Clipse leak unreleased Kendrick Lamar verse on ‘Whips and Chains’
Kendrick Lamar has one of the most anticipated moments on Clipse’s comeback album, Let God Sort Em Out, out July 11th. But before its release, the duo and Pharrell leaked K. Dot’s verse on ‘Whips & Chains’ by playing it on a rooftop and posting the footage online.
The song includes verses from Pusha T and his brother, Malice, before Kendrick enters the equation in the final verse, which was played at a listening party in Paris.
Kendrick raps in his verse, “I’m not the candidate to vibe with/ I don’t fuck with the kumbaya shit/ All that talent must be God-sent/ I sent your ass back to the cosmics/ The things I seen under my eyelids/ Kaleidoscope dreams, murder and sirens/ Let’s be clear, hip-hop died again/ Half of my profits may go to Rakim.”
Pusha recently revealed that Kendrick’s verse was why Clipse left their label for Roc Nation. Def Jam was allegedly concerned about the “antagonistic opp-optics of two of Drake’s biggest enemies linking on wax,” considering Kendrick and Push have had separate feuds with Drizzy.
According to Pusha, the situation was “stupid,” and he was disgusted by Def Jam’s stance because he claimed both of their verses didn’t take any shots at Drake.
“They wanted me to ask Kendrick to censor his verse, which of course I was never doing,” he told GQ. “And then they wanted me to take the record off. And so, after a month of not doing it, Steve Gawley, the lawyer over there, was like, ‘We’ll just drop the Clipse.’ But that can’t work because I’m still there [solo]. But [if] you let us all go…”
Pusha’s manager, Steven Victor, revealed that they paid seven figures to get out of the deal with Def Jam—a hefty sum.