[MUSIC]

Kousha Navidar: You are listening to All Of It. I'm Kousha Navidar in for Alison Stewart. This past Sunday, Canadian rapper Drake released his response to Pulitzer Prize winner Kendrick Lamar's ninth disc track in a rap battle that has gone on for weeks. Throughout this feud, there have been rumors of Ozempic, a hidden child, height shaming, and serious allegations of abuse on both sides, including domestic violence and grooming, but this isn't the first time hip-hop artists have had a public spat.

In the 2010s, there was Nicki Minaj versus Remy Ma, in the 2000s, 50 Cent versus Ja Rule, Nas versus Jay-Z, and in the '90s, the infamous beef between Tupac and Biggie. While conflict has been a part of hip-hop for decades, some things have changed. There's the advent of streaming, the use of artificial intelligence, cultural attitudes, social media, there's a lot that's changed. To help us understand this latest rivalry in hip-hop, we're joined by Vulture music critic Craig Jenkins, who recently penned a reflection on the battle between Drake and Kendrick. It was titled What Are We To Do With All This Nastiness? Craig, welcome to All Of It.

Craig Jenkins: Thank you for having me on.

Kousha Navidar: Absolutely. Listeners, we want to hear from you. Are you a fan of either Drake or Kendrick Lamar, or did you choose a side? What did you take away from the music they released in the last month and a half? Or what is a beef between two rappers that you will never forget about? How did their dislike of one another show up in the music? Give us a call, send us a text, we're at 212-433-9692. It's 212-433-WNYC, or you can reach us on social. Just hit us up. We're @AllOfItWNYC.

Craig, this rivalry between Drake and Kendrick Lamar began way before this year, but this latest chapter kicked off in March when Future, Metro Boomin, and Kendrick Lamar released the song Like That. What statement did Kendrick make in this song and what was he responding to?

Craig Jenkins: He essentially addressed Drake and J. Cole who had released a song a while earlier called First Person Shooter. There's been this tier ranking with the three of them where they're considered the big three, the preeminent mainstream hip-hop guys. Kendrick is like, "You guys aren't on my level. I'm sorry that you think that we're all the same caliber of an artist, but you're not there with me," and a lot of threatening and stuff. It had been apparent that he didn't care for Drake for the preceding 10 years, little hints and things. Stray words that you could attribute to being about his some time Canadian friend.

But, yes, this like that was a line in the sand and you had to respond to it in some kind of a combative way. It was goading you to come back crazy.

Kousha Navidar: What were the origins of the feud to begin with?

Craig Jenkins: It's hard to really say because there's that one point Drake took Kendrick out on tour and they featured on each other's albums. Kendrick did an interlude on Drake's Take Care and Drake was on the Poetic Justice song, but by 2013 or so, they're throwing shots a little bit. Kendrick is saying stray stuff about Drake. He did a freestyle where he said he just tucked that Canadian-- What did he say? He tucked an emotional rapper in his pajama clothes and it was obvious that--

There's just been this latent animosity places that would crick up and if you listen to their freestyles, there's just this elaborate lore and there's all these verses that are maybe about the other guy over the last 10 years.

Kousha Navidar: It's interesting that you bring up how they're contemporaries because I think this is such an in important piece of this, how Drake has featured Kendrick, how Kendrick has featured Drake. How have their careers developed in the last decade or so? How have their reputations changed? Can any of that explain this bifurcation?

Craig Jenkins: Drake starts out as this real hip-hop guy to an extent in the late 2000s, mixtape guy. Kendrick is around the same time concurrently learning to rap it. You could argue that they both have similar interests that they both really admire. Lil' Wayne is a rapper, but they come at it from different angles and Drake ends up really on the pop spectrum and Kendrick ends up on this really dense literary thing.

