Front Burner - When Drake and Kendrick beef, who wins?

Episode Date: May 3, 2024

A long-simmering feud between Toronto's Drake and Compton's Kendrick Lamar has finally erupted into open lyrical warfare. The bars being traded on diss tracks like "Push Ups" and "Euphoria" bring to mind some of the most iconic rap beefs in history — and it's far from the first time the 6 God has found himself in the crosshairs.Shadrach Kabango — you may know him as the rapper Shad — weighs in on the feud, and the role of big-name beefs in hip hop culture.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Elaine Chao. In for Jamie Poisson. So earlier this week, Kendrick Lamar came out with a new track called Euphoria. And this was exciting not just because it's new music from one of the most revered rappers working today, but also because fans have been waiting,

and I mean waiting, for him to respond to not one, but two diss tracks by Drake. Yeah, pipsqueak pipe down. You ain't in no big three. SZA got you wiped down. Travis got you wiped down. Savage got you wiped down. Like your label, boy, you in a scope right now. And you gonna feel the aftermath of what I write down. I'm at Taylor Swift as your new top.

And if you about to drop, she gotta approve. This girl really about to make you act like you not in a feud. She tell her major schedule, we're in. Drake and Kendrick have had a feud simmering for years, but this latest round has been escalating since October. It's become pretty heated. On Euphoria, Kendrick pretty much accuses Drake of selling out and calls him a, quote, manipulator and habitual liar.

This, of course, is just the latest in hip-hop's long and proud tradition of high-profile feuds and diss tracks. So today on the show, how do you decide who wins a rap beef? And what do they mean for the culture? My guest is Shadra Kabango. You know him as Shad. He's a rapper, broadcaster, hip-hop historian. Let's get to it. Hi, Shad. How you doing? I'm well. How are you? Good. Okay, so I am super stoked to talk about this. So let's start with the Drake and Kendrick beef, obviously. So what is at the heart of this? how did things between these two like go so off the tracks i mean they these are people who did like they they collaborated together you know

yeah they did they did but a long time ago so you know something must have happened to kind of cool things off in the relationship at least that's like the speculation. They've been kind of on, you could say, parallel trajectories in the sense that they both ascended to the top of hip hop in different ways or different lanes, kind of. But yeah, they haven't worked together. It seems like there's been some what we call subliminal disses thrown back and forth over the years. But now we've arrived at this moment where it's thought that Kendrick kind of sent the first shot with the Like That track and kind of started this battle of the top figures in rap.

And I mean, unlike that, he's responding to a verse that Drake and J. Cole had. And tell me, maybe just flesh that out a little bit for me in terms of just a bit of that timeline. Yeah, so on Drake's latest album, For All The Dogs, he has a song with J. Cole. Is it Kate Dyer, is it Aubrey or me? We the big three like we started to leave

But right now I feel like Muhammad Ali And that's how those three are known in hip hop. J. Cole, Drake, and Kendrick as the big three. These are the top guys in rap for the last decade plus. They're legends at this point. And that's how they're kind of commonly known. And then Kendrick came back with what I think is a great line. Basically, there's no big three. There's just big me. Basically, there's no big three.

There's just big me. Big me. Which to me I didn't take as a super kind of pointed invitation into a battle. It felt to me more like kind of classic hip-hop braggadocio and like this is a hotline and kind of Kendrick's way of saying, of setting himself apart. But it did spark something for sure. And then kind of Drake comes in with not one, but two diss tracks. And walk me through a little bit of that. There's push-ups and then there's tailor-made freestyle.

