Questlove speaks about Kendrick Lamar and Drake beef
Since the feud between Drake and Kendrick Lamar exploded earlier in the year, everyone – inside and outside the hip-hop world – seems to have had something to say about it. Producer and The Roots frontman Questlove is the latest to add his opinion to the pile.
Back in April, Drake took aim at Kendrick with a diss track featuring the AI-generated voices of 2Pac and Snoop Dogg. Kendrick followed up with ‘Euphoria’, then with ‘6:6 in LA’. Since then, the diss tracks have kept coming, and so, too, have other people’s opinions on the feuding.
Fellow rappers such as Lil Yachty and Ice-T have shared their thoughts on the beef, and even President Biden used Kendrick’s diss track during a campaign video. Now, Questlove’s opinion on the beef has been shared in an interview he carried out with Rolling Stone, placing himself in a different area of hip-hop to the two feuding stars.
Following the release of ‘Euphoria’, Kendrick’s response to ‘Taylor Made Freestyle’, Questlove commented on the beef, noting how removed he feels from it all. “I don’t know if I’m in the same game of hip-hop that Drake and Kendrick are in,” he admitted.
“Listening to their back-and-forth sparring,” he continued to explain, “I feel engaged in it only because I’m of it, but I’m not in it.” This isn’t the first time Questlove seems to have addressed the feuding. Back in May, he took to Instagram to declare that hip-hop was dead and “Nobody Won The War.”
“This wasn’t about skill,” the image read, “This was a wrestling match level mudslinging and takedown by any means necessary — women & children (& actual facts) be damned.”
“Same audience wanting blood will soon put up ‘rip’ posts like they weren’t part of the problem,” he continued. Questlove didn’t mention Kendrick or Drake by name, but many assumed that the post criticised the rappers for bringing their families into their feud.
While Kendrick and Drake are embroiled in their hip-hop feuding, Questlove seems to be turning his artistic attention to other mediums. He is set to helm a live-action remake of the classic Disney animation The Aristocats, in what would mark his feature directorial debut.
He previously directed the 2021 documentary, Summer of Soul, which spotlit the Harlem Cultural Festival and won him praise from critics and audiences alike.