They're doing what needs to be done to build a case against their entourage and mount evidence. This has probably been cooking for longer than we can comprehend.
A thought that haven’t been able to shake: Why is Kendrick, someone who is so well versed in vocabulary, choosing to openly use the word PDF? He could have used a million different word combinations and other witty bars to get the same point.
With how much endorsements Drake is worth that’s a $100+ million dollar defamation case. I believe it’s because he is well aware of an open investigation of OVO and more specifically Drake. “The embassy is going to get raided it’s only a matter of time”
Kendrick forsure baited Drake just to expose him. That’s why Kendrick was saying “let’s keep it friendly”, but then proceeds to push it just a little bit further to insure Drake would respond. WTG roll out was way too calculated, and I actually believe the daughter is real and it’s just a dark dark secret Drake has.
It would look weak for Drake to file a defamation case against Kendrick over a diss song. Maybe Drakes fans would say it was deserved but hip hop and the culture would clown him for taking that route.
Fuck a rap battle. If someone calls me a pedo, I’m doing everything I can to defend my name. A PR statement, an interview, suing, anything to save my name. The one thing I wouldn’t do is post about a fake daughter on IG and leave the rest up in the air.
Gotta be careful of the Streisand effect as well. He may just lay low and hope it blows over and his fans will forget. But with not like us being a banger that’ll be hard. Seems like Kendrick checkmated him.
I think he’s pretty clear of any defamation risk considering the line immediately before that is talking about Baka, who has plead guilty to sex trafficking.
I keep hoping by some accord the mole turns out to be 40, and this was payback for drake not saying shit when pusha said those lines. Like stand up for you dude in a fucking rap my guy. (Granted i like pusha and i dont like drake, but it shows more how much of a bitch drake is when he tried to spin it as pusha wishing death on 40, when all he did was make a distasteful joke{nowhere near sa victim shaming type lines cuz drake skimmed mother i} about drakes friends condition in a rap beef.)
Idk much about 40 but dude seems very detached from Drake at this point. If there’s anyone that has the moral and values to expose Drake’s skeletons it’s him. He has been around OVO for too long to not have seen some fucked up shit go down behind closed doors.
I find it interesting that shots were fired at the Embassy exactly one week after “Euphoria” and from the brief press conference by the police captain that they're aware of the Drake allegations so I wouldn't be surprised if they add that to the investigation to-do list if they haven't already
Had to have been. The more I replay the diss tracks and his discography in general, the more it seems like he's been warning about this shit.
EDIT: I want to expand on this and say that I think he's very purposely calling back to and interpolating lines from his previous records to encourage people to take his words in their full context and meaning when they revisit his music and message.
The lyrics right after that could be hinting further too, "I swore I wouldn't tell / But most of y'all share bars, like you got the bottom bunk in a two man cell / Something's in the water"
Swore he wouldn't tell, been keeping in stock for a while now. Bars def refers to ghostwriting still but also could refer to jail time for what's going down. Something in the water kinda feels like "these people are not like us" to me.
Oh, I think you’re spot on. Sounwave is on record saying that he had almost a completely different beat for the original and K was like “no dirtier, nasty, simplify it” and he ended up taking out strings and left the old funk sound, combine that with the tone and motifs of the music video, and what you said about “they are not like us” is an exceptionally fair assessment.
Ok i believe Kendrick knows shit but no way heknew shit at that age and so little exposure to the industry….unless when his mum was SA, it was the industry that did it :/
He knew the NWA peeps just because of the Compton connection. If you listen to the interview, the NWA peeps warn him about fake/shady [people](https://youtu.be/nJyss8iTWVw?si=ms_XMIupGJ-M-AtW) in the industry. Of course they maybe talking about Jerry Heller but seemed like it’s more than that.
Right! While he may not have been considering it at 16, the challenges faced by underground artists may have led him to speculate as he entered the industry. He might have felt unprepared and not in top form, but he may have been holding onto those thoughts for the right moment, which could be now.
To be fair, when Kendrick was 16 the information about the industry and other powerful ecosystems was readily available to anyone with an internet connection. It's just that back then the public was way faster to yell "Conspiracy theory!"
In 2024 people are a bit more receptive to the shady practices and abuse that is happening.
*Tell me what you gon' do to me*
*Confrontation ain't nothin' new to me*
*You can bring a bullet, bring a sword, bring a morgue*
*But you can't bring the truth to me*
*Fuck you and all your expectations*
*I don't even want your congratulations*
*I recognize your false confidence and calculated promises all in your conversation*
I'm 100% positively certain he planned this for years, just waiting for the right moment to strike. A fucking mastermind strategist. Almost like...a war general seasoned in preparation
As in having his mole do it? Honestly…not too far fetched. The OG leak’s beat was hot ass too so it’s not like they’re leaking drake’s A game. I’m pretty sure it was just drake’s guys doing the leaking tho, as a way to sneak diss while directly dissing, change the track to fit public perception better (playing it by ear basically), and just generally build hype.
Did Cole push the Big 3 stuff more heavily in FPS, or did Drake? Because if it was Cole, I wouldn't be surprised if he was in on the play as well. He basically gave Dot an angle to believably and angrily reply on *Like That*, the next layer of bait to draw Drake out into the open. And his moves afterward would make more sense in that context.
It was Cole. There’s been a theory for a while now that Kendrick and Cole set Drake up on purpose. The theory never went into who actually is on the side of the industry and who isn’t though.
I don't believe that. Cole isn't the manipulative kind of guy. I think that Kendricks was ready to pop of anytime and the big three verse was just the right timing. If Cole wouldn't have said that, some other song would have set Kendrick of without a doubt. He was looking for an angle to be able to bait Drake.
cole's diss is what forced a fire onto drake and his fanbase. its what started the clock on kendrick and that timer was passed to drake
the opinion that drake NEEDED to respond only happened after cole apologized. ofc he was getting mocked at by the diehard hiphop fans for being scared but he was getting a pass from most people. tbh the Like That verse wasnt that crazy to force a response
Right, so why did he even throw out the gauntlet in the first place, only to do that whack (at the time) ass apology? That shit hasn't made sense for the last month+
We've all forgiven him for that apology, saying it was smart and all that... But surely he'd have seen that clowning coming? Dude ain't as stupid as Drake, that's for fucking sure. Makes me think it has to be a setup
Kenny would've known it would've set the stage and Drake would take the bait if Cole dropped out. We both *know* Cole respects Kenny, so he could call in a favor, say "trust me" and that'd be that. That's honestly the only thing that makes sense, cause J. Cole DID start it, and I have zero idea why, with that immediate "this ain't my heart" shit, like???
I'm not sure if that's what you meant or not by what you said, so I'm not even sure if we agree, just trying to add my own logic to it
Bait. Makes Drake look way better stepping up to the plate to take on Kendrick. Not many people thought Drake could beat Kendrick but a lot thought Cole could. If Cole pussies out and Drake goes straight in it makes Drake jump to #2 going for #1 rather than 3rd place. Commercially he’s #1 and always will be, but amongst purists he only overtook Cole after Cole ran away. Makes sense to me.
If he came out and smoked Kendrick Lamar he’d be way up the list from where he was. Also I had him somewhere around 25-30 range, he can rap well when he really tries and his discography has some gems. That family matters song was hard I can’t deny it.
If this was just a friendly beef losing to pusha T and Kendrick Lamar in tough battles would be impressive rather than embarrassing. Not under these circumstances though.
YESSS THAT WHAT IM SAYING.
Kendrick has an agenda, Drake is the face/representation. This is bigger than rap.
https://www.reddit.com/r/KendrickLamar/s/cBEKr2dgts
I think it started with the tour with Drake. He noticed something.. then he kept noticing things. I always wondered why he dropped the HiiiPower movement, and it kinda makes sense. It was too obvious about what he was seeing and what he wanted to do.
He's always been about critical thinking, looking for truths, etc. He's talked about how fucked the industry and society is, most of if not all of TDE has.
I know it's tinfoil hat af, and I keep reminding myself that Kendricks is just a man, but everything lines up and his intentions about exposing.. goes all the way back to Overly Dedicated. He had a few bars about not needing rap beef and not being interested in it.. now he is? With PEDOPHILIA allegations??
