The one rapper who will always be number one to Kendrick Lamar
During the height of the feud between Kendrick Lamar and Drake, Snoop Dogg appeared at one stage to endorse one party over the other — and it wasn’t necessarily expected.
Both Snoop and Kendrick are obviously from the West Coast, but geography didn’t appear to factor much into Snoop’s thinking. Drake’s 2024 diss track against Kendrick, ‘Taylor Made Freestyle,’ featured AI-generated vocals of Snoop and Tupac Shakur, which Snoop himself seemed to endorse. He shared the song on social media.
Kendrick, naturally, wasn’t very happy about that, and he called out Snoop on his track ‘Wacced Out Murals’ from GNX. Snoop, in turn, tried to cool tensions during an appearance on The Breakfast Club.
“As an older guy, sometimes we don’t have radar on what we’re doing,” Snoop claimed. “I reached out to nephew, let him know, ‘My bad, I didn’t mean that.’ And naturally, he responded the way he responded. But we family.”
As much as Snoop tried to downplay the situation, clearly there had been tensions created by Snoop’s apparent endorsement of Drake. That must have hurt Kendrick, because he had previously been so open about his love of Snoop. In fact, he once claimed that his rap elder would “always be number one.”
Kendrick was speaking on Hot 97’s morning radio show during the very early days of his career, only one album deep. At this stage, he was still firmly an up-and-comer — and he held his rap elders in very high esteem.
“At the end of the day,” he said, “Snoop will always be my big homie and the legends that came before me — they will always stand tall where they’re at.”
Kendrick did admit that, while he respected his rap icons, he couldn’t help but covet their status for himself. He wanted to be “great just like them.”
He certainly achieved that, given that he is now considered to be, not only one of the best rappers of his generation, but of all time. Kendrick is a great today, like his former “number one” Snoop. But whether or not he still thinks of him that way, in light of his perceived betrayal, is unclear.