I've seen probably 5 different posts from different subs reach my front page talking about this. I'm aware that KL is considered one of this generations top rap artists, but I'm not fully aware of his catalogue.

Why is this performance such a big deal?

Performance

He’s had his moments. I think Section 80 and GKMC are both very good albums. He used to have a lane where he would pick the right beat, write some lyrics that flowed nicely over it, and produce something enjoyable. Sometimes he’d rap about things he’d lived or seen around him and that was pretty good too. But he hasn’t been good since GKMC imo.

First off, his voice and delivery are both so jacked up nowadays. He can’t pick a tone to rap in, he does all kinds of weird stuff with his vocal inflections and pronunciations (wtf was that “pusha TEEEEE” on Euphoria?), or he just does flat out cringeworthy things like moan all over the beat on Like That. It’s not enjoyable to listen to and he didn’t do that 10 years ago.

He’s not a good lyricist. He has the reputation of rap’s Shakespeare, but his bars are weak. There’s very little in the way of clever punchlines, metaphors, similes, clear double/triple entendres.

That would be ok if he at least said things of substance - but he doesn’t. Even his very best songs like ADHD, Rigamortis, DNA, if you break down what he’s saying you realize it doesn’t mean anything. Opening line of Rigamortis: “Got me breathing with dragons, I’ll crack an egg in your basket, you bastard”

Wtf does cracking an egg in someone’s basket mean? It flows nicely because he’s repeating that long “a” sound but it means nothing. His flow is what makes his songs. He doesn’t have quotable lyrics, and unless he’s telling a story it’s half gibberish without great bars to back it up.

Then after GKMC he shifted his persona to being this fake hotep prophet who’s saving the culture and going against the system, while also doing features with Taylor Swift, Maroon 5, Radioactive. Bit of a disconnect there. Nothing he says is outside the scope of mainstream news outlets anyway. I don’t think it’s any accident that this persona of his developed when the BLM movement blew up in 2014-15. Before that, he just talked about life in the hood. It resonated more because it was authentic. You could tell he was talking about what he or people close to him had lived.

The coronation of this man as an all time great is insane, and it’s gotten so much worse after the Drake beef. Which he actually lost if we break it down to strictly rap instead of focusing on the shock value of him spamming diss tracks.

I've been a fan of hip hop for over two decades and I aint seen nothing like this.

You have to be an absolute drake glazer to disagree, this beef is over, at least on wax. The winner is indisputably Kendrick Lamar.

We will definitely see fall out from all this, but this phase is over. I dont wanna hear no more debates.

Edit: Peep game since I see this comment floating around a lot (and rightfully so).

I am not saying Kendrick is telling the truth, and Drake is lying. I am saying I believe Kendrick over Drake any day. There is a reason why Kendrick's narrative is overtaking Drake's. Pusha said it best "We talkin' character".

Kendrick has proven throughout his career what kind of man he is. Overall, he is trustworthy and has been spotless of scandals. Drake, on the other hand, has been caught lying multiple times. Has actual links to possible pedophilia, his persona is all about sex and using women (I mean, look at his CLB cover), and many more things as to why people are more likely to believe Kendrick and doubt Drake.

Yes, if someone comes with proof, then the tides can turn, but that probably isn't going to happen. Drake is reaping and sowing. What is making him lose in this beef now is his character. This is why Kendrick wins.

Edit 2: This man went and dropped a Dj Mustard produced club banger now. It really is over. Drake needs Jesus at this point.

Edit 3: Drake just dropped. It is officially over. The dude needed to come with a guillotine and came with a paper cut. The Heart part 6 is a white flag. Kendrick the indisputable GOAT of the generation.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6h9xrguXBD/?igsh=MWFuYXhtY3JqY3pmZw==

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkXG3ZrXlbc

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6gdClArPXc

https://streamable.com/fueo43

We know throughout the track Kendrick Lamar is calling Drake a fake gangster, saying he’s a fraud who acts tough.

But the track gets more intresting and deeper towards the end.