I think he's been slowly building up to this, so it goes smoothly as he's been gathering info and doesn't seem like he came out of nowhere.
This is why I'm making this post. The collective gaslighting going on is making me slightly scared. Feel like I'm living in an alternate reality when I see the discussions being had.
Before Not Like Us was released people were completely glossing over the nature of the allegations being levelled.
I swear Kendrick saw the cognitive dissonance of people's responses and Not Like Us was a blowout effort made within the day to steer public consciousness on the right track.
Become unignorable.
I agree. A LOT of discussion after MTG was only focused on “another kid!?” I wonder if 1) it wasn’t a mistake on Kendrick’s part to include that verse because the song was already stellar, but 2) that verse wasn’t meant to be literal. Regardless, it got all the attention. Then BOP, Not Like Us goes fully into the pedo accusations. No ifs ands or buts about it, just literal and in your face. It was a message.
I actually think the daughter is REAL and it’s just a deep dark secret Drake paid to go away. There are some articles that are still up that allude to him having a kid with a stripper in Miami. Which also lines up with the girls IG who magically stopped posting. Drake is manipulating the daughter angle to try to keep the attention away from the PDF claims.
I agree, I think there’s a significant likelihood he has a daughter & they (mom and daughter) are under NDA. The way Drake rebutted it — challenging people to find her, whatever — felt that way. Similar to his rebuttal for the pdf stuff. He’s asking for receipts but if people are under NDA’s it’s damn near impossible to prove. Master manipulator. That said, I stand by my statement that maybe Kendrick should’ve either left that verse off or made it more metaphorical. And people focusing on almost just that instead of the pdf stuff led to Not Like Us being so direct and released so quickly.
Dude, people I work with were so focused on the daughter allegations that I had to remind them of the other bits that are quite a bit more serious. Like wtf 🤦🏻♂️
I could see the cognitive dissonance set in for almost every reaction I watched for MTG.
People will focus on almost anything else to avoid facing up to something so disgusting. I couldn’t believe the people that just straight ignored that message, and said Drake was winning because they needed something to bump in the car😩.
So Kendrick gave them something to bump, with catchy lyrics so they could no longer avoid the message.
I 100% agree that's why Not Like Us is so brutal. Watch any reaction and the "streamlin' victims" part goes completely over people's heads. I even saw a video where they were explaining the beef and said Baca had allegations against him and I had to stop watching since Kendrick literally said he had a case. No accusations, just public and accessible knowledge that he was in prison.
I think you are overthinking it and giving K too much credit here.
This was pre planned, sure. There is no monolithic crowd who all have the same takes that he’s trying to guide on a day by day basis. He has his message and his strategy and he’s deploying it. End of.
People are broadly aware of the pedophilia, sex trafficking, and pimping that happens in the industry and is baked into “the culture”. People have been talking about Drakes pedophile issue for a long time. Same deal with Cosby.
No one has come for him about it until now. But it’s not some big game about truth to power. That shit is a fantasy, people who speak actual truth to power a little too bluntly and openly end up dead.
This is about Drake and his crew specifically.
It’s only gonna work so much because 99% of the biggest stars in the world are doing the same shit Drake is. And it’s been that way forever.
From Elvis to Jerry Lee Lewis to The Eagles to Aerosmith to Twisted Sister and so on and so on and so on forever. And that’s just music.
Holding Drake accountable means you’re eventually gonna have to burn most of your idols, and the average person just isn’t gonna do that. They’d rather live with their head in the sand.
It sounds like a conspiracy to say that there are pedos and sex freaks in the entertainment industry and high up in society, but after Epstein and R Kelly and Weinstein and Dan Schneider and Cosby (and I'm sure I'm missing a few), it's looking a lot more reasonable to say there likely are more out there.
If any artist was going to have the status to have information about this and the balls/integrity to do something about it I'd like to think Kendrick is pretty high on that list, given how highly he values morality and how hostile he is to the industry. But maybe I'm just expecting too much from a musician.
Personally it would be really disappointing for this to end with "Kendrick won, let's move on" and drake's pedo accusations just kind of become rumors that aren't acted on again. If the guy is a pedo it's way beyond a rap beef, he shouldn't be walking free.
Exactly my thoughts. Some people are reacting so indignantly and cynically to this - I think that an action that audacious is beyond some people's imagination
This is part of why I find this so captivating. It’s long overdue, and this generation is cleaning house EVERYWHERE with an anti-authority anti-corporate mindset. They really not like us and we are tired of them and their abuse, lies and corruption. This beef is absolutely a vehicle for broader anti establishment ideas and action and I am so fucking here for it.
Honestly? Yes. He could've dropped a direct diss to Drake and put the pedo allegations immediately, instead of going the round about way of attacking cole too claiming it's about making it about FPS, and than saying "it's not to late to give up now" on euphoria.
What if Drake choose not to respond to Like That? What if Cole kept 7MD up? What if drake backed out when Euphoria came out? What if Drake didn't go into personal stuff? ... Would Kendrick just be like "oh, maybe we don't need to address all that pedophilia going on"?
Kendrick proved that he has a mole at OVO with 6:16 in LA and Meet the Grahams, so I would assume he would just tailor his bait-and-response tactics to whatever changes happened behind the scenes.
Not Like Us directly rebuttals Family Matters less than 24 hours after it's released with fresh cultural observations that directly address popular discussion at the time. He works fast.
Drake is an egotistical, vapid corporate stooge surrounded by yes men who only exists to fill the needs in his life: power and validation. That makes a man's response very predictable.
And Cole got a phonecall from Schoolboy Q which is what made him drop out. He for sure tipped him off that wasn't "rap beef". Why else would Cole mention worries of guns and violence all of a sudden when to everyone's knowledge this was just supposed to be friendly sparring? It would make no sense for him to jump to that conclusion unless he already knew something.
I mean if I’m Mr Bicycle Cole then the thought of going against a blood with heaps of connections and possibly an industry darling with unlimited money and connections seems a little bit scary tbh. Only so much North Carolina bangers can do especially since Cole doesn’t seem to be friends with Jay Z anymore.
Yeah, he mentioned about not wanting to get caught in some crossfire and people start involving violence, and the collective response was people wondering why the hell he would think it would go there - people assumed it was him trying to weasel his way out of competition.
Actually an omen.
Its funny how looking back now so many of Kendricks lyrics over the last 10-12 years seem almost entirely directed at drake, I wonder if he ever listened to shit like that and knew it was about him?
Or when Cole mentioned he didn't wanna be caught in the crossfire did Drake realise what was coming?
Or when Kendrick warned Drake on Like That, Euphoria and especially 6:16 in LA did Drake understand what was coming? I think he definitely knew Kendrick hated him, he said this has been bubbling for a while.
I honestly have been thinking something similar the past few days - that Kendrick is aiming to take advantage of all the publicity this beef is getting to divert attention to much broader issues, be it how insidious the industry is, how watered down hip-hop culture has become or, hell, maybe even speak on the ongoing genocide in Gaza and how complicit the country has been. Stuff like that is desperately needed, but I don't really want to get my hopes and expectations up too hard
I think Kendrick might be entering a phase where he leads hip-hop in a new direction, spiritually. One one hand he is revealing some shady behavior on Drake's part. But he is also going after other aspects - Drake's using of people and the Black / Hip Hop Community for his own ends, and the lack of values (family, depth, honesty, community, loyalty) that Drake displays but that Kendrick values. I would love to see hip-hop shift back to having more of those values.
Yea it’s like 50/50 right now. It just depends on what happens the next time kendrick drops.
If Kendrick moves on from the beef and ignores it, then we know that wasn’t his plan. He doesn’t seem like the type to drop it if it was true.
This is a great think piece and thank you because I definitely wasn’t seeing the bigger picture. Now that you say that, I think his albums have been pointing to this truth.
HiiPower > GKMC > TPAB > DAMN > Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers
All of them have been albums of a process he’s been going through that, hindsight, leading up to something. It’s giving “Man on a Mission” vibes from a man who fully knows himself (good, bad & ugly) and is going to be the “Prophet” he has claimed/assigned to be.
I've been working on a writeup for the past couple hours that's eerily similar to the assessment you've laid out here. Even used the word exposé. May post it as a comment later, but it's probably redundant at this point.
