Tag Archive | Rick Ross
November 25, 2024  

The Braids, The Bars, and the Blackness: Ruminations on Hip Hop’s World War III – Drake versus Kendrick (Part Three) 

A Conversation by Todd Craig and LeBrandon Smith

Happy Hip Hop History Month! Last week writer, educator and DJ Todd Craig and cultural curator and social impact leader LeBrandon Smith kicked off their three part series parsing out this past spring’s beef between Kendrick Lamar and Drake, Hip Hop history in the making. We left off in the breath-holding moment just after Kendrick released “Euphoria” and “6:16 in LA” after eleven days of anticipation. Since the dust has settled a bit between K-Dot and OVO, it’s the perfect time for these intergenerational Hip Hop heads to tap in and sort out what this epic beef really meant for the artists, the sound, and most importantly, the culture. School is IN, yall!  Click this link to read Part I; click this link to read Part II. And yes, we know a new Kendrick album came out! #whew #tvoff #whatatimetobealive

Approximately 14 hours after Kendrick released “6:16 in LA,” Drake responded with “Family Matters” on May 3, 2024. We’re connecting it to the ending snippet of “Push Ups,” which insinuates it may have been recorded even before the prior two Kendrick songs (we also get this song as a video, so the visuals add another element).

The three-part diss track aims at multiple people (Rick Ross, A$AP Rocky, the Weeknd [aka Abel Tesfaye], Metro Boomin and others), but its most disrespectful lines are clearly aimed at Kendrick. This is really and truly the moment when Drake moves to bring Kendrick’s family into his bars. He also aims at Kendrick’s blackness in a confusing line, saying “always rappin’ like you ‘bout to get the slaves freed/ You just actin’ like an activist, it’s make-believe.” This was a line we both agreed was not only a problematic misstep, but would taint some of the other formative disses in the song. In a moment where Drake’s own blackness and identity were in question, calling his own supporters – Black people – “slaves,” who need to get “freed” does more work to prove Kendrick’s point than to further Drake’s lyrical prowess on the scorecard. Todd also identified the second verse of “Family Matters” (from 2:43-5:15) as the most formidable – the beat switch, cadence and flow, that pocket Drake taps into lyrically is one of his best rapping moments of the battle. Drake’s flow in this part is impeccable, as we see him rhyming in rapid fire, sending shots against multiple foes.

LeBrandon tapped into the third verse (5:16 to 7:36), when out the gate, Drake says “Kendrick just opened his mouth, somebody hand him a Grammy right now.” Drake is at his best when he’s being facetious and petty and his hate for the Grammys is well documented. Drake disrespecting revered entities during this battle was enjoyable and garnered attention; anytime you can call an opponent’s accolades into question – whether it’s a Grammy or a Pulitzer – it’s helpful in a rap battle. LeBrandon could also imagine Kendrick chuckling at a few of the height one-liners like “These bars go over Kenny’s head no matter what I say,” as K.Dot manically crafted his response. 

LeBrandon also pointed out that ownership of jewelry in Hip Hop is a staple, so he appreciated the flex of “You wanna take up for Pharrell?/ Then come get his legacy outta my house.” Since when is it acceptable for another rapper to own jewelry you purchased and proudly wore? We understand Drake owning Pharrell’s jewelry isn’t to pay homage, but to spite Pharrell and The Clipse. The quote is a great retort by Drake, and a keen reminder of how villainous and strategic he can be. This bar felt like the Michael Jordan shrug in audio form. Regardless of how Drake acquired the jewelry, he has it and that matters, and creating a visual in New Ho King with these pieces is devious work. 

LeBrandon literally let out an audible sigh when we heard Drake say, “Your daddy got robbed by Top…” Rap is entertainment so there’s an expectation that lies may surface. Great lyrical battles are like playing the dozens: to garner the most rousing response from the audience, folks will definitely exaggerate. But we agreed that this line ain’t that. This is just straight up faulty comprehension, as the story of Kendrick’s dad and Top Dog’s meeting (in the song, “DUCKWORTH” ) was not a robbery narrative. Part of war is knowing your opponent’s weaknesses and “DUCKWORTH” as a song is bulletproof.

After Drake’s brash talking on both the verses and outro of “Taylor Made Freestyle” warning Kendrick he should be prepared, this uninformed lyrical analysis, or misstep at rewriting the factual narrative is disappointing, specifically because Drake is so talented; misses like this in the midst of a legendary battle makes him look foolish and lazy. Unfortunately, this isn’t the only time Drake does this during the battle, but we found this occurrence quite jarring.