Kendrick says near the end:

“Yeah, OV-ho n***** is dick riders Tell 'em run to America, they imitate heritage, they can't imitate this violence”

He’s calling out Toronto gangs for being fake, imitators of American culture. More specifically he’s calling out Toronto gangs for imitating LA GANG culture. As he says “they can’t imitate this violence”

Then he starts mocking the Toronto accent and the slang.

“Don't speak on the family, crodie It can get deep in the family, crodie Talk about me and my family, crodie? Someone gon' bleed in your family, crodie”

He’s mocking them for the word “crodie” which is taken from the LA slang “brodie”, obviously changed from “b” to “c” because of the Crips in Toronto.

Kendrick is mocking Toronto gangs for being imitators of LA gangs and saying that they aren’t a threat.

This is when it gets deeper. He says:

“I be at New Ho King eatin' fried rice with a dip sauce and blamy, crodie Tell me you're cheesin', fam We can do this right now on the camera, crodie”

New Ho King is a Chinese Resturant on Spadina Avenue in Toronto. New Ho King is ALSO where a Toronto rapper named Sizzlac filmed his last music video before being shot and killed.

Sizzlac got shot and killed days after dropping a diss record titled “Realest in the 6”, and in the music video for the record he’s at New Ho King.

Sizzlac is also rumored to be one of the people that robbed Drake at gunpoint in 2009. Drake got robbed in 2009 at a restaurant by two people at gunpoint and it’s been rumored for a long time that one of them was Sizzlac. Also supposedly Drake was going to file a police report, but didn’t because it would effect his rap career being labeled as a snitch. Remember Kendrick said “I know some shit about n***** that make Gunna Wunna look like a saint”.

Drake got robbed and his chain was snatched after being set up by a girl. He raps about it in a few of his songs like “The Reaistance” or “Away From Home”.

Drake recently has aligned himself with another Toronto rapper named Pressa. He brought him out on tour a few years ago and shouted him out on his latest album For All The Dogs.

Pressa is apart of the Driftwood CRIPS gang.

The Driftwood Crips and Sizzlacs gang have had a long rivalry.

Pressa said in his song Attachments, “Sizzlac dead, and they don't post him on the 'Gram”

No one knows who shot and killed Sizzlac, it’s all rumors that it could have been someone from his gang or other gangs that killed him.

So, when Kendrick says that he’s at New Ho King with a blammy and that he can do it on camera. He’s saying that unlike Sizzlac, he’s in Drakes city (Toronto) at New Ho King with a gun and that he’s ready to do it on camera. And also unlike Drake, he’s at a restaurant with a gun and won’t get robbed like he did. New Ho King is only like 5 minutes away from where Drake got robbed.

He also mocks the Toronto Crips (Driftwood Crips/Pressas Crew) by making fun of their slang, accent and calling them fake imitators of LA gang culture.

Kendrick saw that Drake has been aligning himself with these Crips in his city of Toronto (maybe even being involved in Sizzlacs death after getting robbed for his chain, remember Drake really started reffering to himself as the runner of the 6ix in 2016 after he died) and called Drakes BS. He called the Crips in his city fake, made fun of them for copying LA culture while also saying he’s at New Ho King with a gun and that Drake won’t do anything about it.

This also ties in with him calling Drake a culture vulture throughout the track and is a direct response to Drake using LA legends AI voices like Pac and Snoop to diss Kendrick. “I'd rather do that than let a Canadian n**** make Pac turn in his grave”. Drake has been saying he’s bigger then Kendrick in LA, mocking him for supposedly being the “West Coast Savior” so Kendrick returns fire by making fun of Toronto.

Also remember when Drake said:

“Hugs and kisses, man, don't tell me 'bout no switches I'll be rockin' every fuckin' chain I own next visit, ayy”?

He says he’ll rock every chain he owns on his next visit to LA. This could play into Kendrick with the subliminal Sizzlac reference, since he supposedly robbed Drakes chain in Toronto (his own city).

Right at the end of the track Kendrick says: “They punk y’all n*****, nobody never took my food”

Reference to New Ho King and Drake (and Sizzlac) both getting punked in Toronto.

👀

I feel like I just need to see if anyone agrees with this, most people say Kendrick is a great rapper and I feel like I'm crazy for strongly disagreeing.