For a while, it would work between them as friends, but as the years passed, it just seemed like the impression around them is that they have very different jobs. That fueled some of what's been said because a lot of it is just they've been digging around each other's circles and stuff. Yes, there's a sense that Drake represents commercialism and this emotional internal music and then Kendrick represents the culture. That's what the impression is here.

Kousha Navidar: If you're just joining us, we're talking to Craig Jenkins from Vulture. We're talking about this feud between hip-hop megastars Drake and Kendrick Lamar, and the history of the diss track in general in hip-hop. Listeners, hey, we want to hear from you. Are you a fan of Drake or Kendrick? Did you choose a side? What did you take away from the music they released in the last month and a half? Or what are some diss tracks or some feuds in hip-hop that have really spoken to you that you remember over the course of your life as a fan of hip-hop?

Give us a call, send us a text, we're at 212-433-9692. That's 212-433-WNYC. Craig, you mentioned that there is a lot of lore in this feud. Can you go into that lore a little bit? What really stands out to you?

Craig Jenkins: There're just straight lines and songs that people have been picking up on over the last decade where people feel like that one person was addressing another after something happened, after the fact-- many years later, you could look at a verse and what was the most recent one that came up? There was a time that Drake apologized to Kendrick for something. Then there's a Kendrick verse where he's just like, "I don't want your apology," and you don't think this is a response to that because you're not hearing the song concurrently to the moment.

There's just a lot of verses where you think the one guy's talking about the other, there's this song, The Red Button. Like your classic rap beef, there's a lot of songs where they're overtly talking about each other, and then there's just this back alley of stuff that you could attribute maybe to one guy, which feeds into the core dispute which is, "Is he talking about me or what is he saying about me?" and getting the wrong idea, getting on a negative page. They've didn’t go for each other for a long time.

Kousha Navidar: Yes, that it reaches a fever pitch, like you were saying, to the point where there is a line drawn on the sand and they have to respond, right?

Craig Jenkins: Over the weekend, things went crazy.

Kousha Navidar: I remember back in 2018, Kendrick Lamar won the Pulitzer for his critically acclaimed album, Damn, and for some people, they're like, "A Pulitzer winner dishing out diss tracks?" Why do you think Kendrick is engaging in this way? Why is it important for him as an artist? How does it fit his brand?

Craig Jenkins: I can speak as a nominee for criticism who has had plenty of squabbles on the internet that-- The prestige is nice and it is a great thing to have, but also, you're still in your world that you're in and not necessarily beholden to different laws. More people are aware of him and more expectations are on him, but at the end of the day, he's still a Los Angeles rapper, and that comes with a certain library of expectations and dangers and linguistics.

Kousha Navidar: Yes and it's also a very authentic element, is what I hear you saying. It's like you're still in the world. Forget about the accolades. Forget about whatever titles. You are the artist that you became. Is that a fair summary right there?

Craig Jenkins: Yes.

Kousha Navidar: Yes. Totally.

Craig Jenkins: Well, the thing is actually about authenticity because we've watched Drake adapt to musical trends over the last 15 years and in a way that he's very much not the guy that he used to be musically. This beef is a lot to a great extent about the guy who changes and the guy who's just been burrowing into a specific version of himself artistically.

Kousha Navidar: Right, Kendrick is becoming more Kendrick and Drake is who is Drake. Is that how you'd say that?

Craig Jenkins: That's how it's been framed.

Kousha Navidar: Okay. Is that a fair frame?

Craig Jenkins: Because it's not possible to know the guy behind the scenes, which is what's been the subject of a lot of this beef is, is this person really who he presents publicly? Drake is saying, "You guys have this woke champion who is not living up to his standards." Kendrick is saying, "Who is this guy from one week to the next?" The way that the songs are percolating, it says that people like one version of this better than they do the other.

Kousha Navidar: Kendrick isn't the only rapper who's thrown shots at Drake. Fans have credited Houston rapper Megan Thee Stallion for throwing the first stone this year when she remarked on his alleged plastic surgery and criticized his fake accents in his songs, in her single, Hiss. We have a clip. Let's listen to that right now.

