Skepta explains why Kendrick Lamar and Drake’s beef is bad for hip-hop
UK rapper Skepta recently appeared on Apple Music’s The Ebro Show to discuss hip-hop and new music. However, during their discussion, the subject turned to Kendrick Lamar’s recent beef with Drake, and, in a strange turn of events, the ‘Private Caller’ lyricist revealed that, in his opinion, it was damaging to the culture.
Although Kendrick Lamar and Drake’s beef entertained many and breathed new life into hip-hop, Skepta is not convinced that the result will be positive in the long run. While speaking with Darden, the UK emcee explained how feuds sometimes make hip-hop more toxic and, therefore, something that labels are less likely to invest in.
As such, Skepta believes that up-and-coming rappers looking to make it may miss out on opportunities if label heads see the most successful and previously respectable artists in the culture hurling insults at each other like children. In his view, this hostility damages rap’s chance to be mainstream.
Elaborating on this, the ‘Look Out’ rapper detailed, “When stuff like that gets said now, it’s more personal. There was one K. Dot diss track that came out, and I was like, ‘This is over.’ Like this isn’t rap. This isn’t clashing anymore. This is over like they don’t like each other. It’s clear. I can hear it. I can hear it in his voice. He doesn’t like him”.
Skepta then proceeded to explain that when the two most significant artists in the culture start getting manic, by extension, the whole genre “is looking crazy”. He added, “It’s hurting what we’ve built. It’s hurting what we’ve all built this whole time. If you don’t like each other, just link up and talk to each other and sort it out”.
Lamar kicked off the feud by dissing both Drake and J Cole during an appearance on Future and Metro Boomin’s song, ‘Like That,’ earlier this year. Afterwards, he and Drake traded several vicious diss tracks aimed at one another, including the massive hit song, ‘Not Like Us’.
‘Not Like Us’ has not only become one of the most culturally significant songs of the year, it has also become a Grammy-nominated track and has had a huge impact on Drake’s behaviour who, ever since its release, has been speaking about “fake friends” and “liars”.
Skepta’s chat with Ebro was primarily to speak about his most recent collaboration with Flo Milli for their track ‘Why Lie?’ which is one of Skepta’s first collabs with a US artist since his run with A$AP Rocky in 2018, which produced the anthem ‘Praise The Lord (Da Shine)’.