Drake vs Everybody: Million-Dollar Egos

Photo from The Come Up Show via Wikimedia Commons

Kyle and Miguel are two music fans who have been listening to these artists for almost a decade; we got together to discuss the recent debacle between Drake and an onslaught of rappers. Deciding to focus on four main players – Drake, Kendrick Lamar, Rick Ross and Ye – we concluded that these men are way too grown to be petty fighting. Shout out to Drake's plastic surgeon.

Why Is Everybody So Mad?

Miguel: Did you find any origins to the beef? Do you know why Kendrick may have started it?

Kyle: I think the biggest thing, especially over the past year, was seeing Drake and J. Cole being all buddy-buddy; going on tour, dropping “First-Person Shooter,” basically saying ‘we’re on top, we’re the two, we’re getting all these streams, we’re the Big Men On Campus.’ And Kendrick is seeing this and is thinking, ‘Seriously? You guys think you can compare to me?’ Honestly, it [“Like That”] kind of was a weak diss.

Miguel: Yeah, I didn’t think it would spark this much.

Kyle: Not in the sense that it was a bad diss, it was just very minimal.

Miguel: It was whatever. Kendrick mentions “First-Person Shooter” in his diss, which is funny because J. Cole actually shouts out Kendrick in the song. The sentiment from Kendrick, at least from my perspective, is that he wants to differentiate himself from Drake and Cole. You know, with the TikTok-ey, punchy lyric saying, “[There’s no] big three, it’s just big me.” I’m fascinated to hear Kendrick go there. I don’t think it was something that needed to be said. 

Kyle: I agree.

Miguel: People would compare them, but those people are the ones on rap Instagram, the type of people to follow DJ Akademiks, you know. It’s a fun rap community thing, but it's not something I thought Kendrick would engage in. Do you think Kendrick's engaging almost ‘lowers’ him to the poppier level that Drake and J. Cole are at?

Kyle: I’d say a little bit. I think if you are “that guy,” and you really want to differentiate yourself from them, why say anything? You can just let them say anything. It seems like Drake and J. Cole would be the ones to start something — more Drake than J. Cole honestly. I’d expect Kendrick to be the one to respond to something, but I would never expect him to start something, and it’s weird that he did.

The Big Three Nostalgia Tour:

Miguel: I wanted to go into this conversation looking at it from the top down, and I think when you remove yourself from it, it becomes a lot less interesting. Like, the disses are funny, but they’re petty, and ultimately, petty things mean nothing in the long run. The most interesting thing that can happen out of this is if there’s a “Big Three” tour announcement or show. Like the Kanye/Drake beef, the show they had in Los Angeles, and that was huge and built up.

Kyle: Exactly, yeah

Miguel: It’s all press.

Kyle: Yeah. God, can you imagine? They come out, and they’re like, “The Big Three Tour!” What world is this, where we’re waiting on all these disses, and they’re going in, talking about ‘you’re short’ and ‘you can’t fill my shoes,’ and then they’re like: “Alright guys, we’re going on tour, buy your tickets!”

Miguel: Yeah, “going on tour!”

Kyle: I mean, it would make sense, though. Money-wise, relevancy-wise.

Miguel: Kyle, can you imagine how much those tickets would be?

Kyle: Yeah, it would be ridiculous; the nosebleeds would be, like, thousands of dollars.

Miguel: If it is set up for a tour, I think it’s really good marketing for a nostalgia tour. I think all of these artists have hit that point where they’re past their prime, and people listen to their old stuff for nostalgia. Like on the way here, I was listening to “good kid, m.A.A.d city,” and that album is already a decade old. It has held up, but I know Kendrick isn’t going to release an album like that again.

Grown Men That Can’t Get Off The Playground:

Miguel: Kendrick isn't funny enough to be in a beef like this. I mean, he’s really witty, but Drake is funnier than Kendrick, so Drake is gonna beat Kendrick in a beef. No one cares about your double or triple entendres when you guys are fighting. When you’re roasting your friends, you aren’t looking for the deepest thing to say; you’re looking for the funniest things. Someone can say the deepest thing, but if you call someone short, it’s over.

Kyle: I can never see Kendrick saying that Metro [Boomin] line; he’d be like, ‘No, I can’t do that.’ Whereas Drake is like, ‘This is hilarious.’

Miguel: I’m taking it from the perspective of why start a beef that you’re not well equipped for? 

Kyle: Yeah, I agree; I think that’s the main point here.

Miguel: He’s too witty or too conscious of a rapper to be in a beef, but he’s the one who started it. I mean, Kendrick is so societal and so analytical; it's as if a sociologist were a rapper.

Kyle: Where Kendrick went wrong in starting this was placing his diss in Drake’s wheelhouse. If he had started a beef about the art he makes, or the respect he has, or something like that, where Drake can’t really say anything, it would have been way more beneficial to him.

Miguel: Yeah, exactly.

Kyle: He started the beef about relevance and popularity, and Drake’s like: ‘I own you in that. You really can’t come for me about that because, yeah, sure, you have the albums, but I’m way more popular than you and I’ll always be relevant.’

Miguel: I’m so happy we came to the same conclusion, and I think that’s why this is such an annoying beef. It’s so hard to find an origin because, yeah, why would you do that?

Kyle: I know, it makes no sense. If you’re gonna start a beef, have it be from a place where the other guy isn’t miles ahead of you.

Miguel: If we can find a conclusion, it’s that Kendrick is clearly insecure about how popular Drake is.

Kyle: Yeah.

Miguel: Yeah, I think that’s all this beef boils down to; it’s a playground fight over popularity because the smart kid wants to be the popular kid.
Kyle: Exactly; you can’t have your cake and eat it too.