Drake vs Kendrick - The Long Game…. :no Diddy:

[the elastic]

They tried. They failed.
Kenny back in hiding
Drizzy dropping a nuclear bomb soon.

Luke Walton avi gotta be another level of psychotic

 

[((ReFleXioN)) EteRNaL]

Theory would have some credence for me if it didn't involve the rap industry's biggest cash cow having a hit diss track branding him as a pedo and its most respected artist being suspected of being a wife beater.


That'd be like if a pimp threw acid in the face of his bottom bytch: scarring her and hurting her ability to make sales.


If the attacks from the opposing sides didn't involve one being viewed as hip hop's Dan Schneider and the other being viewed as the shea butter version of Ike Turner, then it'd be believable.

Yea too many holes in it. The topic matter went too dark for this shyt to have been calculated. Pedo papi just underrated Kendrick. Flat out. It was blatantly obvious he didn't respect Kenny's pen after he was laughing at that fake Kenny AI diss thinking it was real. He didn't understand the caliber of MC he was up against and it blew up in his face. He shoulda just backed out like Cole. Now he's a laughing stock.

 

[calh45]

This exchange of diss songs wasn't planned, it just happened. Kendrick fired the opening shot but Drake made the miscalculation of calling everyone else out. He burned too many bridges at the same time and that's why everyone piled on top of him.

So there was obviously no premeditated plan to get him outta here, and that's not a plan they can pick up now either.
Drake is a huge star and he's Jewish. As long as there's not too many Jewish rappers who are huge, there's zero chance the REAL industry who owns everything is going to kick out whoever is doing it big which happens to be Drake.

Exactly. It's wild people think UMG is going to step on the artist that they clearly had designs on controlling hip hop through. For years, the "Drake Stimulus" has been what they'd throw out to younger artists to keep them from going truly independent and Kendrick broke their toy. All of them underestimated how savvy people have become to internet games plus they couldn't in their wildest dreams imagine Kendrick coming up with 4 straight haymakers. At worst, they probably thought this would end in a tie, but Drake mentioned his wife and Kendrick went nuts.

They're going to have Drake sit for a bit and have him pop out with a melodic club record with someone new in the fall. Given how loyal I've seen some of his defenders on this board he'll be fine eventually. He just ain't the golden child no more after this.

 

[straightcash]

Exactly. It's wild people think UMG is going to step on the artist that they clearly had designs on controlling hip hop through. For years, the "Drake Stimulus" has been what they'd throw out to younger artists to keep them from going truly independent and Kendrick broke their toy. All of them underestimated how savvy people have become to internet games plus they couldn't in their wildest dreams imagine Kendrick coming up with 4 straight haymakers. At worst, they probably thought this would end in a tie, but Drake mentioned his wife and Kendrick went nuts.

They're going to have Drake sit for a bit and have him pop out with a melodic club record with someone new in the fall. Given how loyal I've seen some of his defenders on this board he'll be fine eventually. He just ain't the golden child no more after this.

If he can get passed the Pusha T situation unscathed to the mainstream audience. Then I don't think they will care much about him losing to Kendrick either. He could even say he beat Ross and Future. His political invincibility inside the rap industry is going to be much less now though.

 

[Outlaw]

If he can get passed the Pusha T situation unscathed to the mainstream audience. Then I don't think they will care much about him losing to Kendrick either. He could even say he beat Ross and Future. His political invincibility inside the rap industry is going to be much less now though.

He need to clear his name of the pedo stuff

 

[Secure Da Bag]

So is the beef over?

 

[Trap Soul]

Think piece #97, we're full but I'll put you on the waiting list with the other fakkit

 

[dangerranger]

Here’s my working theory:

There is a lot of industry games being played while brandishing this as a Kendrick vs Drake battle. Without getting too deep, I will just pose a few questions that come to mind.