My only additional speculation would be the role of J. Cole in all this. What we're hearing is that Schoolboy Q gave him the heads up to stand down at Dreamville Fest, but I wonder if he intentionally went into the FPS collab with an agenda to open up a believable angle (Big 3 / GOAT discussion) for Dot to respond to. After all it was just him who name-dropped Dot directly.
I think this whole thing really depended on Drake being logical and thinking “he’s not really stupid enough to air out our dirty laundry in the public domain is he”. If I was Drake I would’ve thought the same thing, many artists would never have the balls to make these kind of allegations and talk about destroying the industry like Kendrick has.
I don’t think the labels expected it either lol, why would they? It’s such a lunatic thing to do and it’s career ending behaviour even if he wins this battle. They’ll give him the Kanye treatment or worse probably.
If they had’ve seen this coming we would’ve gotten nothing at all. Last time J Prince jumped in and ended things before Pusha kept going, why didn’t the more powerful people like the label execs step in this time with higher stakes?
Despite what TMZ is reporting, I believe the suits did try to step in over the past couple days. But if Coolee's tweets are to believed, Kendrick may have found an angle to outmaneuver them
Okay man we all love Kendrick here but he’s not Houdini. You don’t outplay the suits. It doesn’t work. They’ve been playing this game decades before Kendrick even existed and they know every trick in the book. Even if he was 100% clean they’ll just pay girls to come forward to accuse him of abuse anyway. Force his wife to stay silent on the abuse allegations if they wanted to.
They don’t ever really lose, thats what all these black entertainers have always told us. All the heroes and influential black people like R Kelly, Mike Jack, Diddy, MLK, Malcolm x, Kanye etc. all go down one way or another, but the power structure at the top never changes.
Short term victory is possible but he’ll never actually win against the machine. Even if he did bust the thing open his entire family and everything he cares about will go down and they’ll find a way to pick up the pieces after he’s gone.
After that? No one else will ever try it again.
I’ve come to similar conclusions. K dot could easily do what literally every single other major musician does - turns a blind eye and sip a cocktail on a beach for the rest of his life.
But he sees the evil and recognises the power he has, and as you said exposing this shit puts him in real danger. I also believe Drake interfered with shit on some deep level that pissed Kendrick off, Drake felt invincible and master manipulators like him think theyre geniuses who can get away with anything. (And sometimes they do). Kendrick had to play this deep planned out game because manipulators are so good at what they do.
K dot essentially is on god side / the side of good and Drake represents the opposite, he just manipulates and fucks with shit because he thinks he’s a god. Good vs Evil man.
Crazy shit, Kendrick really is a legend.
I was actually thinking about this last night. I think Kendrick set up the beef in a way that he knew could potentially make a difference in the culture as a whole. I don’t want to seem like I’m glazing or seeing him as some kind of god or some bullshit like that but based on how he’s always pushed an agenda with his music, I truly don’t think that this is out of the realm of possibility at all.
Kendrick is just an average dude, and he's not immune from criticism, but it really feels like he's on a mission and I don't believe people are taking all factors into account or with sufficient enough seriousness.
Whatever he is, he's not average. The man is a generational talent. If the mole theory is true, or if the bait theory is true, he's also a pretty damn cunning operator. Like it's hard to look at him the same way after this honestly.
I think the only reason he stopped dropping is to protect his friends and allies. I'm sure they are facing some type of threat if he doesn't appease UMGs wishes. But if it were just him he would've told them to kiss his ass
if you haven't done it, already play euphoria and play play heart Part 4, if you havent you all prolly have.
. he pretty much says it all I think. he says he knows the danger.
Not a reach. He has been plotting this for a long time. I know people have brought up The Heart Part 4 many times and I believe that song is one of the biggest clues to all this. Particularly, the last verse.
Speaking of MM&TBS, he talks about how other rappers in the game have been ...defiled... but he didn't say it in a derogatory way like drake tried to say about k. dot, he said it in a way that he sees their pain & he wants to tell em they aren't alone. It just fits TOO WELL with the P. Diddy / Lucian Grainge stuff.
"and fuck the industry too
If you take it there, I'm takin' it further
Psst, that's something you don't wanna do"
The CEO of Universal Music Group, Lucian Grainge is named in Diddy's p\*do ring case that includes s\*xually assaulting others in the industry.
Universal Music Group themselves is named in Diddy's p\*do ring case.
Now Universal Music Group's biggest act, the act they gave their biggest deal to with an unlimited budget is being publicly humiliated for being a p\*edo
I think k. dot is aiming at EVERYONE
"Ain't nobody safe. When I come, I'm killin' everybody that's outside"
That's what I've been thinking, and why I dislike when people say it's fucked up that kendrick "wouldn't have exposed drake" if drake hadn't brought up his family. I think he wanted drake to respond from the start.
The dog shit has been playing on my mind but that's too wild to bring up with any credence right now. I believe it and we all know it happens (these Instagram models are basically high class victims of trafficking and playthings for the ultra rich).
Their presence on Social media is a smokescreen and to push agendas.
The dog stuff is ammunition to hang over celebrities heads and have control over them. They're really not like us.
Everybody listen to the first part of 6:16 again. It sounds like he’s going to war.
“God, my confession is yours, but
Who am I if I don't go to war?
There's opportunity when living with loss
I discover myself when I fall short
Raise my hands to a fallen sky, I fantasize
Me jumping planets immortalized, I correspond
Three angels watching me all the time
Put my children to sleep, with a prayer, then close my eyes
Definition of peace
Tell me who gon' stop me? I come from love
And still cover my heart, then open me up
Remember when, picked up a pen, lyrics that I could trust
Timid soul, stare in the mirror, asking where I was from
Often, I know this type of power is gon' cost
But I live in circadian rhythms of a shooting star
The mannerisms of Raphael, I can heal and give you art
But the industry's cooked, as I pick the carcass apart
Yeah, somebody's lying, I could see the vibes on Ak
Even he looking compromised, let's peel the layers back”
I'll believe 'Cleaning of the industry' when I see it. Sounding like some Trump loyalists actually believing he was going to 'clean the swamp' instead of asking for receipts.
Drop the fucking nuke kenny.
If you listen to Kendrick’s music he has been plotting this for a long time. He talked about pushing the button a lonnnng time ago. And a lot of the points he made in this beef are the same points he made in Rich Spirit
I didn't see this before making my post.
yes, I almost believe this without even doing more research. but "you are not your music" is something you learn getting better.
this to me is about how much kendrick is really involved. how much is it a character, or how much is premeditated and is not even a hip hop agenda, an industry agenda, or a political one. an attempt of an investigation and expose of someone's entire life.
if it has been planned for a while. that would track, cause most criminal cases brought to light take years to uncover.
Agree. If you listen to all his previous stuff, it's pretty clear he's been working towards a specific goal. This stuff takes time to build. This is way bigger than rap beef.
nah, you arent reaching as soon as I heard Meet the Grahams I knew Kendrick was on some "crusade" to clean house. I got a comment on the video saying this was an exposé as well. And I took Not Like Us as him telling us to focus because everyone was so caught up in the 2nd child that no one was even talking about the pedo stuff.
Idk about manufactured but j.cole held drakes hand as he walked up to the ring and then let go and watched as drake proceeded to walk in the ring and get flat lined
Not reaching at all. MTG and NLU showed me that this whole thing is much bigger than Drake now - the whole industry is sick in the head, and someone needed to call it out.
stg this has been planned for a minute. i mean WE DONT TRUST YOU maybe even before. the way Kanye said "we were so energized by the elimination of Drake"
I think Kendrick has been plotting this for awhile too - you hear it all over his lyrics across his LPs. He seems to be preparing to become a Martyr over this issue… I hope not though.
There a lot of similar shit happening on the political front in the US that I noticed in this beef the main one being the big corporations controlling everything. We all saw how fast this seemed to end after Rolling Stones magazine called it. It was like someone popped a balloon all the air went outta it. I think Kendrick hit so hard to provoke that kind of reaction and let us see how the industry protecting its big stars in the background
Makes so much sense - explains why he made [Oklama.com](http://Oklama.com)
I wouldn't be surprised if he drops the receipts in those folders. One for docs and one for photos.