Yeah, and actually I would add one more thing to the timeline, which is after like that, you have a lot of other people hopping into the fray. Yes, absolutely. And sending shots at Drake as well, like A$AP Rocky and Rick Ross. I know we're not friends, but let me give you this advice because you ain't got nobody around you. Stop. Don't respond. Don't respond. You ain't even pe around you stop don't respond don't respond you ain't even Pete when the intro so now other people have added have sort of piled on and Drake Drake has to respond and he and he responds pretty forcefully with with push-ups and then TaylorMade Freestyle

which he's since taken down which um very controversially has the AI versions of Tupac and Snoop on that track. Right. And why do people see that particular choice as crossing a bit of a line? The discourse has been interesting because some people thought it was great and really creative, and other people thought it was crossing a line, especially when you talk about Tupac, who's, of course, deceased. So those are both icons of the West Coast and Kendrick's from the West Coast. So there's a lot of a lot of baiting with that move. Some people thought it was, you know, a really powerful move and a creative move. And other people thought it really crossed the line. But ultimately, he did get a cease and desist,

I think, from Tupac's estate. So he had to take the track down. And really, you know, you just touched on this a bit. And I want to flesh that out a bit more of like it's really not just Kendrick who's been going in on Drake, right? There's Future, Metro Boomin, Rick Ross, you were mentioning The Weeknd has been brought into this. I've seen it kind of written up as like the Infinity War of rap beefs. And I think that that actually is probably a pretty good description. So has that surprised you in terms of just like the number of people who have become involved in the Kendrick and Drake beef? Definitely. That's been surprising.

I mean, Kanye inserted himself too, right? But what is it specifically about Drake that everyone hates? Drake has a rich baby daddy named Lucian and Universal. He's like, you know, like, man, my daddy got it. You know what I'm saying? It's like, my daddy controlled the spins. My daddy got the DSPs. My daddy.

Drake has a rich baby daddy named Lucian. That's right, that's right that's right it's been a real real it's been a real pylon for sure which which is a surprise because as i was saying this really kind of started out with that line it's not the big three it's big me and some other lines that kendrick had about uh cole and drake so it really started out feeling like this is now a battle of the big three and also got to be added to the timeline is jay cole's response and retraction like there's been a lot of things happening too much but the pile too much yeah too much but the the the pylon to me is is surprising well it's

surprising and it's not surprising you know drake has been on top first of all if you're on top in hip-hop people are going to come for the crown that's that's kind of and commercially he is on not surprising. Drake has been on top. First of all, if you're on top in hip hop, people are going to come for the crown. That's kind of- And commercially, he is on top. And commercially, he is on top. And so you are going to get tested. But also, Drake's been on top for a long time. And so I think that's upset a lot of people, frankly, just jealous feelings. This guy has been on top for a long time. He's more than just the biggest artist, one of the biggest artists. I think he's like a big part of the music industry, period.

So, you know, there's a lot of people that don't like that. And so I was surprised a bit to see it all kind of, people really hop on to what Kendrick kicked off. But I'm also not surprised because this is kind of what happens in hip hop when someone's on top and especially on top for a long time, competitors want to take a shot at the crown. Plus there could be all sorts of personal things

that I don't know about. And I mean, it's gotten personal, real personal for Drake in the past, right? He's had a few of these very high profile beefs. Like I obviously can't help but think about the Pusha T beef, which got very personal, right? Kind of outed Drake for having a secret son in 2018. And there does seem to be this a bit of a definite pile on effect, even just over the years when it comes to Drake, hey? Yeah, yeah. Listen, I think what's typical in hip hop is is when someone is is on top you get tested and then on top of that if someone doesn't seem uh battle tested or seems like a bit of an outsider or seems

not very evidently tough then that will also kind of beget challenges. So Drake coming in as not only hugely popular, almost from the beginning, signing to Young Money, but being a Canadian, so kind of an outsider, having this background as an actor on a teen drama. Hey, you were great in the movie. Yeah, all five lines. Well, they were great in the movie. Yeah, all five lines. Well, they were great five lines. Being a singer as well, you know, he came out very early also singing,

which, you know, especially at that time in hip-hop was considered soft, you know, was considered kind of a brave move. You know, Kanye kind of kicked down that door, but it was still maybe not all the way kicked down kind of on the hinges right so you had meek mill uh very famously you had pusha t but there have been there have been people all uh all throughout his history before that and even in toronto when he was starting out in the mixtape days there were rappers testing drake so he is he is no stranger to this for for all of those reasons, because of success, because of

