The Hip-Hop Culture Shift
It has been a year since the popout, and the reverberation from the Kendrick struggle against Drake still felt like after-pictures. As with an earthquake, the tectonic plates that connect the culture and the industry have shifted and hip-hop may never be the same. With Drake’s subsequent lawsuit about "not like us", the fight has metastasized that could damage hip-hop in the long term.
The High School Analogy
This whole saga has a small undercut, so it feels appropriate to explain it through the lens of classic Hollywood High School films. In this film, the school is hip-hop culture. Our story begins before the fight. Kendrick is a senior and the coolest guy at school. He gets perfect grades because he is brilliant, but he is also loved because of his reality – he embodies what school is about.
Kendrick: The Embodiment of Hip-Hop
Kendrick is the synonym for the place that is hip-hop culture. He has spent his whole life there and is such a part of it that he is the school. Whatever the colors of this imaginary school are, he has bled them. He is the perfect representation of what hip-hop is all about.
Drake: The Foreign Exchange Student
Drake, on the other hand, is popular and charismatic, but he is the foreign exchange student. He is less coarse-grained and real than Kendrick – more of a lover boy. He fits the classic Hollywood foreign exchange student archetype: someone who does not quite understand the culture around them. Drake’s fatal mistake is that he doesn’t really understand hip-hop culture, even though he is part of it. He knows the written rules, but not the unwritten ones.
The Feud Begins
This is reflected in what the feud primarily started. In 2013, Kendrick dropped a generally important verse on Big Sean’s "Control", in which he called out all his contemporaries in hip-hop by name. It was not personal. He didn’t attack anyone; he said, "I’m the best of my generation" and did it in a very hip-hop way. Most MCs took Kendrick’s move in the spirit of the culture. But not Drake.
Misunderstanding the Culture
In several interviews, Drake complained that he did not understand what Kendrick did. He did not understand that in hip-hop, a diss track with your name is not necessarily an attack. But Drake is not deep enough in the culture to know that. As a result, he took Kendrick’s verse as a personal attack and responded accordingly.
The Lawsuit
Drake’s answer to Kendrick’s "Not Like Us" was to file a defamation lawsuit against the Universal Music Group, the record company of both rappers. Drake claimed in the lawsuit that the song was "intended to convey the specific, unmistakable and wrong fact that Drake is a criminal pedophile, and to suggest that the public should fall back on vigilance in response to the judiciary." He argued that the success of the song was fueled by the support of UMG to damage his image.
The Consequences of the Lawsuit
The lawsuit was without a question the most mischievous move. I think this lawsuit has caused more damage to Drake’s image and his career than ever losing the battle. You can lose a fight with dignity and go away with respect. He survived in 2018 against Pusha T. But it is much more difficult to survive a painful loser.
The Precedent
Drake’s lawsuit is still moving through the courts, but the precedent that he could set is worrying. Corporate lawyers are happy to get ahead of potential problems. Diss tracks could grow hesitantly due to individuals. If an artist could successfully sue a diss, would that stifle the last of labels (and so widely) diss tracks? That would be a loss for culture.
The Importance of Diss Tracks
The fight is a core element of hip-hop. Some of the biggest moments of the genre came from an MC trying to destroy another: Tupac’s "Hit Em Up", NAS’s "Ether", Jay-Z’s "Takeover", Ice Cube’s "No Vaseline". These were not vague or subliminal. They named names. They sunk the earth. And they were beautiful. Hip-hop lives from this type of energy. We want rappers to go to war sometimes.
The Legacy of the Feud
But it looks like Drake is the last big rapper that is dissed in a big record. And maybe Drake’s legacy will be: the guy who lost the biggest struggle in rap history – and then fought overall. The painful loser who stepped away the ball so that nobody could play. Thank you, Drake.