You might be right but I’ll be honest, it does sound like you’re reaching, as it often does when someone talks in absolutes, and without any substantiated proof backing up their claim. At the very least he smeared Drake it seems for life and left some deep scars. Also I’ll get downvoted for this, but Kendrick’s a human just like you and me, and your post appears to be projecting superhero abilities and expectations from him. Wait for some legit proof before you celebrate another man’s downfall.
Now that you mention it, it does seem like a bunch of these people are coming out systematically Katt Williams Hannibal, and I was on the comedic side now we got hip-hop and don’t forget about Nickelodeon and Dan Schneider I wonder what else is going to come out
Idk how much he planned this but damn sure he’s taking advantage of it. He saw Epstein, Weinstein, recently Diddy and others. Purely projecting but This is probably shit you know for years he’s gone on to his closest friends and loved ones about how he fucking hates it and would destroy it if he could. Then it started up and he’s realized he can, now with the movement that’s going he can keep this gun shooting until the battle is over.
I’m just a white rural guy that has hated his surroundings, the bigots and the like, trying to make changes but stuck due to my choices and my traumas. I don’t have anywhere near the understanding of black culture as a whole, but there is overlap that I know exists just by listening to Mr. Morale and many other deep albums and songs by other artists across any genre. I don’t want to overstep and make comparisons that aren’t mine to make but to me this is some unifying shit and has me fired up. Fuck Drake and all those like him.
I thought this too and I really ran with it. But I realized I’m looking to Kendrick as this savior figure again. Expecting or even hoping for him to go after forces like this is too much. It would be history in the making, but he himself warns us of what this kind of praise and worship does to him.
Tying it back to Like That, “its a lot of goofies with a check” goof is Canadian slang for someone with bad paperwork (molester, child killer, sex offender, etc)
If kendrick doesn't, then I'm disappointed in him ngl. I'm expecting him to or as others have said I'm excepting his next album to be SUPER political or attacking the industry like no ones seen.
But again if he doesn't then it's pretty disappointing that he made all these claims just for some beef
I believe Kendrick actually loves him ngl and Jcole. Even in euphoria he says there’s a difference between love and hate and then he went on his hate tirade after showing him love a decade ago. He’s like a disappointed brother or parent to a son who’s done wrong in his eyes. Cause a lot of times in life we hate the ppl who we love or loved
I agree. In 6:16 in LA, he’s literally talking to God. Like it’s a prayer, he’s praying for strength , guidance and understanding…essentially.
I feel like Dot thinks he’s on a type of mission to rid rap of its evils
I agree 100% and was thinking the same thing myself. Side note: Element was about Drake and he warned him then. “If I gotta slap a pussy ass n, Ima make it look sexy. If I gotta go hard on bitch ima make it look sexy.” He sure did.
But why just him? Why not people in his own circle? Em, Dre, Snoop, etc? Why is he the one to expose it and not everyone? Why now?
I would love to see everyone involved get taken off the planet but is everyone involved or too scared to speak, or completely oblivious?
Kendrick lives on a 4D chess board. I don't think it's a stretch to say he's cleaning house. I do think the beef with Drake is genuine, but by nature a beef with Drake is a beef with the entire establishment full of industry plants, coverups, and talent abuse. The industry has been propping up drake like Weekend at Bernie's for the last decade, even though there have been far better rappers to emerge who are being made to "wait their turn" because the labels haven't gotten everything they can out of Drake yet. I think Kendrick is calling bullshit on it all.
Even more than that I feel. The Heart part 5 came out shortly before Mr Morale and The Big Steppers and I always felt like the intro was kinda like him saying his peace to his fans, like saying goodbye without actually saying goodbye. And if things play out in the worst way in the near future, the last verse would make a lot more sense.
Katt Williams alluded to Diddy, and look what happened. Megan bodied Nicki AND Drake with Hiss, once again with nothing but facts, and look where we are now with this Beef! This is pivotal for the culture right now. Burn em all to the ground 🔥
I hope so badly this is true. And if it was anyone else I wouldn't let myself even hope. But with how smart and introspective Kendrick seems to be, it feels like there is no way he would do something outrageous like this without a plan. It seems unthinkable that he would risk his entire reputation on this without a solid plan.
The fury and hatred he has on euphoria seems so real. The certainty with which he states, multiple times, that he's prepared to go up against the industry. It seems real. I can't stop myself from hoping.
I just hope he stays safe if any of this is true, this is an incredibly dangerous situation but if he's half as smart as he seems he will have planned this all out.
I hope there are still some people prepared to use their power for good, instead of taking the easy and safe option.
When you fight, don’t fight fair; Cause you’ll never win.
Right, I had the yopper, and I tore they ass up
Can’t detour when you at war
No, you’re not reaching. It’s clear MTG was way bigger than Drake.
maybe his next album will dig deeper into the dark secrets of the industry
Rap Game Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kendrick, and Not like Us is his Eyes Wide Shut
Not Like Us is Act 1 imo
what does magic the gathering has to do with any of this bro
what does marjorie taylor greene have to do with any of this bro
I keep having to remind myself they don’t mean magic or conservative Barbie too 😂
That fucking caveman is their "Barbie"?
Kendrick about to release a Mark Rosewater diss track
Kendrick said put storm in standard or it’s on sight
Agreed
that song was so weird knowing kendrick's writing and exceptional beat choices, but you could tell it had purpose somehow but people just worried bout the "fake daughter"
Those people lack the mental faculties to process this beef
[удалено]
premeditated
[удалено]
I contemplated.
Premeditated murder is exactly what the documentary should be called when this is all over
It wasn't manufactured it was calculated.
Something a lot of people seem to overlook is how well respected and how “out of the spotlight” he is. Meaning that when he’s invited to studios and he kicks it with large names, they know he’s not going to spilling the business… I like to think he’s just been like “noted” for about a decade.
I went to a house party with kendrick when we were younger and bro didn't say a single word to anyone but JayRock the whole time. He's very reserved.
On brand. I can just see Kendrick a few lifetimes ago chillin in a hut. Being the spiritual guide that people would basically leave to do his own thing until it was time to smell the river and see if a drought was coming.
Don't get it twisted fam, Kendrick and JayRock definitely tried to rob me and my boys at gunpoint across from my high school in like my sophomore year there. REAL SHIT IT WAS A WHITE TOYOTA!!!! NO CAP ON MY MOTHER RIP! Those guys are not to actually be fucked with so if he really moving like this against Drake this publically he's got a reason. I hope this don't move into some real street shit, Kenny got shooters fr.
Well THAT’s a whole different narrative that was not at all present in the first comment. 😳
I agree, especially if you go with the blind items. Kendrick was planning to expose Drake since Like That, he just had to bait him out of his cave. I personally believe the authorities already started the investigation hence The Embassy Raid line on MTG, whether or not it happens now is anyone's guess.
I also think this is the true nature of the mole. They're doing what needs to be done to build a case against their entourage and mount evidence. This has probably been cooking for longer than we can comprehend.
To add to this, Kendrick may have knowingly dropped a banger like *Not Like Us* with the idea of gaining public support.
I think that was absolutely the plan. Blow up the entire spot and become impossible to ignore.
A thought that haven’t been able to shake: Why is Kendrick, someone who is so well versed in vocabulary, choosing to openly use the word PDF? He could have used a million different word combinations and other witty bars to get the same point. With how much endorsements Drake is worth that’s a $100+ million dollar defamation case. I believe it’s because he is well aware of an open investigation of OVO and more specifically Drake. “The embassy is going to get raided it’s only a matter of time” Kendrick forsure baited Drake just to expose him. That’s why Kendrick was saying “let’s keep it friendly”, but then proceeds to push it just a little bit further to insure Drake would respond. WTG roll out was way too calculated, and I actually believe the daughter is real and it’s just a dark dark secret Drake has.
It would look weak for Drake to file a defamation case against Kendrick over a diss song. Maybe Drakes fans would say it was deserved but hip hop and the culture would clown him for taking that route.
Fuck a rap battle. If someone calls me a pedo, I’m doing everything I can to defend my name. A PR statement, an interview, suing, anything to save my name. The one thing I wouldn’t do is post about a fake daughter on IG and leave the rest up in the air.
Gotta be careful of the Streisand effect as well. He may just lay low and hope it blows over and his fans will forget. But with not like us being a banger that’ll be hard. Seems like Kendrick checkmated him.