jealousy, and because of his presentation and his background. On this most recent response track, Euphoria, Kendrick, he gets pretty personal about Drake. He essentially calls him a bad dad. He goes after Drake's racial identity. Is there such a thing as like getting too personal on this track? I definitely think there is. But I don't draw a line on any particular kind of theme or topic. To me, it's more of a feeling. So when I listen to Euphoria, yes, he brings up some very personal things. But to me, the overall tone of the track feels very much within the bounds of rap and within the bounds of rap beef the tone is still he's taking jabs he's

taking lyrical jabs there's a there's a playful tone there's a comedic tone to it versus uh push a tease story of of added on i think it was called, where he is exposing Drake's son. A baby's involved, it's deeper than rap. We talking character, let me keep with the facts. You are hiding a child, let that boy come home. That felt more like we are crossing a boundary now. This is not just personal, but it's kind of breaking some personal news. And it just sort of started to feel darker and more dangerous. And so I do, to your question, I do think there is a line. I just don't think it's something you can see very clearly.

It's not really neatly drawn. Okay, you can't talk about this. You can't talk about this. You can't talk about that. And if it's kind of amping up a certain kind of energy where things might escape the boundaries of rap and get into, you know, physical violence, that's when it crosses a line. founder, former CEO of Defro Records, tweet or post on X. Round one goes to Kendrick Lamar. But let's stop saying light-skinned people aren't Black because the police think otherwise. Black is Black. That creates division amongst ourselves. And curious as to kind of what you think of that reaction.

I thought that was, of all the surprising twists in this, that might have been the most surprising was Suge Knight tweeting something about racial harmony and peace in the middle of a rap beef. It's just like something about our world just continues to amaze. continues to amaze. It's one of those ones where you're like, if you would have said in 1996 that this is what Suge Knight would be talking about on the internet. Death Row Records, a major instigator

in terms of beef in the 90s and rap battles and obviously central to Biggie and Pac and that whole thing. You know, tweeting out something about peace, about shadism in the black community. That was not on my 2024 bingo card at all. But I do think that aspect of Kendrick's track has been overblown a little bit. If you listen to the song, again, he's definitely throwing some blows at Drake's identity, at where Drake comes from. But that's par for the course,

you know, in hip hop battles and the way that he does it doesn't feel like it's in any kind of like dirty way. It feels very much in a almost playful way, in a very hip hop way. But yeah, no, I don't think anyone expected that commentary from Suge Knight around this battle. I can't not ask you about the fact that Kendrick makes fun of Toronto slang and the Toronto, crotty. Talk about me and my family, crotty. Someone go bleed in your family, crotty. I'd be a New York King eating fried rice with a dip sauce and a blammy, crotty. Tell me you're a cheesing farmer. We could do this right now on the camera, crotty. He's kind of implying that Drake, this guy from Canada, will kind of never really fit into hip hop authentically. You kind of mentioned that, that idea of the outsider as well earlier. So, I mean, as a Canadian rapper yourself, like, how do you feel

about that? I hear people in Toronto are not feeling okay about this song. You know, not exposing anyone in the group chat, but of course, the group chats were going crazy yesterday. And definitely, you know, there were comments about, oh, yeah, I just put a Canadian flag at half mast on my porch. He definitely cooked Toronto with that accent. But again, it was funny. He made reference to a restaurant on Spadina. He's using all the slang. He's doing the fake accent. It was funny. It was real hip hop battle stuff. It was funny. It was real hip-hop battle stuff. And he got some good jabs in. Everyone in Toronto was feeling a little hurt. It gave people something to talk about, let me tell you that.

Well, yeah. And I mean, that's one of the things with beef in hip-hop, with these battles, is it is exciting and it is a conversation starter. And's, it is the whole conversation in hip hop right now. Right. So that is, um, that's part of it. It's exciting. It gets everyone engaged. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here.