We both agreed the craziest turn of events for the battle was when MINUTES after “Family Matters” dropped, Kendrick responded with “Meet the Grahams”: the darkest and most sinister song of the battle. The way in which Kendrick composed an open letter to members of Drake’s family after Drake mentioned Kendrick’s fiancé by name along with other accusations, put Kendrick in a space he describes, saying “this supposed to be a good exhibition within the game/ But you fucked up the moment you called out my family’s name/ Why you had to stoop so low to discredit some decent people?/ Guess integrity is lost when the metaphors doesn’t reach you.” This song exemplifies why Kendrick has been given the “BoogeyMan” moniker. These dark and disturbing lyrics are what nightmares are made of; and what better way to tap into such a dark landscape than with an eerie beat produced by the Alchemist.

We agreed it was the moment in the battle where Kendrick’s cerebral nature fully set in: new vocals, new flows and a new attack on Drake’s morals and character. At this point in the battle, Todd hoped Drake stopped rhyming because of just how dark this sonic happening was. “Meet the Grahams” is a cerebral and intense listening experience that took the battle to a whole other level. In addition, K.Dot showed us just how much he liked “Back to Back,” as he would double down and double-drop again, this time with the anthem “Not Like Us.” We both agreed that “Meet the Grahams” was the dark, uncomfortable turn, and “Not Like Us” felt like the sonic nails in the coffin for the battle. Besides the absolute instrumental bop DJ Mustard provides for Kendrick, the lyrics coupled with the anthem-feeling hook felt like Kendrick had outsmarted Drake, and simply beat him to the “bop-punch” that we’ve known Drake to produce.

When we listened to the bars, “I’m finna pass on this body, I’m John Stockton/ Beat your ass and hide the Bible if God watchin’/ Sometimes you gotta pop out and show niggas,” we knew it was going to be downhill for Drake. As Kendrick moved through the verses and tapped into the last verse with the lesson on Drake’s sonic connections to Atlanta, and calling him a “colonizer,” an important sentiment popped up for Todd. What’s really deceptive about these lines is that Kendrick is leaning into generational and cultural Blackness. He does it earlier in the references that LeBrandon picked up on with hair and “the braids.” But these sayings K.Dot continuously extols not only emanate from Southern culture, but are also older sentiments from elders in the Black community. So when Kendrick inserts these lines, they’re more harsh than even some of the direct disses, because they lean into Black American culture in ways that Drake would never understand as either a Canadian or a kid visiting his dad in the states (evidenced by “always rappin’ like you ‘bout to get the slaves freed”). However, sonically, it feels “super Black” – putting Black listeners right at home, like they’re hearing their grandma chastise someone. So by the time Kendrick gets to the call and response moment of “Lemme hear you say ‘O-V-Hoe’” (again, another Black trope that transcends Hip Hop), as listeners, we already feel like we’re in the livest cook-out and block party of the summer!

As we tuned into “The Heart Part 6” on May 5, 2024, we both agreed Drake sounded defeated, he was clearly waving the white flag, and he was continuing down the road of missteps that were no longer forgivable. When he lays the bars, “My Montreal connects stand up, not fall down/the ones that you’re gettin’ your stories from, they all clowns,” only to follow up three bars later with, “we plotted for a week and then we fed you the information,” it became clear that even Drake wasn’t sure how to move through the rest of the song as well as the battle. This was another unforced error, a critical misstep Drake simply could not afford at this juncture.

When thinking of this moment alongside Drake’s lack of comprehension around Kendrick’s song, “Mother I Sober,” (where Kendrick touches on abuse in his family – not to be confused with a personal admission of sexual abuse) this stands as Drake’s weakest song in the battle. It also doesn’t stand close to Kendrick’s initial chess move of usurping Drake’s “timestamp songs” – when Kendrick presents “6:16 in LA” (a series Drake has used on almost all of his albums), it proves to be a more robust offering than “The Heart Part 6” (a series Kendrick has used in his career). After this offering from Drake, we see The Ken and Friends: Pop Out (a concert streamed live via Amazon Prime on June 19, 2024: Juneteenth), followed by the “Not Like Us” video (which was released on July 4, 2024: Independence Day). These two drops on cultural “Independence Days” just furthers the notion that Kendrick had a level of vision and foresight far beyond where Drake could imagine. By “The Heart Part 6,” we also agreed Drake thought the song and visuals to “Family Matters” (which was probably recorded around the same time as “Push Ups” and “Taylor Made Freestyle”) would be the end of the battle with Kendrick. An egregious misstep by both Drake and his team to underestimate the BoogeyMan in such a way. 

