It’s what the whole rap world is talking about today.
Big Sean dropped a record that was supposed to be make his upcoming Hall Of Fame album, but didn’t due to sample clearance reasons, late last night. His verse was dope. He found the newly ambitious Jay Electronica and got him to spit on the track. Sean Don also recruited the acclaimed No I.D. to produce the record…
And yet none of this is what got the streets and tweets buzzing.
Kendrick Lamar — who is becoming quite accustomed to stealing the spotlight — dropped what many are calling the verse of the year on Big Sean’s “Control”.
K Dot essentially DeAndre Jordan’ed the entire rap game in about three minutes, and everybody had their chance to play Brandon Knight. He respectfully took aim at Drake, J. Cole, Meek Mill, Wale and a slew of other young lyricist, including the two men that were featured on the the track with him! He also claimed to reside in a class with Jay Z, Nas, Andre 300 and Eminem, while also calling himself the “King of New York”. And he did it all on a track that wasn’t even his!
Rightfully so, New Yorkers seemed to be particularly offended, even if they did misdirect that anger.
As much as twitter and the rest of the global hip-hop community may be trippin of all the names that were mentioned, it’s what Kendrick didn’t say that was equally as telling.
A true student of the game, Kendrick segregated the new school from the veterans on his verse. He payed homage to the vets, but went at the esophagus of the rooks. And those that were omitted altogether? They either need to throw their rhyme book in the trash and start over, or blow the weed ashes off of it and crack it open again— whichever the case may dictate.
Members of the new class that didn’t get a mention (Action Bronson, Joey Bada$$, B.O.B., Danny Brown, MGK, Wiz Khalifa, Kid Cudi, A$AP Everybody not named Rocky, the entire new class of female emcees and French Montana…yeah I threw French in there just cause, among others) need to figure out why they’re not even on Kendrick’s radar. Longtime rhymers that went unnamed (Jadakiss, Fabolous, Rick Ross, T.I., Talib Kweli, Lupe Fiasco, Kanye West, Game, all of Slaughterhouse and Lil Wayne, among others) ought to be asking themselves why Kendrick didn’t include them in the first list — especially if they’re not getting money out here — and what do they need to do to change it.
The first New Yorker to openly accept Kendrick’s challenge was Joell Ortiz, who brought the heat with him to the booth in his response record “Outta Control”. It’s a solid start, but the rest of the rap game has been warned and needs to raise the bar(s) even higher. Kendrick Lamar’s call to action/atomic bomb last night may have changed the hip-hop landscape for the foreseeable future.
A change that, frankly, its been needing for a long time.