What Kendrick Lamar taught me about facing enemies – Andscape

Kendrick Lamar has spent the previous couple of months displaying greater than a decade of mounting tension and ailing will towards his rap rival, Drake. Since late March, Lamar has broken five diss records, three of them in quick succession over the weekend. He channeled all his aggression and resentment into the tactical assassination of rap’s biggest star in probably the most embarrassing, public way possible. Lamar had 4 diss records on the Billboard Hot 100 (three in the highest ten), calling Drake a cheater, a liar, a master manipulator, a person who has issues along with his blackness, a loser, a father with a gambling addiction and someone who hid his 11-12 months-old daughter . Much of the rap world crowned Lamar as the person who rules the genre and defeated his nemesis by publicly humiliating the person he had hated for years.

Through all of it, I’ve wavered between wanting to be like Kendrick Lamar and envying him for the way in which he punished the person he felt so strongly about. I had dreams that I desired to cause this type of embarrassment and harm to people I despise, but seeing the fallout from the Great Rap Feud made me reconsider.

Let me explain.

There are a handful of individuals on the earth I actually hate.

They were friends. There were members of the family. People I once trusted. And individuals who have felt the comfort of cold silence and passive aggression for years. They share a standard ability to gaslight to such an extent that they will pretend that any act of revenge will probably be unexpected. But I do know what they did to me. And I do know what they deserve.

If you are reading this, I’m sure you’ve got been here too. The problem with cold wars is that the one that finally pushes the button to heat things up looks just like the unmentioned aggressor. So we wait. We wait for the moment when the enemy stumbles and proves that he deserves our anger. But if you wait too long, the urge to attack begins to devour you. Until that anger becomes an element of you.

I often create fictional interactions where I’m forced to take it out on people I despise. Where I can finally tell them – and, truthfully, the world – how I feel and why these people deserve the evil that my particular anger has brought into their lives.

When I take a shower, I let the water wash over my face and silently mouth what I might say to my enemies if the moment got here when their plausible denial disappeared and so they did what allowed me to be my most brutal self towards them.

I dreamed about it. Very.

But I’ve also spent the previous couple of weeks pondering about Drake’s retreat and where Kendrick Lamar awaits. Professionally, Lamar will likely enjoy his victory – rumors are circulating:Not like us” the video will probably be released soon – after which he’ll return to his quiet life between albums. He will still should endure a number of the rumors related to the feud, namely Drake’s allegations that Lamar abused his partner. Though admittedly, the burden of responsibility to disclaim is not that heavy for Lamar considering Drake is the one source of the rumors. Still, some fans will all the time demand answers from the Compton MC. Lamar may also should reckon along with his own musical contradictions, namely his tendency to interact in gossip, mudslinging and moralizing about the treatment of girls with a purpose to destroy Drake, despite the fact that Lamar featured Kodak Black, who to confess guilt to first-degree assault and battery on a highschool student in 2021, on his latest album entitled

This controversy will mostly fade away as Lamar presumably becomes rap’s recent top dog. It will probably be interesting to see how the rapper who told Drake “Only you like being famous” on the diss album “Euphoria” has now develop into as famous as Drake, or possibly as famous as any rapper ever, due to the meat that has develop into the popular culture story of 2024. Lamar’s next album will probably be as highly anticipated as any album in rap history. It’ll probably be sensible because he hasn’t given us any reason to expect otherwise.

These predictions are good material for hairdressing debates and discussions about the condition of hip-hop.

I’m fascinated by what’s in Kendrick Lamar’s heart and the way he cares for it.

It’s clear that Lamar has harbored a deep disdain for Drake since their Cold War began a decade ago. While the 2 traded subliminal jabs, there all the time appeared to be a deeper venom in Lamar’s that warned that if/when he and Drake butted heads, it will be a no-holds-barred fight. While Drake was telling his rival, “Your shit ain’t that inspiring,” Lamar was growling over the beats and throwing out lines like, “They can bury him, they appointed six to carry him,” referring to Toronto, referred to as “The Six,” where Drake resides, and the thought that someday he’ll die due to their feud.

Lamar has been like this for years. Each project – from albums just like the signature freestyle “Heart” to the soundtrack – included several arguments and warnings directed at Drake. But it wasn’t clear what resentment Lamar had built up through the years until he released his first full-throated diss track:Euphoria”, just a few weeks after Drake’s first direct salvo, the push-up count dropped. While Drake rapped about Lamar’s shoe size and his record label’s earnings, Lamar said things like, “I hate the way you walk, the way you talk, I hate the way you dress,” within the song, which angered Drake wanting to appropriate black American culture and for his feuds with black women. “Euphoria” felt like Lamar finally set free something that had been in his lungs for ten years, burning to get out.

ON “Not like us”, the latest song from the barbarian Lamar, raps that he has five more songs recorded to discredit Drake. But a few days later its historical edition, Drake apparently backed out of the fight. “That was good practice,” he rapped in “Heart, part 6”, his last song within the feud.

I’m wondering how Lamar reacted to his opponent withdrawing and the way he feels now that he’s only released half the songs he recorded to let the world understand how he feels about Drake. Two of the unreleased songs are rumored to be particularly devastating, but Lamar has already said enough about Drake — enough to all but extinguish his superstardom, or not less than dim his shine. However, knowing that he still has twice as many songs within the vault makes me wonder if Kendrick Lamar is pleased along with his victory, or if the heads of the last nails in Drake’s coffin are still digging into his body. Does he still write lyrics about Drake in his notebook? Is there a closure?

It wasn’t until I began pondering about the aftermath of Kendrick Lamar and Drake’s feud, and particularly the previous’s response to his victory, that I started to think beyond revenge fantasies for those to whom I desired to direct my very own “diss records.” I began pondering about what would occur to me if I said what I needed to say. When I actually have confronted, fought, embarrassed, humiliated and even ruined people, I consider I deserve it. I do not know if I’ll stop having future fights within the shower. I do not know if I might have hoped they’d ask for it again so I could offload any recent injuries or deeper cuts. I do not know what victory would feel like in cases of emotional abuse.

I all the time thought that blowing up my enemies would free me from things I carried deep inside me. But when I feel about Kendrick Lamar and what he still holds inside and what he should feel for Drake, I’m wondering if the sweetness of his victory comes with freedom from bad feelings. I won’t lie: despite what therapists, friends and confidants tell me, I still wish to hit individuals with my very own version of “Euphoria.” But I also know that it won’t bring me the peace I assumed it will. I actually have to release it myself. I not envy Kendrick Lamar. I envy those that know methods to find release without dropping bombs first.

I actually have to want something greater than applause, disses and aggression. I actually have to want the identical thing I need for Kendrick, Drake, and everybody else carrying the burden of contempt for the enemy.

I have to wish to free myself from the burden that weighs us down and sinks us knee-deep in mud. My freedom relies on it.