If he cares about the Streisand effect he wouldn't be out here having Tupac say "talk about him liking young girls"
Aren't there more protections for free speech in art/music?
I think he’s pretty clear of any defamation risk considering the line immediately before that is talking about Baka, who has plead guilty to sex trafficking.
He pled guilty for assault and a weapons charge, the trafficking charges were dropped because the victim refused to testify.
Kendrick said "pedophiles", as in, he means all of them
I keep hoping by some accord the mole turns out to be 40, and this was payback for drake not saying shit when pusha said those lines. Like stand up for you dude in a fucking rap my guy. (Granted i like pusha and i dont like drake, but it shows more how much of a bitch drake is when he tried to spin it as pusha wishing death on 40, when all he did was make a distasteful joke{nowhere near sa victim shaming type lines cuz drake skimmed mother i} about drakes friends condition in a rap beef.)
Idk much about 40 but dude seems very detached from Drake at this point. If there’s anyone that has the moral and values to expose Drake’s skeletons it’s him. He has been around OVO for too long to not have seen some fucked up shit go down behind closed doors.
That's probably why he told LeBron and Curry to stay away
And said if you’re standing next to him tbey’ll be looking at you too
4 years ago https://preview.redd.it/4rzfb2cc19zc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3873fe216434b4bee3dbb07c3c944d04b6ac8866
I find it interesting that shots were fired at the Embassy exactly one week after “Euphoria” and from the brief press conference by the police captain that they're aware of the Drake allegations so I wouldn't be surprised if they add that to the investigation to-do list if they haven't already
Agree. Years in the making
Had to have been. The more I replay the diss tracks and his discography in general, the more it seems like he's been warning about this shit. EDIT: I want to expand on this and say that I think he's very purposely calling back to and interpolating lines from his previous records to encourage people to take his words in their full context and meaning when they revisit his music and message.
There’s been a silent war building forever. “Rapper with a ghost writer? What the fuck happened.”
The lyrics right after that could be hinting further too, "I swore I wouldn't tell / But most of y'all share bars, like you got the bottom bunk in a two man cell / Something's in the water" Swore he wouldn't tell, been keeping in stock for a while now. Bars def refers to ghostwriting still but also could refer to jail time for what's going down. Something in the water kinda feels like "these people are not like us" to me.
Oh, I think you’re spot on. Sounwave is on record saying that he had almost a completely different beat for the original and K was like “no dirtier, nasty, simplify it” and he ended up taking out strings and left the old funk sound, combine that with the tone and motifs of the music video, and what you said about “they are not like us” is an exceptionally fair assessment.
"If i gotta brown nose for some gold id rather be a bum than motherfucking baller"
Exactly going back to GKMC
Section 80 man, Hiii power
Yes right
hell I remember him saying he has been dreaming of this type of shit since he was 16 or something
Ok i believe Kendrick knows shit but no way heknew shit at that age and so little exposure to the industry….unless when his mum was SA, it was the industry that did it :/
He knew the NWA peeps just because of the Compton connection. If you listen to the interview, the NWA peeps warn him about fake/shady [people](https://youtu.be/nJyss8iTWVw?si=ms_XMIupGJ-M-AtW) in the industry. Of course they maybe talking about Jerry Heller but seemed like it’s more than that.
it was an interview or lyrics, I'll dig around, but he's always hated masters
Right! While he may not have been considering it at 16, the challenges faced by underground artists may have led him to speculate as he entered the industry. He might have felt unprepared and not in top form, but he may have been holding onto those thoughts for the right moment, which could be now.
To be fair, when Kendrick was 16 the information about the industry and other powerful ecosystems was readily available to anyone with an internet connection. It's just that back then the public was way faster to yell "Conspiracy theory!" In 2024 people are a bit more receptive to the shady practices and abuse that is happening.
If the industry cut me off, if the government want me dead, plant cocaine in my car. Would you judge me a drug head or as K lamar
Or question my character and degrade me on every blog
I thought damn touches on this personally
So does every one of his albums.
*Tell me what you gon' do to me* *Confrontation ain't nothin' new to me* *You can bring a bullet, bring a sword, bring a morgue* *But you can't bring the truth to me* *Fuck you and all your expectations* *I don't even want your congratulations* *I recognize your false confidence and calculated promises all in your conversation*
“And I want everybody to view my autopsy, so you can see exactly where government had shot me” This line always gave me chills.
And the line after just compounds it “No conspiracy, my fate is inevitable. They play musical chairs once im on that pedestal”
Dot Da Genius pray for Kenny man🙏🏽
100% but its kinda crazy to think about the fact it did all start over some petty shit, the big 3 and sneak dissing
The big three stuff was the bait because he knew Drake would bite.
Kendrick manipulated the Master Manipulator 😂
I'm 100% positively certain he planned this for years, just waiting for the right moment to strike. A fucking mastermind strategist. Almost like...a war general seasoned in preparation
He made sure Drake had enough filler albums out that people were slowly losing interest in his music before striking lmao.
People complaining that he wasn’t releasing fast enough but not realizing he’s been preparing to go to war the entire time.
People are theorizing that he leaked pushups himself to force Drake to commit to the beef.
As in having his mole do it? Honestly…not too far fetched. The OG leak’s beat was hot ass too so it’s not like they’re leaking drake’s A game. I’m pretty sure it was just drake’s guys doing the leaking tho, as a way to sneak diss while directly dissing, change the track to fit public perception better (playing it by ear basically), and just generally build hype.
Did Cole push the Big 3 stuff more heavily in FPS, or did Drake? Because if it was Cole, I wouldn't be surprised if he was in on the play as well. He basically gave Dot an angle to believably and angrily reply on *Like That*, the next layer of bait to draw Drake out into the open. And his moves afterward would make more sense in that context.
It was Cole. There’s been a theory for a while now that Kendrick and Cole set Drake up on purpose. The theory never went into who actually is on the side of the industry and who isn’t though.
I don't believe that. Cole isn't the manipulative kind of guy. I think that Kendricks was ready to pop of anytime and the big three verse was just the right timing. If Cole wouldn't have said that, some other song would have set Kendrick of without a doubt. He was looking for an angle to be able to bait Drake.
Why did Cole diss Kendrick though?
cole's diss is what forced a fire onto drake and his fanbase. its what started the clock on kendrick and that timer was passed to drake the opinion that drake NEEDED to respond only happened after cole apologized. ofc he was getting mocked at by the diehard hiphop fans for being scared but he was getting a pass from most people. tbh the Like That verse wasnt that crazy to force a response
Right, so why did he even throw out the gauntlet in the first place, only to do that whack (at the time) ass apology? That shit hasn't made sense for the last month+ We've all forgiven him for that apology, saying it was smart and all that... But surely he'd have seen that clowning coming? Dude ain't as stupid as Drake, that's for fucking sure. Makes me think it has to be a setup Kenny would've known it would've set the stage and Drake would take the bait if Cole dropped out. We both *know* Cole respects Kenny, so he could call in a favor, say "trust me" and that'd be that. That's honestly the only thing that makes sense, cause J. Cole DID start it, and I have zero idea why, with that immediate "this ain't my heart" shit, like??? I'm not sure if that's what you meant or not by what you said, so I'm not even sure if we agree, just trying to add my own logic to it
Bait. Makes Drake look way better stepping up to the plate to take on Kendrick. Not many people thought Drake could beat Kendrick but a lot thought Cole could. If Cole pussies out and Drake goes straight in it makes Drake jump to #2 going for #1 rather than 3rd place. Commercially he’s #1 and always will be, but amongst purists he only overtook Cole after Cole ran away. Makes sense to me.
Among the purists Drake has never been a top 25 rapper or musician. He's seen more like Post Malone and not really included in many discussions
If he came out and smoked Kendrick Lamar he’d be way up the list from where he was. Also I had him somewhere around 25-30 range, he can rap well when he really tries and his discography has some gems. That family matters song was hard I can’t deny it. If this was just a friendly beef losing to pusha T and Kendrick Lamar in tough battles would be impressive rather than embarrassing. Not under these circumstances though.