We close this article sharing an important intergenerational conversation that will serve as a Hip Hop cultural landmark. We’ve both seen various videos and TikToks deconstructing many of the “Easter eggs” left by both Drake and Kendrick in this battle. We hope this article serves as another perspective on how we might be able to think about these songs and this battle from a music as well as a cultural perspective, specifically as it relates to all things Hip Hop. And again, we both agreed there are complicated messages and moments in the battle that require further attention and future analysis.

We also felt a responsibility in sharing this dialogue in an academic space as two avid Hip Hop listeners from two different generations with two different seasoned and highly informed viewpoints. Our perspectives on Hip Hop are forever altered, especially with this battle following the 50th anniversary of the culture last year. So we feel obliged to document this moment, as the battle raised a series of questions for us. We introduce some of those questions throughout the article, while some questions might be answered over time, and others might never see a response. Each of our questions generate analysis that will remain critically relevant to the resonance of this historic battle, which has turned into a cultural moment and movement. It’s crucial to consider the artistic creation outside of any two individuals, as Hip Hop proved with this battle that it remains the biggest culture shaper in our world today.

We hope to see your thoughts on the topic, and, just like Kendrick, we reserve the right to return, and to even “pop out” one more time. . .Superbowl LVIII?  

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Our Icon for this series is a mash up of “Kendrick Lamar (Sziget Festival 2018)” taken by Flickr User Peter Ohnacker (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) and “Drake, Telenor Arena 2017” taken by Flickr User Kim Erlandsen, NRK P3 (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

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Todd Craig (he/him) is a writer, educator and DJ whose career meshes his love of writing, teaching and music. His research inhabits the intersection of writing and rhetoric, sound studies and Hip Hop studies. He is the author of “K for the Way”: DJ Rhetoric and Literacy for 21st Century Writing Studies (Utah State University Press) which examines the Hip Hop DJ as twenty-first century new media reader, writer, and creator of the discursive elements of DJ rhetoric and literacy. Craig’s publications include the multimodal novel tor’cha (pronounced “torture”), and essays in various edited collections and scholarly journals including The Bloomsbury Handbook of Hip Hop Pedagogy, Amplifying Soundwriting, Methods and Methodologies for Research in Digital Writing and Rhetoric, Fiction International, Radical Teacher, Modern Language Studies, Changing English, Kairos, Composition Studies and Sounding Out! Dr. Craig teaches courses on writing, rhetoric, African American and Hip Hop Studies, and is the co-host of the podcast Stuck off the Realness with multi-platinum recording artist Havoc of Mobb Deep. Presently, Craig is an Associate Professor of African American Studies at New York City College of Technology and English at the CUNY Graduate Center.

LeBrandon Smith (he/him) is a cultural curator and social impact leader born and raised in Brooklyn and Queens, respectively.  Coming from New York City, his efforts to bridge gaps, and build  community have been central to his work, but most notably his passion for music has fueled his career. His programming  has been seen throughout the Metropolitan area, including historical venues like Carnegie Hall, The Museum of the City of NY (MCNY) and Brooklyn Public Library.

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REWIND!…If you liked this post, you may also dig:

The Braids, The Bars, and the Blackness: Ruminations on Hip Hop’s World War III – Drake versus Kendrick (Part One): Todd Craig and LeBrandon Smith 

The Braids, The Bars, and the Blackness: Ruminations on Hip Hop’s World War III – Drake versus Kendrick (Part Two): Todd Craig and LeBrandon Smith 

“Heavy Airplay, All Day with No Chorus”: Classroom Sonic Consciousness in the Playlist Project—Todd Craig

SO! Reads: “K for the Way”: DJ Rhetoric and Literacy for 21st Century Writing Studies—DeVaughn (Dev) Harris 

SO! Amplifies: Regina Bradley’s Outkasted Conversations

Sounding Out! Podcast #28: Off the 60: A Mix-Tape Dedication to Los Angeles–Jennifer Lynn Stoever

January 28, 2013  

I Like the Way You Rhyme, Boy: Hip Hop Sensibility and Racial Trauma in Django Unchained