1. Why in this battle is coded business talk being exerted into so frequently from talk about contracts, splits, extortion, publishing, Lucian Grange, and several references to Taylor Swift.

2. Drake is one of the biggest pop artist/rapper in the world currently. If Drake and company are said to have access to Twitter bots and resources to juice the numbers how does Family Matters have less views/listens than all of Kendrick’s other disses? If the system is made for Drake to succeed and they control the pipeline, why wasn’t his stuff boosted? The guy with the larger audience doesn’t have his own audience listen to his stuff, they’d rather go listen to the other guy with the smaller audience. All of a sudden the smaller guy is pulling in your numbers, juiced up the same way. Why would you let your main guy fall?

3. Somebody at the label had to have listened to not like us before adding it to streaming platforms. They knew this would be Drake’s scarlet letter. So that song was greenlit even with its content. The song is being used in promotions now. So if they know this song is coming it sends a heavy message to Drake that he’s not protected anymore. I always remember him saying on wick man, ‘white america says I’m becoming a threat? I was like why would he say that. Real out of character. What if this attack is more coordinated than it seems? Especially with a mole that’s feeding Kendrick everything OvO is doing in real time and telling them how to counteract. I don’t think any superstar can just add songs to these platforms without an OK.

 

[bigde09]

Drake sales have quietly been declining the last few albums. Travis outsold him and had a better first week last year.

He's also not getting any younger and pushing 40. Wouldn't surprise me if they wanted someone new at the top.

 

[BigMoneyGrip]

This might be a bit too tin foil but what ever side you fall on (Drake, Kendrick or neutral), I think the industry attack on Drake is too coordinated to not have a long play in mind. A lot of posters have made the point that if you’re getting Drake out the paint, you better have a good idea of what the landscape looks like moving forward because he financially contributes too much to too many stakeholders.

What if however the play isn’t to replace him as the figurehead with another rapper but to shake up a genre that was stagnant by all reports. It was being said that Afrobeats was the new genre of choice that would be prioritised - that’s probably not sustainable though as it’s unlikely that a genre that’s not from the US will dominate the US charts over long term period.

As long as Drake has been on top, the south has been on top for 20 years and while the players have changed, from Wayne, T.I and Jeezy to Future and Thug to Lil Baby, etc, the rap scene doesn’t look that much different to what it looked like in early 2000s - it’s evolved but slowly. The south can only carry the game on its back for so long so what it the play is to bring another region in to pick up the slack and diversify the sound of the genre? New York have the Boom Bap sound which is being led by acts such as Griselda, etc but in terms of radio play and mass market adoption, it’s not gonna move like Trap is/was moving. Chicago and NY Drill in terms of the sound works but they’re too aggressive for the girls to shake ass to.

West Coast however got a scene bubbling on the low - there’s acts like Kalan Fr.Fr, Larry June, Mozzy, G Perico, Greedo, etc who can tour nationally (and in some cases internationally) and in terms of the sound, it’s something that can play nationally like when Mustard had his run 10 years ago. The narrative on the west coast is that the gang politics holds the scene back - outside of the Drake attack lines however, the main line Kendrick has been pushing is that people don’t like the west and the new narrative post ‘Not Like Us’ is that Kendrick has united the coast. The track now is most likely gonna be the new number 1 song on the chart so it’s the perfect Trojan horse to usher in the west coast sound on a national level.

I said in another thread I was confused as to why the producers Kendrick was working with on the diss tracks (Cardo, Alchemist and Mustard) are so openly spitting in Drake’s face when being a producer relies heavily on label relationships and they’ve benefitted reputationally, financially or in terms of critical acclaim working with him. Pushing the west coast sound significantly benefits Cardo and Mustard though and even though Alchemist is more Boom Bap, he’s heaving represents LA so a shift in the scene benefits all.