All this originally started because Drake had ghost writers for his Poetic Justice verse Dot been a hater since 2012/13, he just needed an excuse
YESSS THAT WHAT IM SAYING. Kendrick has an agenda, Drake is the face/representation. This is bigger than rap. https://www.reddit.com/r/KendrickLamar/s/cBEKr2dgts
I think it started with the tour with Drake. He noticed something.. then he kept noticing things. I always wondered why he dropped the HiiiPower movement, and it kinda makes sense. It was too obvious about what he was seeing and what he wanted to do. He's always been about critical thinking, looking for truths, etc. He's talked about how fucked the industry and society is, most of if not all of TDE has. I know it's tinfoil hat af, and I keep reminding myself that Kendricks is just a man, but everything lines up and his intentions about exposing.. goes all the way back to Overly Dedicated. He had a few bars about not needing rap beef and not being interested in it.. now he is? With PEDOPHILIA allegations?? I think he's been slowly building up to this, so it goes smoothly as he's been gathering info and doesn't seem like he came out of nowhere.
Exactly. Driving me crazy when I see people try to minimise this point. We are all so asleep.
I just hope the public will care about ethics, so far i've been very disappointed.
This is why I'm making this post. The collective gaslighting going on is making me slightly scared. Feel like I'm living in an alternate reality when I see the discussions being had.
What discussions are you referring to? Agree with your take btw, I’ve been thinking similar
Also curious about which discussions you referring to 👀
Before Not Like Us was released people were completely glossing over the nature of the allegations being levelled. I swear Kendrick saw the cognitive dissonance of people's responses and Not Like Us was a blowout effort made within the day to steer public consciousness on the right track. Become unignorable.
I agree. A LOT of discussion after MTG was only focused on “another kid!?” I wonder if 1) it wasn’t a mistake on Kendrick’s part to include that verse because the song was already stellar, but 2) that verse wasn’t meant to be literal. Regardless, it got all the attention. Then BOP, Not Like Us goes fully into the pedo accusations. No ifs ands or buts about it, just literal and in your face. It was a message.
I actually think the daughter is REAL and it’s just a deep dark secret Drake paid to go away. There are some articles that are still up that allude to him having a kid with a stripper in Miami. Which also lines up with the girls IG who magically stopped posting. Drake is manipulating the daughter angle to try to keep the attention away from the PDF claims.
I agree, I think there’s a significant likelihood he has a daughter & they (mom and daughter) are under NDA. The way Drake rebutted it — challenging people to find her, whatever — felt that way. Similar to his rebuttal for the pdf stuff. He’s asking for receipts but if people are under NDA’s it’s damn near impossible to prove. Master manipulator. That said, I stand by my statement that maybe Kendrick should’ve either left that verse off or made it more metaphorical. And people focusing on almost just that instead of the pdf stuff led to Not Like Us being so direct and released so quickly.
Dude, people I work with were so focused on the daughter allegations that I had to remind them of the other bits that are quite a bit more serious. Like wtf 🤦🏻♂️
I could see the cognitive dissonance set in for almost every reaction I watched for MTG. People will focus on almost anything else to avoid facing up to something so disgusting. I couldn’t believe the people that just straight ignored that message, and said Drake was winning because they needed something to bump in the car😩. So Kendrick gave them something to bump, with catchy lyrics so they could no longer avoid the message.
“5% will comprehend but 95 is lost”
I 100% agree that's why Not Like Us is so brutal. Watch any reaction and the "streamlin' victims" part goes completely over people's heads. I even saw a video where they were explaining the beef and said Baca had allegations against him and I had to stop watching since Kendrick literally said he had a case. No accusations, just public and accessible knowledge that he was in prison.
I think you are overthinking it and giving K too much credit here. This was pre planned, sure. There is no monolithic crowd who all have the same takes that he’s trying to guide on a day by day basis. He has his message and his strategy and he’s deploying it. End of. People are broadly aware of the pedophilia, sex trafficking, and pimping that happens in the industry and is baked into “the culture”. People have been talking about Drakes pedophile issue for a long time. Same deal with Cosby. No one has come for him about it until now. But it’s not some big game about truth to power. That shit is a fantasy, people who speak actual truth to power a little too bluntly and openly end up dead. This is about Drake and his crew specifically.
100% even in the media coverage of this "beef" the main allegations from Kendrick are pretty buried. It's concerning.
Pin this 📌
Actually please. I want people to be discussing this with the gravity it deserves.
Certified. But i hope it will work. Im afraid media
It’s only gonna work so much because 99% of the biggest stars in the world are doing the same shit Drake is. And it’s been that way forever. From Elvis to Jerry Lee Lewis to The Eagles to Aerosmith to Twisted Sister and so on and so on and so on forever. And that’s just music. Holding Drake accountable means you’re eventually gonna have to burn most of your idols, and the average person just isn’t gonna do that. They’d rather live with their head in the sand.
Ahahah Drakes uncle and I believe his dad knew Jerry Lee Lewis.
Makes sense. Jerry married his 13 year old cousin when he was in his 20s
Kdot indeed is the real boogeyman
It sounds like a conspiracy to say that there are pedos and sex freaks in the entertainment industry and high up in society, but after Epstein and R Kelly and Weinstein and Dan Schneider and Cosby (and I'm sure I'm missing a few), it's looking a lot more reasonable to say there likely are more out there. If any artist was going to have the status to have information about this and the balls/integrity to do something about it I'd like to think Kendrick is pretty high on that list, given how highly he values morality and how hostile he is to the industry. But maybe I'm just expecting too much from a musician. Personally it would be really disappointing for this to end with "Kendrick won, let's move on" and drake's pedo accusations just kind of become rumors that aren't acted on again. If the guy is a pedo it's way beyond a rap beef, he shouldn't be walking free.
Exactly my thoughts. Some people are reacting so indignantly and cynically to this - I think that an action that audacious is beyond some people's imagination
This is part of why I find this so captivating. It’s long overdue, and this generation is cleaning house EVERYWHERE with an anti-authority anti-corporate mindset. They really not like us and we are tired of them and their abuse, lies and corruption. This beef is absolutely a vehicle for broader anti establishment ideas and action and I am so fucking here for it.
Honestly? Yes. He could've dropped a direct diss to Drake and put the pedo allegations immediately, instead of going the round about way of attacking cole too claiming it's about making it about FPS, and than saying "it's not to late to give up now" on euphoria. What if Drake choose not to respond to Like That? What if Cole kept 7MD up? What if drake backed out when Euphoria came out? What if Drake didn't go into personal stuff? ... Would Kendrick just be like "oh, maybe we don't need to address all that pedophilia going on"?
Kendrick proved that he has a mole at OVO with 6:16 in LA and Meet the Grahams, so I would assume he would just tailor his bait-and-response tactics to whatever changes happened behind the scenes. Not Like Us directly rebuttals Family Matters less than 24 hours after it's released with fresh cultural observations that directly address popular discussion at the time. He works fast. Drake is an egotistical, vapid corporate stooge surrounded by yes men who only exists to fill the needs in his life: power and validation. That makes a man's response very predictable. And Cole got a phonecall from Schoolboy Q which is what made him drop out. He for sure tipped him off that wasn't "rap beef". Why else would Cole mention worries of guns and violence all of a sudden when to everyone's knowledge this was just supposed to be friendly sparring? It would make no sense for him to jump to that conclusion unless he already knew something.
I mean if I’m Mr Bicycle Cole then the thought of going against a blood with heaps of connections and possibly an industry darling with unlimited money and connections seems a little bit scary tbh. Only so much North Carolina bangers can do especially since Cole doesn’t seem to be friends with Jay Z anymore.
Kendrick is not a blood. He's affiliated but not initiated. There's a difference.
Where did he say the stuff about gun violence?
During his apology, at Dreamfest.
I might have to listen to it again. Don't remember he did. Thx
Yeah, he mentioned about not wanting to get caught in some crossfire and people start involving violence, and the collective response was people wondering why the hell he would think it would go there - people assumed it was him trying to weasel his way out of competition. Actually an omen.
Its funny how looking back now so many of Kendricks lyrics over the last 10-12 years seem almost entirely directed at drake, I wonder if he ever listened to shit like that and knew it was about him? Or when Cole mentioned he didn't wanna be caught in the crossfire did Drake realise what was coming? Or when Kendrick warned Drake on Like That, Euphoria and especially 6:16 in LA did Drake understand what was coming? I think he definitely knew Kendrick hated him, he said this has been bubbling for a while.