SO IASPM7

Welcome to week two of  our February Forum on “Sonic Borders,”  a collaboration with the IASPM-US blog in connection with this year’s IASPM-US conference on Liminality and Borderlands, held in Austin, Texas from February 28 to March 3, 2013.  The “Sonic Borders” forum is a Virtual Roundtable cross-blog entity that will feature six Sounding Out! writers posting on Mondays through February 25, and four writers from IASPM-US, posting on Wednesdays starting February 6th and ending February 27th.  For an encore of week one of the forum, click here. And now, put your hands together for Regina Bradley!–JSA

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I’m most haunted by a scene in the film Django Unchained  (2012) where a slave and former mandingo fighter is torn to bits by dogs offscreen. After seeing the dogs begin to maim the slave, the scene rapidly cuts away to former slave and bounty hunter Django’s expression (played by Jamie Foxx) while the man hollers in pain amidst the growl of dogs in the background. The scene’s grisliness was not situated within Quentin Tarantino’s signature visual violence, but in its sound.  Sound better relayed the violence imposed upon the man’s body, signifying the unavailability of literal or visual discourse to speak to the racial trauma black bodies continuously face.

“Django unchained, omaggio a Quentin Tarantino alla Cineteca di Bologna” by Flickr user Il Fatto Quotidiano under a Creative Commons 2.0 Licence

Tarantino’s use of sound in this scene and the rest of the film capitalizes on an intriguing alternative to investigating racial trauma narratives in our current popular imagination. I know folks are tired of hearing about Django Unchained, but hear me out. Er, hear Quentin Tarantino out. No, I’m not talking about interviews or dribble about how he was a slave in his last life or two but rather the way he manipulates music to present a soudscape where revenge fantasies are okay. Unlike past sonic renderings of slavery like the O’Jays’ track “Ship Ahoy,”  Django retraces the slave narrative in a contemporary social-cultural moment. Tarantino’s redrawing represents how postracialism provides a scapegoat for (a)historical representations of racial trauma and violence.  I am most interested in the ways that the Django Unchained soundscape provides Tarantino a way to dabble in what historian and blogger Jelani Cobb calls “racial ventriloquism” by allowing him to present a sonically revisionist representation of the intersections of slave discourse, black manhood, and trauma.

If it is true that Jamie Foxx asserted that “hip hop goes hand in hand with Quentin Tarantino” then Django reflects a type of hip hop sensibility that is situated between hip hop’s commodification as the most visible form of contemporary black culture and as the most accessible form of blackness and black expression. If I had to pinpoint it, I’d suggest Tarantino’s inclusion of two rappers, Tupac Shakur and Rick Ross, within Django is no doubt a nod toward a gangsta rap sensibility that Tarantino appropriates for his slave narrative/western. Shakur’s song “Unchained” plays in the film’s trailers; Ross’s “100 Black Coffins” plays in the movie and its rolling credits. Sampling from Tupac Shakur’s music as a member of the group Outlawz reflects the vengeful, if not nihilistic, undertones of gangsta rap that run parallel to the spaghetti western aesthetic that Django is primarily framed within. Not only is Django a badass and outlaw in the sense that he is a freed slave bounty hunter roaming the South in search of his woman, but Tupac’s song contextualizes him as a gangsta badass outlaw bounty hunter who exists in the fringes of normative society. He is not the norm, but rather the exceptionally violent Negro that we as an audience root for. We want him to be violent. Violence is not only a fantasy but a privilege we want to give Django because of the violence inflicted upon him as a former slave.

“Unchained,” a mashup of James Brown’s “The Payback” and Tupac Shakur’s posthumous release “Untouchable,” sonically corresponds to these desires, using funk and the underlying association of violence in gangsta rap to provide a backdrop to cheer for Django’s violent revenge. The song utilizes sound bytes of Django and his bounty hunter partner/emancipator King Schultz (played by Christopher Waltz) interwoven with samples of “The Payback”  in order to provide the context of why Django becomes unchained and displaced from the traditional impositions of violence seen in slave narratives.

A reflection of hip hop in terms of production – sampling and blending to create a unique new sound – “Unchained” also provides its listeners with a bridge between a (revisionist) slave narrative and contemporary racial violence. As the song opens, a prominent electric guitar strums to remind the listener of its western generic context but gives way to an emphatic crescendo of the horns that introduce “The Payback.” The loudness of the horns signifies the arrival of something great–Django’s arrival. The horns demand the listener’s attention. James Brown sings “sold me out, for chump change. . .told me that they, had it all arranged” sets up Django’s literal and sonic “emancipation,” correlating “sold me out” to being sold as a slave. A sound byte of King Schultz shooting Django’s overseer immediately follows Brown’s verse, bridging Brown’s verse of “time to get ready for the big payback” with Django’s freedom in the film. Django’s change in stature is sonically affirmed by an adamant and hype Shakur, rhetorically asking in loop “Am I wrong ‘cause I wanna get it on til I die?!” Shakur’s voice over the infamous horns of “Payback” and Brown’s signature scream relay the urgency of Django’s mission and past traumas, emphasizing not only black men’s capability but willingness to be violent when threatened.