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That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. So I wanted to talk about one of the kind of classic rap beefs of the 90s, not just because it's iconic, but also just there may be some interesting parallels with Drake and Kendrick. And that's really the feud between Jay-Z and Nas. So kind of give us a bit of a refresher, like a quick, you know, what happened between these two? sure like a quick you know what happened between these two yeah so a lot of parallels for sure because you know i think the genesis of it was jay-z wanted naz to appear on a song

naz didn't come to the studio session he ends up sampling naz he actually has a line about people debate who is the greatest, Biggie J or Nas. So a big three of that time, and we're talking about the big three of this time. So there's a lot of parallels there. And then a couple of very famous diss tracks came out of that. Jay-Z had The Takeover, and Nas had Ether. Trying to work it out, you trying to get brolic Ask me if I'm trying to kick knowledge Nah, I'm trying to kick the shit you need to learn though That ether, that shit that make your soul burn slow Is he Dame Diddy, Dame Daddy or Dame Dummy Oh, I get it, you biggie and he's puffy

Rockefeller, Dada, A's, that was the end of his chapter And that's the guy I chose to name your company after Put it together And ether has become synonymous with. A verb. It's become a verb. It's become synonymous with kind of destroying someone. So, yeah, a couple of very famous tracks and a lot of parallels.

You know, those two were the battling for the title of the king of New York. You know, the epicenter, the home of hip hop in the wake of Biggie's passing. You know, who's the king of New York. So there's a lot of parallels for sure. Right. And, you know, with Jay-Z and Nas, like the kind of popular consensus was that Nas won, at least lyrically. But of course, like Jay-Z's gone on to massive critical and commercial success. And I guess it leads me to the question of like, how do you ultimately determine who wins a beef? Well, that's one of my favorite things about rap battles is it is truly democratic.

It all comes down to the people. It's what the people are feeling. And there's a lot of factors that play into that. So, yes, a consensus is that Ether was the better track. But, you know, one factor is that takeover came out first and and there's some parallels there with push-ups and euphoria there's some people saying kendrick's track was great but he should have replied sooner you know when you get the first blow in that that makes a a difference in the battle in terms of who won uh in people's minds So it really comes down to the people.

And if you go online right now, the public seems pretty split about who's ahead in this. Most people feel like this is just round one, but it really comes down to the people. When I was starting out, there was a lot of freestyle battles. That was what you could do really in hip hop for a lot of us. And that also just came down to the crowd. There was no judge scorecard. It's just who makes the crowd cheer the loudest. And that's part of what's so kind of exciting and fun and just democratic about it. It's ultimately about who's gonna who's moving the people the most right and it kind of makes you think about too just how uh like how big of a role kind of these

beefs and battling in general like how core it is to to hip-hop culture at large right absolutely you know hip-hop it is really in the DNA of hip hop and not just rapping, but every element of hip hop, breakdance battles, DJ battles. Now, there's word out that there's a battle brewing between Run DMC and Special K and Kumo D. So I think I'm just going to back out. One for the treble, two for the bass. Come on, Jam Master, let's rock the place. I'm a dominator in my field. And when it comes to rap, other rappers yield. Because when it comes to rap, I'm the epitome.

Always this head-to-head, competitive, live element that's exciting and engaging for fans and also sharpens people creatively. When I think of all the elements of hip hop, right, breakdancing. Breakdancing is just one of the most dazzling, mesmerizing, acrobatic feats there are out there, you know, and it really captured the imagination of the whole world before rapping did as far as taking hip hop global. And that is the result of this competitive battle culture. That is how the skills and the moves and the excellence elevated so quickly. Turntablism is the same thing. Turntables were just meant to play records. But after just a

decade or two of DJ battles, you have people doing unbelievable things, scratching and mixing and blending records. And rapping is no different. There's this way, because it's based in the DNA of hip hop, there's this way that the competition has just pushed all of these art forms forward and also just kept people engaged. It really is exciting. And then I think there's this other dimension of it where it helps us work through the history of the culture. These battles help define who really is the greatest or helps put certain places on the map, right? Like if Drake comes out of this victorious or comes out of this in some sort of draw situation, what that means for all of Canada, him representing Canada in this massive battle.

