Jay-Z “almost wishes” Drake and Kendrick Lamar feud “didn’t happen”
Jay-Z has shared his thoughts on Drake and Kendrick Lamar’s beef.
Hov tends to keep himself to himself and stays away from interviews, going years without speaking to the media.
As one of the greatest rappers of all time, he was asked to share his thoughts on the Drizzy and Kendrick beef during an interview with GQ.
“I’m going to have an answer you’re not going to like,” he began. “Well, I don’t know if you’re going to like it. That’s presumptuous. There are four pillars of hip-hop. There’s breakdancing, graffiti, there’s DJ’ing and battling. Breakdance is not at the forefront of rap any more. It’s actually an Olympic sport. So that’s dead [laughs].”
He continued, “Graffiti, beautiful in certain places. It’s not part of hip-hop. The DJ was in the forefront. It was Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. Eric B and Rakim. You don’t even know the DJ for half of the artists any more. And the last pillar is battling. We love the excitement and I love the sparring, but in this day and age, there’s so much negative stuff that comes with it that you almost wish it didn’t happen.”
Jay-Z went into more detail about why he disliked the negativity from fans when it came to the two rappers battling it out.
“Now, people that like Kendrick hate Drake, no matter what he makes,” he said. “It’s like an attack on his character. I don’t know if I love that. I don’t know if it’s helpful to our growth where the fallout lands, especially on social media. It’s too far. It’s bringing people’s kids in it. I don’t like that.”
He added, “I sound like the old guy wagging his finger, but I think we can achieve the same thing, as far as sparring with music, with collaborations more so than breaking the whole thing apart. It could stand it before because there was no social media. You had the battle, and it was fun, and then you moved on. Right now, I don’t know if it could stand it with the technology that we have.”
Drake and Kendrick released many songs during their back-and-forth in 2024, which included ‘Meet the Grahams’, ‘Family Matters’, ‘Euphoria’, ‘Push Ups’, and most famously, ‘Not Like Us’. Despite enjoying the amount of music that came out, Jay was disappointed by everything that surrounded it.
“It takes up so much oxygen,” he said. “It’s like trying to tear down people’s lives. I don’t know if it’s worth it at this point. I love the idea that we got so much music in such a short period of time. Just everything around it was like, ‘Man, this is taking us a couple steps back.’ We’ve just grown so much that – I guess I’m going to say it – I don’t know if battling needs to be part of the culture any more.”