“Django unchained, omaggio a Quentin Tarantino alla Cineteca di Bologna” by Flickr user Il Fatto Quotidiano under a Creative Commons 2.0 License

Another reading of this loop suggests the inherent need for black men to be violent, an essentialized (mis)conceptualization of contemporary black men within a gangsta rap aesthetic that parallels Tarantino’s (re)vengeful intentions for Django Freeman. The call and response between Shakur and the sound byte of Foxx repeating “I love the way you die boy” loosely correlates and subverts the racial trauma that often provides the foundation for slavery discourse. Foxx’s sample comes from a scene in the film where Django has just shot and killed his former overseer. The line is an inversion of when Django previously begged for mercy for his wife Broomhilda and the overseer sneered “I like the way you beg, boy.” The triumphant rendering of Brown’s horns and the loop of Shakur, when heard in conjunction with Foxx’s sound byte, signify that Django has, indeed, got the big payback.  The sound bytes of Django’s voice provides a challenge to the literal slave’s voice while the music provides a backdrop for what a slave’s revenge may sound like, subverting the racial trauma inflicted on slaves.

James Brown and Tupac Shakur reflect pivotal moments of black masculinity from soul and early renderings of commodified rap, but Rick Ross reflects a more contemporary moment of black masculinity and violence within hip hop as a multicultural space. It is significant that Django includes this moment of hip hop because it similarly frames the haziness of racial politics that contextualizes the film.  Ross’s “100 Black Coffins” showcases a gruff Rick Ross spitting bars about violent repercussions and avenging himself and slave women:

The track reflects a sonic representation of the American South as a site of racial trauma as seen in the American popular imagination.  There is a minute and, if unaware of the film’s homage, a quickly fleeting understanding of the black coffin as representative of the original Django’s coffin that he carried around with him as a reminder of his traumatic experience and need for revenge. The sonic feel of this track is overtly masculine, consisting of Ross’s signature grunt, a lone whistle, a wailing male chorus, and hard-hitting percussion. Ross’s demands for black coffins, black pastors, and black bibles against a sonic backdrop of wails and an unsettling bell toll inflict a similarly violent Southern cultural soundscape.

Furthermore,  the understanding of blackness as pathological due to the trauma blacks experience, frames Ross’s narrative as parallel to Django’s (if he were a rapper). I’m particularly struck by  “100 Black Coffins” for two reasons: Rick Ross’s beat (he never picks a lame one) and Ross’ call and response with himself. Furthermore, the urgency and depth that Ross presents in his background ad libs is a haunting reflection of black (slave) men’s inability to avenge and protect their families and themselves.  Ross’ solo call and response signifies a coping mechanism for the solitary existence many slaves faced when disconnected from loved ones. Ross seamlessly interchanges ahistorical images and hip hop memes against a sonic backdrop that reflects the use of sound as a usefully ahistorical space where a ‘mash-up’ of blacks’ past and present can collide. Ross talking about slinging drugs from the block extends to blacks being sold on a slave block without a question of how the two correlate. This is undoubtedly problematic but, within the context of Django as a revenge fantasy film, is  acceptable because it is part of the performance of a pseudo-slave narrative.

“12.25.12 – “Django Unchained”” by Flickr user moviesinla under a Creative Commons 2.0 License

Idealistically, critically engaging Django as a sonic discourse could provide bridges to similarly violent – yet very real – representations of sonic violence in the popular imagination like Trayvon Martin’s 911 tapes and the recent murder of Jordan Davis. It is also important to point out the existence of nonmusical cues of silence and screaming presented by Kerry Washington’s character, Broomhilda, and what they suggest about the treatment of (slave) women’s narratives and agency in a sonic space, an issue that the two hip hop tracks do not broach.   Overall, however, Django pushes the envelope sonically and visually in reference to sonic borders of blackness and the usefulness of the sound of racial trauma to contextualizing black masculinity, provoking a complicated question: in what ways does music blur contemporary and historical black discourses, creating a hazy representation of not only what blackness does, but what black pathology sounds like?

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R.N. Bradley is a PhD candidate in African American Literature at Florida State University and a regular writer for Sounding Out!