Why Future, Metro and anyone non-LA affiliated would play into this I don’t know - maybe its opportunity to get out of the top guy’s shadow. Before the beef went full throttle last week though, Drake was posting pictures of Nas’ manager who has been working with Kendrick and has also worked extensively with Future so he seems to think he is a key figure in this. ‘Like That’ and ‘Not Like Us’ going number 1 indicates however that general public is tired of Drake and are ready for a change and this is the perfect opportunity to reset the landscape.

Again very tin foil but I don’t think everything we’ve seen over the past month and a half is by chance.

Thing is Kendrick can’t carry rap just off the fact he’s not putting out music consistently where as Drake is however you slice it

 

[Jards]

Thing is Kendrick can’t carry rap just off the fact he’s not putting out music consistently where as Drake is however you slice it

This is why I don’t think they’re trying to replace Drake on an artist level. It definitely wouldn’t be Kendrick because as you said, he’s not active enough in terms of features, frequency of albums, touring, promo, etc to replace the leg work that Drake currently does. Kendrick’s brand is also based around quality over quantity so increasing the volume only devalues the output.

Kendrick also fulfilled his contractual obligations to the labels with the last album so in my personal opinion, I would hope that he’s not trying to play that game anyway as he doesn’t need to at this point in his career. The body work he has behind him, the accolades, the sales, etc means he really doesn’t need a machine behind him, especially coming off the back of this - everyone will tripping over themselves to work with him so he should be using this as an opportunity to set and work on his own terms moving forward. Look at Kanye - his name is in the mud to the point where he’s completely out of the system but he still managed to do 150k first week, have the number one album in the country and one of the biggest songs of the year, even with the labels and corporate partners actively trying to block him. If Kanye can do that independently, what can Kendrick do?

Moving forward, I think Drake will be the last rap superstar we see of the Wayne, 50, etc ilk where’s he just dominating the industry. I think him becoming too powerful also plays a part in what we’re seeing.

 

[Doctor Wily]

Kanye told yall two weeks ago what it is.

 

[Doctor Wily]

And for those who wanna get Drake out the paint

Be careful what you ask for , cause the next "Drake -level" superstar will more than likely be pushed by the machine and not organic.

 

[Jards]

This exchange of diss songs wasn't planned, it just happened. Kendrick fired the opening shot but Drake made the miscalculation of calling everyone else out. He burned too many bridges at the same time and that's why everyone piled on top of him.

So there was obviously no premeditated plan to get him outta here, and that's not a plan they can pick up now either.
Drake is a huge star and he's Jewish. As long as there's not too many Jewish rappers who are huge, there's zero chance the REAL industry who owns everything is going to kick out whoever is doing it big which happens to be Drake.

Nah I think this was on the table from when the unreleased Element verse was leaked last year. Everyone was surprised as to how that leaked considering TDE is such a tight knit operation - people even theorised that it was to sabotage Kendrick because he was leaving the label. In hindsight it looks like was to draw Drake out because Drake then started talking shyt at one of the concerts on his tour run.

I don’t think the industry was in on it in that aspect but I think this was always Kendrick’s play from last year. All the other aspects I theorised in my initial post probably just aligned with what Kendrick was doing and Drake’s the sacrificial lamb.

 

[CASHAPP]

Exactly. It's wild people think UMG is going to step on the artist that they clearly had designs on controlling hip hop through. For years, the "Drake Stimulus" has been what they'd throw out to younger artists to keep them from going truly independent and Kendrick broke their toy. All of them underestimated how savvy people have become to internet games plus they couldn't in their wildest dreams imagine Kendrick coming up with 4 straight haymakers. At worst, they probably thought this would end in a tie, but Drake mentioned his wife and Kendrick went nuts.

They're going to have Drake sit for a bit and have him pop out with a melodic club record with someone new in the fall. Given how loyal I've seen some of his defenders on this board he'll be fine eventually. He just ain't the golden child no more after this.

I agree except the someone new part. It will probably be a record with Bad Bunny who is an even bigger artist than Drake is and fills even bigger stadiums than him