So there's a whole historical cultural conversation that also gets hashed out through these battles too. But is there also a dark side to all of this as well? Because, I mean, it's hard to talk about beefs and not think about Tupac and Biggie and how that ended tragically. And yeah, what are your thoughts on that? Yeah, definitely. You know, and that's actually brought up. There's some interesting issues with that that have been brought up already with this beef. You know, it's all stayed within the bounds of music, and that's been great. But the J Cole piece, the way that he put out this track and then reach and then retracted it,

you know, kind of speaks to this line between what is competition and what is, is beef on a song and what is beef in real life, you know, because part of what's exciting about it is, is you are playing with that line. Artists are playing with that line. exciting about it is, is you are playing with that line, artists are playing with that line.

And J. Cole did something entirely new when he retracted the disc track, basically saying, this is not where I am as a person. This is not the kind of energy I want to put into the world. And, you know, in terms of hip hop, that's considered a loss. You know, he's taken a lot of flack for that, but on a personal level is what he did more important. And in the future, how will we remember what he did? It's still an open question. So yeah, more to your question though. Yes, absolutely, there's a line that can be crossed. We've seen it in the past. Second, rap star Tupac Shakur died last night after a brief life in a rough business. He was 25.

A star in the often brutal world of gangster rap has been gunned down. This time it was Notorious B.I.G. We're still kind of living with the aftershocks of that. It can get very personal. It can get very physical. And people can lose their lives. personal, it can get very physical, and people can lose their lives. Because yeah, you are playing on that line of what is competition and what is personal. I want to bring it back as, you know, as we kind of wrap up our chat, like, I want to bring it back, obviously, to Drake and Kendrick,

and wondering whether, like, do you think we're going to see Drake respond to Euphoria? You know, is this over? Yeah. For now? Yeah, I don't know. Where is this going? I mean, I should point out Drake did respond a little bit. Like, he posted on Instagram, right?

He shared a scene from 10 Things I Hate About You. The particular scene where Julia Stiles is, like, reciting a poem and she's listing all the things that she hates about her love interest. I hate your big dumb combat boots and the way you read my mind. I hate you so much it makes me sick. It even makes me rhyme. And it seems to be a bit of a making fun of the lyrics in Kendrick's Euphoria. So there has been a little bit of a response, I should point out, but do you see this, where do you see this going next?

Yeah, yeah. You know, like as the kind of the form of battles evolves throughout the history of hip hop, it's interesting to see trolling become another aspect of rap battles, right? And Drake is really good at that. So yeah, he's responded off record in this kind of sort of troll social media way where do i think it's going next

i don't know to me the tone ultimately of euphoria and even push-ups push-ups is more aggressive but there is still this feeling in both of those songs and lyrics that allude to, I could say more, but let's keep it here. So that makes me really question if this is going to go further. I don't know if there's going to be more songs, if either of them wants this to continue. There's also the fact that both of them are older, right? Like hip hop is grown and our stars have grown and so now we have the two biggest stars in hip-hop are are pushing 40 right so how

much of this kind of competitive borderline toxic energy do they want to have right j cole stepped out of it right away so you, it does make me wonder how far will these guys take it? Maybe another track? I think Max, just because they both have other things to do. Yeah, yeah. Maybe this will all come back in a few years. Yeah, we'll see. Thank you so much, Chad, for this conversation. It was so much fun to talk to you. Likewise. Thank you so much, Chad, for this conversation. It was so much fun to talk to you. Likewise. That's all for today.

FrontBurner was produced this week by Sarah Jackson, Allie Janes, Matt Mews, and Derek Vanderwyk. Sound design was by Mackenzie Cameron and Marco Luciano. Music is by Joseph Chabazin. Our executive producer is Nick McCabe-Locos. I'm Elaine Chao. Thank you so much for listening to FrontBurner. Jamie Poisson will be back Monday. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.