[MUSIC - Megan Thee Stallion: HISS]

Kousha Navidar: Since we're on public radio, we heard a lot of bleeps there. Suffice to say, there's a lot of animosity in what we hear Megan Thee Stallion talking about. Since the battle between Drake and Kendrick started, other rappers like Rick Ross and producer, Metro Boomin have shared their dislike of Drake. Why is he getting so much hate, especially now?

Craig Jenkins: He is a troublemaker. He talks a lot of trash. Megan got at him because he got at her randomly on a song on his last album when he was-- he's been joking about how he doesn't think that she got shot and taken up for Tory Lanez who is locked up for that crime right now in a way that deliberately designed to antagonize her because he never really cared for Tory Lanez. Drake has released what everyone assumes is a diss track for Tory Lanez in the past. To support that guy is to say, "Hey, here is-- I'm cliquing up with people you don't like," the classic rapper drawing the lines in the sand media association.

Yes, the reason why there are eight guys in it is that you can pick up the new Drake album and hear subliminals for five different people. You can hear-- He's got it with A$AP Rocky, he's got it with Rick Ross. He didn't have to do that thing with Rick Ross. They have a long history of really good collaborations, and you would think some of the best chemistry in between two rappers, but one guy unfollows the other and Drake invites Rick Ross's ex to a concert, and then it's just like off to the races since there.

There's an element of the guy goes really hard and maybe a lot of people never fill a room full of people who wish ill upon you then you get stuff like Future and Metro and A$AP Rocky and Rick Ross and The Weeknd snacking you at the same time.

Kousha Navidar: We've got a caller, Chuck from Bloomfield, New Jersey. Hey Chuck, welcome to the show.

Chuck: Hey, how's it going guys?

Kousha Navidar: Good, thanks. What's your experience with a diss track?

Chuck: I'm a professional musician. I'm just not in the hip-hop scene. I write music for video games and nerdy stuff.

Kousha Navidar: Oh, incredible. Very cool.

Craig Jenkins: I love video game music.

Chuck: Yes, it's a completely different beast of its own, but having been a professional musician for a really long time, I have to listen to just about everything in order to be a well-rounded musician. I listen to a lot of hip-hop and I've been just trying to extract as much as I can from the experience recently with Kendrick and Drake. I love Kendrick Lamar's records. I'm not a huge Drake fan. I wanted to briefly discuss the concept of the difference between the boast track and the diss track. How the boast track is more about anonymity and exalting yourself, saying how much better you are than your contemporaries or those who came before you, and how nobody can touch you. Whereas a diss track is more directed at a person.

One thing that I remember very clearly was Machine Gun Kelly, now known as MGK making his way into the rap scene through TikTok, of all the places, TikTok. He essentially calls Eminem out for being a washed-up old white dad figure. He's not as good as he was before he got clean. Meanwhile, Eminem has this huge history with Dr. Dre, and having come from poverty, and having come from a really rough childhood. Having really heavy things to rap about and Eminem just releases a track and chases MGK out to the world of pop-punk where--

Kousha Navidar: Chuck, I'm going to have to pause you there. Thank you so much for calling in just for time, but you brought up a really good point there and we really appreciate having a professional musician, even one from other elements of it.

Craig Jenkins: Eminem is definitely the beef figure that should probably come up in this, a ruthless guy who loves the back and forth and has been involved in that for a long time. I feel like Machine Gun Kelly was making points about him, unfortunately, some truth was told that he doesn't-- he makes pop-punk now. It's true. Yes, there was an Eminem-ishness to the way that Kendrick was going at Drake. He was saying stuff that you shouldn't really say to people. "Dear Adonis, I'm sorry, that man is your father," talking to his mom and his son about, "Here's why your dad is a terrible person." There was a lot of off sides discourse and Drake being like, "Oh, do you beat your wife because she's taller than you?" Just horrific stuff was said.