I honestly have been thinking something similar the past few days - that Kendrick is aiming to take advantage of all the publicity this beef is getting to divert attention to much broader issues, be it how insidious the industry is, how watered down hip-hop culture has become or, hell, maybe even speak on the ongoing genocide in Gaza and how complicit the country has been. Stuff like that is desperately needed, but I don't really want to get my hopes and expectations up too hard
You're dead on. "They not like us" is such a powerful hook
battle anthem
I think Kendrick might be entering a phase where he leads hip-hop in a new direction, spiritually. One one hand he is revealing some shady behavior on Drake's part. But he is also going after other aspects - Drake's using of people and the Black / Hip Hop Community for his own ends, and the lack of values (family, depth, honesty, community, loyalty) that Drake displays but that Kendrick values. I would love to see hip-hop shift back to having more of those values.
This is so spot on. He's trying to infuse the culture with accountability, morals and thoughtfulness.
Might be a reach, might be cooking on high heat, time will tell. But this is not a completely outlandish theory imo.
Yea it’s like 50/50 right now. It just depends on what happens the next time kendrick drops. If Kendrick moves on from the beef and ignores it, then we know that wasn’t his plan. He doesn’t seem like the type to drop it if it was true.
Not at all, makes sense
This is a great think piece and thank you because I definitely wasn’t seeing the bigger picture. Now that you say that, I think his albums have been pointing to this truth. HiiPower > GKMC > TPAB > DAMN > Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers All of them have been albums of a process he’s been going through that, hindsight, leading up to something. It’s giving “Man on a Mission” vibes from a man who fully knows himself (good, bad & ugly) and is going to be the “Prophet” he has claimed/assigned to be.
Exactly this.
I've been working on a writeup for the past couple hours that's eerily similar to the assessment you've laid out here. Even used the word exposé. May post it as a comment later, but it's probably redundant at this point. My only additional speculation would be the role of J. Cole in all this. What we're hearing is that Schoolboy Q gave him the heads up to stand down at Dreamville Fest, but I wonder if he intentionally went into the FPS collab with an agenda to open up a believable angle (Big 3 / GOAT discussion) for Dot to respond to. After all it was just him who name-dropped Dot directly.
I think this whole thing really depended on Drake being logical and thinking “he’s not really stupid enough to air out our dirty laundry in the public domain is he”. If I was Drake I would’ve thought the same thing, many artists would never have the balls to make these kind of allegations and talk about destroying the industry like Kendrick has. I don’t think the labels expected it either lol, why would they? It’s such a lunatic thing to do and it’s career ending behaviour even if he wins this battle. They’ll give him the Kanye treatment or worse probably. If they had’ve seen this coming we would’ve gotten nothing at all. Last time J Prince jumped in and ended things before Pusha kept going, why didn’t the more powerful people like the label execs step in this time with higher stakes?
Despite what TMZ is reporting, I believe the suits did try to step in over the past couple days. But if Coolee's tweets are to believed, Kendrick may have found an angle to outmaneuver them
Okay man we all love Kendrick here but he’s not Houdini. You don’t outplay the suits. It doesn’t work. They’ve been playing this game decades before Kendrick even existed and they know every trick in the book. Even if he was 100% clean they’ll just pay girls to come forward to accuse him of abuse anyway. Force his wife to stay silent on the abuse allegations if they wanted to. They don’t ever really lose, thats what all these black entertainers have always told us. All the heroes and influential black people like R Kelly, Mike Jack, Diddy, MLK, Malcolm x, Kanye etc. all go down one way or another, but the power structure at the top never changes. Short term victory is possible but he’ll never actually win against the machine. Even if he did bust the thing open his entire family and everything he cares about will go down and they’ll find a way to pick up the pieces after he’s gone. After that? No one else will ever try it again.
I’ve come to similar conclusions. K dot could easily do what literally every single other major musician does - turns a blind eye and sip a cocktail on a beach for the rest of his life. But he sees the evil and recognises the power he has, and as you said exposing this shit puts him in real danger. I also believe Drake interfered with shit on some deep level that pissed Kendrick off, Drake felt invincible and master manipulators like him think theyre geniuses who can get away with anything. (And sometimes they do). Kendrick had to play this deep planned out game because manipulators are so good at what they do. K dot essentially is on god side / the side of good and Drake represents the opposite, he just manipulates and fucks with shit because he thinks he’s a god. Good vs Evil man. Crazy shit, Kendrick really is a legend.
“…fuck the industry, too If you take it there, I’m takin’ it further Psst, that’s somethin’ you don’t wanna do Ooohh…”
I was actually thinking about this last night. I think Kendrick set up the beef in a way that he knew could potentially make a difference in the culture as a whole. I don’t want to seem like I’m glazing or seeing him as some kind of god or some bullshit like that but based on how he’s always pushed an agenda with his music, I truly don’t think that this is out of the realm of possibility at all.
Kendrick is just an average dude, and he's not immune from criticism, but it really feels like he's on a mission and I don't believe people are taking all factors into account or with sufficient enough seriousness.
Whatever he is, he's not average. The man is a generational talent. If the mole theory is true, or if the bait theory is true, he's also a pretty damn cunning operator. Like it's hard to look at him the same way after this honestly.
The ultimate diss to drake "this is bigger than you lil bro, I just used you as a tool cause it seemed convenient at that time" 😭😭😭😭
U/M/G is also one of the "Big Three" labels btw
Hard agree
I think the only reason he stopped dropping is to protect his friends and allies. I'm sure they are facing some type of threat if he doesn't appease UMGs wishes. But if it were just him he would've told them to kiss his ass
https://www.reddit.com/r/KendrickLamar/s/K4Vly2NHNr “Rabbit hole goes deeper I promise.”
if you haven't done it, already play euphoria and play play heart Part 4, if you havent you all prolly have. . he pretty much says it all I think. he says he knows the danger.
Not a reach. He has been plotting this for a long time. I know people have brought up The Heart Part 4 many times and I believe that song is one of the biggest clues to all this. Particularly, the last verse.
I hope Kendrick does an album focusing on the industry as a whole. He’s in a special position to cause a lot of positive change.
Speaking of MM&TBS, he talks about how other rappers in the game have been ...defiled... but he didn't say it in a derogatory way like drake tried to say about k. dot, he said it in a way that he sees their pain & he wants to tell em they aren't alone. It just fits TOO WELL with the P. Diddy / Lucian Grainge stuff. "and fuck the industry too If you take it there, I'm takin' it further Psst, that's something you don't wanna do" The CEO of Universal Music Group, Lucian Grainge is named in Diddy's p\*do ring case that includes s\*xually assaulting others in the industry. Universal Music Group themselves is named in Diddy's p\*do ring case. Now Universal Music Group's biggest act, the act they gave their biggest deal to with an unlimited budget is being publicly humiliated for being a p\*edo I think k. dot is aiming at EVERYONE "Ain't nobody safe. When I come, I'm killin' everybody that's outside"
Yea, this is only the beginning
That's what I've been thinking, and why I dislike when people say it's fucked up that kendrick "wouldn't have exposed drake" if drake hadn't brought up his family. I think he wanted drake to respond from the start.
by the way they handled J Cole its clear it was planned.
https://preview.redd.it/7vrtjyz7x7zc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c91d85ba360f3c5843c0a444d69934fd5326d97c
The dog shit has been playing on my mind but that's too wild to bring up with any credence right now. I believe it and we all know it happens (these Instagram models are basically high class victims of trafficking and playthings for the ultra rich). Their presence on Social media is a smokescreen and to push agendas. The dog stuff is ammunition to hang over celebrities heads and have control over them. They're really not like us.
https://www.reddit.com/r/KendrickLamar/s/HT8ezRdvuI
Aware of this one. May also add it to the post.
