A Guide to Children’s Culture for Out-of-Touch Adults: Drake Vs. Kendrick Lamar
I believe in cooperation and win-win solutions, but conflict is also a part of life, so this week I’m looking at conflict in four forms: rapper vs. rapper, man vs. machine, college student vs. college student. and cat against cat. So read on if you want to know why Kendrick hates Drake, how to tell a bot from a human, and are curious about the meanest cat on the internet.
Kendrick Lamar and Drake Feud Explained
You’d have to be pretty out of touch not to at least hear about the ongoing war between rappers Drake and Kendrick Lamar, but if you want to know what it’s really about, what made two of the biggest rappers in the game open up? lyrical warfare and why it matters, I’ll try to explain it all, god help me. Get settled; This is a deep dive.
The beef between Drake and Kendrick has been simmering beneath the surface for over a decade now, so there’s a deep rabbit hole of side feuds, tweets, interview quotes, mixtape verses, and tons of gossip and speculation to get lost in. write a book about it and I’m sure people will, but on the broadest level the discord began as a style war: Drake the more commercial, pop rapper; Lamar is a more energetic and “conscious” rapper. Think of it as Michael Jackson vs. Prince, a comparison Lamar references in the song ” Like That ,” which ignited the feud in March. On Lamar, Future and Metro’s track Booming, Lamar raps, “Your best work is light packaging and Prince outlived Mick Jack,” as well as a number of other diss tracks.
Perhaps it started with the question “who is the most authentic?” controversy over style, but Kendrick and Drake’s fight quickly escalated into a war of words that rivals the ferocity of Biggie vs. Pac or the time mainstream nerd rappers took on Alex Trebek . Both Drake and Lamar cross the line by directing lyrics at their rivals’ families, and Kendrick goes even further.
Drake responded to “Like That” with ” Push Ups ” a few weeks later. After directing a few lines at Future and brushing aside Metro Booming, mentioning him only to say that he should “shut up and drum,” Drake moves on to the main course, criticizing Lamar’s collaborations with Taylor Swift and Maroon 5 , his height, his size shoes, mixed reactions to Lamar’s album Mr. Morale & The Big Stepper and a whole host of other rap insults, including that Lamar can’t respond because Taylor Swift’s album is coming out. Speaking of Swift, Drake also released “Taylor Made Freestyle,” which uses AI-generated verses from Tupac and Snoop Dogg to diss Lamar, but it was quickly shut down after legal threats from Tupac.
Lamar’s response ” Euphoria ” is a definite escalation. It’s a furious six-minute rant that mentions Drake’s fatherlessness and ends with the ominous warning: “If you keep going like this, I’ll move on. Psst, that’s something you don’t want to do. Lamar then released “6:16 in LA,” a more impressionistic take on the diss track genre that gives a general idea of Drake as an out-of-touch ghost wandering a sparkling empty mansion, unable to sleep and surrounded by his friends who are not loyal to him.
Drake responded with ” Family Matters “, where he suggests that one of Lamar’s children was actually the father of Dave Free, Lamar’s manager, and accuses him of abuse and infidelity towards his wife.
Lamar’s ” Meet the Grahams ” is aimed at Drake’s children. It begins with a line about Drake’s son: “Dear Adonis, I’m sorry that man is your father,” and goes on to accuse Drake of having multiple illegitimate children, using sex offenders, paying for sex, and having a secret daughter.
In the spirit of two-for-one diss tracks, Lamar also released Not Like Us, a track that almost directly accuses Drake of child molestation. Including this classic line: “Why are you trolling like a bitch? Are you tired? I’m trying to find a chord and it’s probably A minor.”
The final shot in the war at the time of publication was ” Heart, Part 6 ” by Drake. In it, Drake says his supposed secret daughter is a fake: “We plotted for a week and then fed you the information. My daughter is 11 years old, I’m sure he will accept her. We thought about giving a false name or destination/ But you’re so thirsty that you’re not interested in the investigation.” And he goes on to say that he has never been underage with anyone and seems to almost downplay the feud as something that doesn’t really bother him at all.
And this is exactly how things stand as of May 6th.
As for who wins, it’s a personal matter, but Kendrick wins. Drake has been outclassed from the start and his latest track is just weird. It’s like someone losing an argument on the Internet. He mostly appears defensive and then tries to fight back like he doesn’t care, and the idea that he set Lamar up with fake information is an interesting tactic; even if it did happen, I’m not sure “you’re not fully fact-checking” is an effective dissertation in 2024. Overall, it feels like Drake is trying to wave the white flag without losing face, so this might be the end of the beef. But I guess we’ll see.
“Human or Not” Takes Over the Internet
From rapper vs rapper to man vs machine. A new website called Human or Not is bringing the Turing Test to the masses. The online game/chat program allows you to chat with a faceless stranger for a couple of minutes and then guess whether he is a person or a bot. The original Turing test called for a five-minute conversation, but if you’re good at AI, you’ll only need two. Here is the record of my first 10 games (yes, I’m bragging).
This is what it looks like when you, a human, try to sound like a computer, and the computer tries to sound like a human.
I’m open to the possibility that whatever data you can get from thousands of people trying to detect bots will end up being used to make it harder for AI to be identified, and I’m open to the possibility that “Human or not” doesn’t really say you whether you’re talking to an AI or not, because it’s all AI. And one more thing: I’m already an AI, and so are you.
Viral Video of the Week: University of Mississippi Protests
The third pillar of my depressing tripod of dissent was a viral video this week in which a group of pro-Palestinian protesters at the University of Mississippi are surrounded by a group of counter-protesters and things get racist, ugly and depressing. The video, posted by Ashton Pittman on Twitter/X, shows a group of white frat boys, some wearing American flag onesies, jeering, chanting “lock her up” and making monkey noises at a black woman. It’s a snapshot of what’s happening on college campuses across the country as pro-Palestinian protests become more common.
While most people reacted by condemning the dude making the monkey noises (including his own Phi Delta Theta fraternity, which kicked him out , and the university itself, which launched an investigation), Congressman Mike Lee of Georgia posted the video to Twitter/X with the following caption: ” Ole Miss does business .” Because this is where we are now.
Viral Video of the Week #2: POV Cat Chase
This week’s bonus viral video is a cat video. But cats aren’t cute, they do it like Drake and Kendrick Lamar. TikTok user max20499 attaches a camera to his cat and posts POV videos of notes, street fights and car chases he gets into around the neighborhood. This particularly exciting chase has been viewed more than 78 million times since it was posted on April 25th. I don’t know enough about cat behavior to say for sure, but Max’s cat seems to be a serious threat to the other cats in the neighborhood.