Kousha Navidar: Is there a line in the sand when you talk about diss tracks that people are expected not to cross Craig?

Craig Jenkins: Well, the story goes that you can say whatever you want, but the other side of it is that there are repercussions for the way that you deal. Drake immediately starts yelling about people's wives in beef, like he went to Pusha T's-- You know what, going at the mother of someone's children in the middle of the dispute is definitely a way to catch the worst side of a person. He did it with Pusha T and he did it with Kendrick and those guys went absolutely-- Then it just became a matter of pacing and it was a really wild weekend because you couldn't go to sleep without something dropping.

Two diss tracks might drop in the same hour addressing different stuff, laying out claims that could be false or true, debunking stuff and it was just like-- it was the most 2024 thing. It was just, what's the fake news? Who's canceled kind of a conversation? They were trying to get each other canceled. I don't think that it's possible for either one of them in the field right now.

Kousha Navidar: Two points about that. It sounds like you're bringing up Newton's Third Law version of hip-hop, which is for every diss track, there is an equal and opposite diss track, and you need to face the repercussions of what you're saying. Also, I love that you brought the point--

Craig Jenkins: It might not even happen on wax also. Sometimes there's a diss track and you hear about it from the person showing up.

Kousha Navidar: Yes, and I also--

Craig Jenkins: There's always that danger.

Kousha Navidar: I also love that you bring up the idea of Eminem-ishness, which I think is a new term, though, you just coined for us on WNYC. We're talking--

Craig Jenkins: There's like an impishness to him. He enjoys getting under people's skin and will absolutely torch like a song just being like, "All right this is about this guy, no longer the subject matter."

Kousha Navidar: Yes, we're talking to Craig Jenkins from the Vulture. We're talking about the feud between hip-hop megastars Drake and Kendrick Lamar and the history of the diss track. Listen we got to take a quick break but when we come back, we're going to talk to Candace McDuffie, The Root senior writer and we're going to take more of your calls. We're talking about diss tracks. Stay with us. We'll get back to it. This is All Of It.

[MUSIC]

This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Kousha Navidar and we're talking about the diss track, D-I-S-S. There is this hip-hop megastar feud going on right now between Drake and Kendrick Lamar and they're firing shots at each other everyone and we've got to talk about it with us Craig Jenkins the Vulture critic. Listeners we want to hear from you too. Do you have opinions about this feud that's going on? Is there a feud in hip-hop that resonates with you? Is there a side that you've chosen? Give us a call, send us a text, we're at 212-433-9692. That's 212-433-WNYC.

Craig, we talked a lot about what's going on in the present, but this also has a rich history to it too with hip-hop. Can you talk a little bit about the history of the diss track?

Craig Jenkins: There are so many legendary on-wax bust-ups in music history, particularly in hip-hop. In the '80s, we had the classic Bridge Wars in New York City, which was just like a battle for dominance between a lot of luminaries, KRS-One, Marley Marl, all those guys, MC Chan. Just legendary stuff in the '80s. The Roxanne Wars with Roxanne Shante and various impersonators. In the '90s, there was the East Coast-West Coast feud. The big thing was-- well, there were so many. There was Bone Thugs-N-Harmony in the Midwest versus Three 6 Mafia. There was Common in the Midwest versus Ice Cube, a classic, classic battle. There was the coastal thing between the East and the West with Tupac and Biggie, unfortunately, losing their lives in the middle of that. All the intramural stuff, like Snoop Dogg making a video where he's kicking down the Twin Towers. Jay-Z and Nas happened after that.