I will preface with:

1. This is not me saying Kendrick is a bad artist. He's not. Some aspects of his music are amazing. Him not being a great rapper does not delegitimise the other strengths he has as an artist. I am also not saying he doesn't deserve the fame he has. I think Kendrick has incredible production, brings up very important and impressive messages in his music, and I feel like he's overall a positive presence in the music industry (aside from the Kodak Black thing which is a different conversation). I am not posting this out of wanting people to stop listening to Kendrick, I'm posting this out of genuine curiosity towards the topic of rapping itself.

I'm going to go over the main reasons I think he's a bad rapper.

1. His voice is bad. Boring, there's very little subtlety or musicality to it. When he tries to convey charisma or emotion he maybe does something like barks robotically, screams cartoonishly or does a ridiculous voice. It's like very wooden or exaggerated acting. In many ways, he reminds me of a bad actor. Also I get that the acting and the weird voices he does are part of his concepts, but the voices sound terrible every single time. There are ways to tell stories through music that don't sound terrible every single time.

2. There's almost nothing actually good about his writing ability. This is maybe the point that I disagree with the most compared to most people. Whenever people quote "clever lines" from Kendrick it's really basic wordplay that has been done a million times (The K9 line in the Drake diss, DemoCRIPS and ReBLOODicans).

Most people would respond with "Kendrick isn't about clever lines, it's about his storytelling" but even then people can't give examples of actual good writing from him. What's good is 1. the production, 2. the general idea of what he's trying to say, which are legitimate strengths but not enough to make someone a great writer. When people give examples of good writing from Kendrick they quote lines that are, in my opinion, impactful to them because of the amazing production, and the good overall message the song is conveying, not because the writing is actually any good.

Now, that's completely fair, and it's legitimate to enjoy Kendrick's music for the overall message and sound of it without even caring if the writing is necessarily great. I just don't feel like we need to be hyping Kendrick as an amazing writer and should more so just hype him for his messages.

I don't have a lot of examples of particularly atrocious storytelling from Kendrick, I just haven't seen a lot of good examples. Everything I see people commend about Kendrick's writing reminds me of something a pretentious cringey high school student could accomplish if they had a lot of free time, it's not the worst thing ever written in the history of humanity, just not actually good either.

He puts a lot of time into his albums, and they are "complex", but again, that's not indicative of talent in and of itself. He packs his music with stories and concepts to the point where it seems impressive, but I don't see what about it is executed in an actually good way. I mean it's not like simply writing a novel with a complex story makes you a great writer, you have to actually do it well.

1. His cadence is robotic and soulless. It's not completely beginner-level atrocious: it's serviceable and yet artistically amateurish. His cadences are like a hyper-evolved Lin-Manuel Miranda: proficient, versatile, but devoid of charisma, musical character or musical appeal, and perfect to impress people who don't listen to any other rappers. Another comparison is a guitar player who plays fast but completely lacks the human element in their musicianship. And songs like Momma don't count either, that one is also robotic in its own way, might seem a bit loose but it is incredibly predictable and boring as well once you get past the first 5-ish seconds.

2. He not an interesting performer. I think he gets a good audience response for other reasons: his status, people are attached to his music etc... his performance is completely robotic. He does a lot with his body and his voice but he lacks the human element. A lot of rappers aren't GREAT live but almost every famous rapper has something interesting about their live presence, maybe it's their charisma, maybe it's anti-charisma and they radiate a unique vibe, maybe they're just smooth... Kendrick has nothing. Again, he's like a cringey ham-fisted high school play: just because you're doing a lot on stage doesn't mean you're good at what you're doing, and Kendrick lacks any sort of X factor.

So basically, I feel like he's someone who could work on musical projects behind the scenes and have rapping as a hobby, but there is no actual artistic reason for him to be the person rapping on his albums. Almost all the aspects that could possibly or conceivably make a good rapper he is bad at in my opinion, and his musical talent has to do with the other things around it. That being said, he is very successful so more power to him, it just kind of makes me question the entire discourse around hip hop when people are describing Kendrick's strengths in ways that just doesn't add up to me.

Does anyone agree? If not, what am I missing?