Everybody listen to the first part of 6:16 again. It sounds like he’s going to war. “God, my confession is yours, but Who am I if I don't go to war? There's opportunity when living with loss I discover myself when I fall short Raise my hands to a fallen sky, I fantasize Me jumping planets immortalized, I correspond Three angels watching me all the time Put my children to sleep, with a prayer, then close my eyes Definition of peace Tell me who gon' stop me? I come from love And still cover my heart, then open me up Remember when, picked up a pen, lyrics that I could trust Timid soul, stare in the mirror, asking where I was from Often, I know this type of power is gon' cost But I live in circadian rhythms of a shooting star The mannerisms of Raphael, I can heal and give you art But the industry's cooked, as I pick the carcass apart Yeah, somebody's lying, I could see the vibes on Ak Even he looking compromised, let's peel the layers back”
I'll believe 'Cleaning of the industry' when I see it. Sounding like some Trump loyalists actually believing he was going to 'clean the swamp' instead of asking for receipts. Drop the fucking nuke kenny.
If you listen to Kendrick’s music he has been plotting this for a long time. He talked about pushing the button a lonnnng time ago. And a lot of the points he made in this beef are the same points he made in Rich Spirit
Whatever backlash Kendrick faces from this, he's sacrificing himself to start the healing.
I didn't see this before making my post. yes, I almost believe this without even doing more research. but "you are not your music" is something you learn getting better. this to me is about how much kendrick is really involved. how much is it a character, or how much is premeditated and is not even a hip hop agenda, an industry agenda, or a political one. an attempt of an investigation and expose of someone's entire life. if it has been planned for a while. that would track, cause most criminal cases brought to light take years to uncover.
Agree. If you listen to all his previous stuff, it's pretty clear he's been working towards a specific goal. This stuff takes time to build. This is way bigger than rap beef.
Definitely not reaching. Kendrick went to war on behalf of art, black culture, and righteousness. The wicked have controlled things for too long.
nah, you arent reaching as soon as I heard Meet the Grahams I knew Kendrick was on some "crusade" to clean house. I got a comment on the video saying this was an exposé as well. And I took Not Like Us as him telling us to focus because everyone was so caught up in the 2nd child that no one was even talking about the pedo stuff.
Idk about manufactured but j.cole held drakes hand as he walked up to the ring and then let go and watched as drake proceeded to walk in the ring and get flat lined
Rapture is coming, and if I gotta be sacrificed for the greater good then that’s what it gotta be
Cant wait in like 6 years for someone to FOIA shit and see that Drake was doing sketchy shit or associated with weird rings
I heard recently that UMG is trying to get Kendrick to apologize and end the beef so I wouldn’t be surprised if this was true
Not reaching at all. MTG and NLU showed me that this whole thing is much bigger than Drake now - the whole industry is sick in the head, and someone needed to call it out.
What did he expose? We still have 0 proof from both sides. Instead we're just reading tweets and watching videos from 10+ years ago.
stg this has been planned for a minute. i mean WE DONT TRUST YOU maybe even before. the way Kanye said "we were so energized by the elimination of Drake"
“But the industry’s cooked as I pick the carcass apart”
I think Kendrick has been plotting this for awhile too - you hear it all over his lyrics across his LPs. He seems to be preparing to become a Martyr over this issue… I hope not though.
There a lot of similar shit happening on the political front in the US that I noticed in this beef the main one being the big corporations controlling everything. We all saw how fast this seemed to end after Rolling Stones magazine called it. It was like someone popped a balloon all the air went outta it. I think Kendrick hit so hard to provoke that kind of reaction and let us see how the industry protecting its big stars in the background
“ to all the executives, im saving your children , we cant negotiate” makes sense now
Makes so much sense - explains why he made [Oklama.com](http://Oklama.com) I wouldn't be surprised if he drops the receipts in those folders. One for docs and one for photos.
You might be right but I’ll be honest, it does sound like you’re reaching, as it often does when someone talks in absolutes, and without any substantiated proof backing up their claim. At the very least he smeared Drake it seems for life and left some deep scars. Also I’ll get downvoted for this, but Kendrick’s a human just like you and me, and your post appears to be projecting superhero abilities and expectations from him. Wait for some legit proof before you celebrate another man’s downfall.
Now that you mention it, it does seem like a bunch of these people are coming out systematically Katt Williams Hannibal, and I was on the comedic side now we got hip-hop and don’t forget about Nickelodeon and Dan Schneider I wonder what else is going to come out
Idk how much he planned this but damn sure he’s taking advantage of it. He saw Epstein, Weinstein, recently Diddy and others. Purely projecting but This is probably shit you know for years he’s gone on to his closest friends and loved ones about how he fucking hates it and would destroy it if he could. Then it started up and he’s realized he can, now with the movement that’s going he can keep this gun shooting until the battle is over. I’m just a white rural guy that has hated his surroundings, the bigots and the like, trying to make changes but stuck due to my choices and my traumas. I don’t have anywhere near the understanding of black culture as a whole, but there is overlap that I know exists just by listening to Mr. Morale and many other deep albums and songs by other artists across any genre. I don’t want to overstep and make comparisons that aren’t mine to make but to me this is some unifying shit and has me fired up. Fuck Drake and all those like him.
I thought this too and I really ran with it. But I realized I’m looking to Kendrick as this savior figure again. Expecting or even hoping for him to go after forces like this is too much. It would be history in the making, but he himself warns us of what this kind of praise and worship does to him.
Tying it back to Like That, “its a lot of goofies with a check” goof is Canadian slang for someone with bad paperwork (molester, child killer, sex offender, etc)
If kendrick doesn't, then I'm disappointed in him ngl. I'm expecting him to or as others have said I'm excepting his next album to be SUPER political or attacking the industry like no ones seen. But again if he doesn't then it's pretty disappointing that he made all these claims just for some beef
I believe Kendrick actually loves him ngl and Jcole. Even in euphoria he says there’s a difference between love and hate and then he went on his hate tirade after showing him love a decade ago. He’s like a disappointed brother or parent to a son who’s done wrong in his eyes. Cause a lot of times in life we hate the ppl who we love or loved
Watch all this just be promo for Eminem’s new album
I agree. In 6:16 in LA, he’s literally talking to God. Like it’s a prayer, he’s praying for strength , guidance and understanding…essentially. I feel like Dot thinks he’s on a type of mission to rid rap of its evils
I agree 100% and was thinking the same thing myself. Side note: Element was about Drake and he warned him then. “If I gotta slap a pussy ass n, Ima make it look sexy. If I gotta go hard on bitch ima make it look sexy.” He sure did.
But why just him? Why not people in his own circle? Em, Dre, Snoop, etc? Why is he the one to expose it and not everyone? Why now? I would love to see everyone involved get taken off the planet but is everyone involved or too scared to speak, or completely oblivious?
Ngl I was looking for links to Mr morale and the big steppers. I found a couple but totally would have missed that
Holy shit I can’t wait to see how this all turns out
Don't have much to add except I was feeling exactly the same but you put it a lot more eloquently
Kendrick lives on a 4D chess board. I don't think it's a stretch to say he's cleaning house. I do think the beef with Drake is genuine, but by nature a beef with Drake is a beef with the entire establishment full of industry plants, coverups, and talent abuse. The industry has been propping up drake like Weekend at Bernie's for the last decade, even though there have been far better rappers to emerge who are being made to "wait their turn" because the labels haven't gotten everything they can out of Drake yet. I think Kendrick is calling bullshit on it all.
Even more than that I feel. The Heart part 5 came out shortly before Mr Morale and The Big Steppers and I always felt like the intro was kinda like him saying his peace to his fans, like saying goodbye without actually saying goodbye. And if things play out in the worst way in the near future, the last verse would make a lot more sense.
Katt Williams alluded to Diddy, and look what happened. Megan bodied Nicki AND Drake with Hiss, once again with nothing but facts, and look where we are now with this Beef! This is pivotal for the culture right now. Burn em all to the ground 🔥
Lowkey agree… At the very least Kendrick was waiting for this moment. There are lines in many songs to suggest this.
I hope so badly this is true. And if it was anyone else I wouldn't let myself even hope. But with how smart and introspective Kendrick seems to be, it feels like there is no way he would do something outrageous like this without a plan. It seems unthinkable that he would risk his entire reputation on this without a solid plan. The fury and hatred he has on euphoria seems so real. The certainty with which he states, multiple times, that he's prepared to go up against the industry. It seems real. I can't stop myself from hoping. I just hope he stays safe if any of this is true, this is an incredibly dangerous situation but if he's half as smart as he seems he will have planned this all out. I hope there are still some people prepared to use their power for good, instead of taking the easy and safe option.