The entire history of hip-hop is a history of disputes, is a history of guys saying that they're better than the other guy, women saying that they're better than the other women, saying that they're better than the men. It's just like the roots of the culture come from-- Jamaican toasts come from all these rich- -histories of braggadociousness and storytelling, incredible raconteur skills. When you don't like somebody, you're going to weave your narrative about them in that same way that you do anything else, and we get to Drake and Kendrick tapping into that rich history. It's not just a hip-hop thing either, because there's classic diss tracks like Sweet Home Alabama has shots for Neil Young in it. Every genre has some a version of that after a while.

Kousha Navidar: You're right, it does exist cross genre. Do you feel like this idea of the diss track, of engaging elevates and energizes artists as well, like it actually adds to the music?

Craig Jenkins: It can revitalize a writer and sharpen the pen to have their entire character challenged. Also, it can get people killed because they talk too wild in the process. A lot can happen. It is often pretty good for culture until it's not a situation, which is the crux of Tupac versus Biggie is that like, wow, we got so much incredible music out of it and then we lost both guys.

Kousha Navidar: It's playing with fire a little bit.

Craig Jenkins: Yes, and there's that danger with Drake and Kendrick now. We didn't think that either of these guys were the type of guys who we would have to hear about gunfire around, and yet someone has gone to someone's house to shoot somebody. We have to have the old conversation again about whether it's necessarily all that wise to be goading this kind of action on endlessly and at what point do you have to get back to reality? Because everybody has to work in the business, and when it's staticky people die. Simple as that.

Kousha Navidar: If you're just joining us listeners, we're talking to Craig Jenkins, who's a Vulture critic, and we are talking about the feud between Drake and Kendrick Lamar. If you have an opinion on this, give us a call. We're at 212-433-9692. We have a super caller on the line with us. Candace McDuffie is a senior writer for The Root and culture critic whose work has been featured in publications like Rolling Stone, MTV, NBC News and Essence. Candace, hi. Welcome.

Candace McDuffie: Thank you so much for having me.

Kousha Navidar: Absolutely. You recently published a piece titled Women Are Collateral Damage in the Kendrick-Drake Beef, And Its Nothing New. The feud between the two artists took a gross turn on Saturday when Kendrick accused Drake of both being a pedophile and keeping sex offenders on his record label OVO payroll, but prior to this, Drake suggested Kendrick physically abused his fiancé, Whitney Alford. Where are these allegations coming from and how have music fans responded to them?

Candace McDuffie: It was a desperate grab for Drake. Kendrick came at him originally for being a culture voter, for using his celebrity influence to commodify Blackness to make money and to be popular. Drake wanted to hit below the belt, and these allegations of Kendrick allegedly hitting his fiancé is what he chose to use. Fans have been so disgusted by Drake and Kendrick, they're alleging sexual and physical abuse as a way to hurt each other as opposed to actually taking these allegations seriously and trying to get justice for these alleged victims. It's been really hard to watch.

Kousha Navidar: What do you make of--?

Craig Jenkins: I think people are taking--

Kousha Navidar: No, sorry, go ahead, Craig. Go ahead, yes.

Craig Jenkins: I think people are taking the wrong message from Not Like Us, which is a record about disassociating yourselves from people who have these terrible situations. Now, it doesn't take the shine around the song and how everyone's really running with it and loves it. It does not take into account that we have heard allegations about Kendrick now, to run with it, to keep running with it when it's telling you stop supporting people who have the-- What if we have to stop supporting both of the guys is the conversation that's not really being had right now about it, and that's frustrating.

Maybe Kendrick one wave the people have, there is no, okay, but now what if he's not the upstanding guy that everyone thinks that he is? That's not being considered enough, I don't think.

Kousha Navidar: Hey, Candace, what do you make of that?

Candace McDuffie: I agree. I think people enjoy Not Like Us so much that they're overlooking the allegations that Kendrick has been accused of, but at the same time, those dialogues are being had online just not on the scale that they should be.

