Kendrick Lamar explains why he dissed Drake: “I don’t care how motherfuckers look at it”
Kendrick Lamar has reflected on his beef with Drake during the lead-up to his Super Bowl halftime show on January 9th. K. Dot sat down for a conversation with Apple Music’s Ebro Darden and Nadeska Alexis this week and touched on the various diss tracks that went back and forth between him and Drizzy.
In Kendrick’s eyes, the feud was simply out of the love of hip-hop and wanting to put more of a focus on lyricism, which he believed the genre had moved away from. He also showed love to several battle rappers and put his tenacity alongside theirs.
“My intent, from day one, was to always keep the nature of [hip-hop] as a sport,” he said during the interview. “I don’t care how motherfuckers look at it as far as a collaborative effort. That’s cool, too, but I love when artists grit their teeth.
“I still watch battle raps, I still watch Smack/URL, from Murda Mook to [Loaded] Lux to Tay Roc to my bro Daylyt. This has always been the core definition of who I am. I don’t think it was a thing for this year; I think it was just a continuation [of what I’ve been doing].”
He added, “What I will say about this year, it was more from a space where I think a lot of people were putting rap to the back and you didn’t see that grit, you didn’t see that bite anymore.”
Kendrick’s beef with Drake started with his verse on Future and Metro Boomin’s ‘Like That‘ last year. The pair then traded scathing diss tracks, including ‘Not Like Us’, ‘Push Ups’, ‘Meet the Grahams’, and ‘Family Matters’, with many believing the Compton rapper came out on top.
On a similar note, Kendrick also opened up about the inspiration behind his GNX album, where he wanted to return to ferocious rapping and production.
“My [inspirations] were like DJ Quik and [Dr] Dre, so I always had that DNA,” he said. “You heard that DNA a little bit on good kid, m.A.A.d city, but I wanted to tell my story first. Fast forward to GNX, I just felt it was a perfect time because not only was the energy lost, but it was an energy that was bubbling inside of me as well.”
He continued, “I wanted to go back to the forefront of just the bite and the grit of rap. Just all raps and hard-ass beats. That’s the basics for me. I thought about what I used to like when I was a kid: hard raps and good beats that’s smacking.”