Craig Jenkins: I don't want to shortchange and say they're not happening. Just in the hallowed places where all the rap media guys meet on the big-- academics is not talking about it. Those kinds of characters will never-- There's not enough reckoning with everything that's been on the table with this and with the horribleness of it and with what to do about it, because we have this record now that is real fun. It's fun to yell at a guy and get a guy out of there who's been really annoying, but at what point is there a wider reckoning? Because this is the same culture that allowed everything that's happened with R. Kelly to happen, this is the culture that we'll hear about whatever Diddy's up for this year, but the underpinning of this is that, yes, the industry that produced those guys could still be producing monsters and we're not doing anything about it, but having a laugh.

Kousha Navidar: Candace, unfortunately, we got to let you go, but thank you so much for calling in. Candace McDuffie is a senior writer for The Root. Thank you again for joining.

Candace McDuffie: Thank you.

Craig Jenkins: Sorry, I didn't mean to--

Kousha Navidar: Well, no, no worries.

Craig Jenkins: I was really fired up about this aspect of this.

Kousha Navidar: Absolutely. Diss tracks get people energized. We're running right up against the clock, but I wanted to make sure that we hear one of the latest tracks from Kendrick, Not Like Us. The cover art is an aerial map image of Drake's mansion in Toronto. Let's hear a quick clip from there.

Craig Jenkins: Which has now been shot at.

Kousha Navidar: We will talk about that in a second. Let's listen to a quick clip there.

[MUSIC - Kendrick Lamar: Not Like Us]

Kousha Navidar: Craig, you just mentioned that this place was shot at. Throughout this rap battle, Kendrick Lamar has poked at Drake, who is mixed calling him white boy, but in this song, he called him a colonizer. Can you tell us what Kendrick meant by this and how does he view Drake's role as a fixture within hip-hop culture and Black culture overall?

Craig Jenkins: The colonialism aspect of it is the nastiest part because there is, on the one hand, a truth to the fact that Drake is someone who moves into a city and really gets deep into the culture of it and starts showing up with all the legends and stuff and picking up the local customs. To hit at his Blackness is to insult a lot of people beyond him. Just because his mother is white doesn't mean that he can't naturally grasp the customs. It's the kind of guy that he is that makes that the case, and that's not really necessarily coming out enough in the beef, but it's no holds barred, so you're supposed to say the root of stuff all the time to the other guy. There's no balance.

Kousha Navidar: I'm wondering, how do you think people are going to look back on this rivalry? How will hip-hop fans think about this legacy?

Craig Jenkins: Oh, we'll look back and say, "It was a great time for hip-hop," and we probably won't reckon with all the horrific feelings that we have right now, because the cathartic sense of having finally had it out, and all the business it's created, and all the excitement that it's created, and all the perhaps long overdue conversations about usurping people's talent and appropriating local scenes. We'll look back fondly at that stuff and we'll probably ignore the more difficult and prickly aspects of it I feel like, because it's already like there's a joy that the one guy won and the other fandom, it's like, "Oh no, his fans are delusion--" Everyone is like their fans are delusional and that's what the takeaway is.

I just feel like what's important about this, which is that you never know what kind of a guy the celebrity is, whether or not he's portraying this upright figure or whether or not he's portraying as this mobster. You never know what he's doing behind the scenes and who he could be hurting behind the scenes, or what horrific thing he's willing to say on record. All that will probably get lost and we'll just bask in the glow of that time that we bumped those records outside and the one guy got upstaged. I can see that happening.

Kousha Navidar: We'll leave it there. It's multi-layered, like you said, it's been a decade in the making. We've been discussing the feud between hip-hop mega stars, Drake and Kendrick Lamar and the history of the diss track. My guest has been Vulture music critic, Craig Jenkins. Craig, thanks so much.

Craig Jenkins: Thanks for having me. Sorry it was a lore bomb of the conversation, but there is so much

Kousha Navidar: No worries. It's been my pleasure. That's it for today's episode of All Of It. We'll be back tomorrow with more. Thanks so much for hanging out with us today. Have a great one. We'll see you tomorrow.

 

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