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| I would put the album art , but the memes are funnier lol |
Jay Z
Nas
Eminem
Andre 3000
J Cole
Big KRIT
Wale
Pusha T
Meek Mill
A$AP Rocky
Drake
Big Sean
Jay Electronica
Tyler the Creator
Mac Miller
If your name is not on this list, this is time to feel some
kinda way. (Gucci is already ahead of the game in being salty so yall need to
catch up)
A couple of tweets surfaced last night around
the new single off of Big Sean’s new album titled Control. By the next morning,
IG was on fire with memes, Vine was full of reactions and a country wide hostel,
hip-hop twitter debate was underway. The
one verse that turned everyone into hip hop gurus overnight did not even belong
to the artist that’s going to make the most money from the damn song. The 2 minutes of lyrical fire belonged to
that of the hip-hop rookie Kendrick Lamar.
Now before
the bandwagoners who obviously have been awarded 1 million dollars each for
being an “original” K. Dot fan attack me, I will say, I cannot rightfully claim
to be a Kendrick Lamar fan. Outside of vibing to Poetic Justice a few times and randomly screaming the phrase “Bitch
Don’t Kill My Vibe!” occasionally, I have little listening investment in him
than I’m allegedly supposed to have. But it only takes one song to get my attention
and this verse did just that.
Overall,
excluding the wrongfully placed climax of the song, the track is pretty dope.
It has that classic New York hip-hop feel to it that will stand the test of
time and sounds like something Nas would has demolished back in his prime. (And no, I didn’t intend for that to rhyme….or
that) Big Sean’s generically good verse makes a good intro to the song and
probably would be the most fire the song would possess if it wasn’t for
Kendrick. But after Kendrick’s bridge served as an intro to his own verse, the
track goes into full on New York cypher mode and the Compton native goes off.
In a 2 minute verse Kendrick not only crowns himself as the king of New York (yeah
he from California though) but also declares competitive war against any rapper
that stands in his way. Calling out our
favorite rappers by name, Lamar goes on to states his love and respect for each
one of them while claiming that he is coming for the number one spot in hip hop
and will do it untouched. A bold,
ambitious statement made by a rapper with only one studio album and numerous
mix tapes under his belt. But it’s the same
claim of being the “Best Rapper Alive” that
made all of us jump on the crotch of Lil Wayne a few years ago (still
trying to figure out what happened to that). Its the same claims that made Jay Z
lyrically untouchable. The same bold claims made by Kanye that made Kanye love
Kayne more than anyone of us who buys his albums.
“I got love for you all but I’m tryna murder you niggas.. Tryna make
sure your core fans never heard of you niggas..They don’t want to hear not one
more noun or verb from you niggas”
When you
claim to be the best in hip-hop on whatever level, as long as you don’t compare
yourself to Jesus ( -_- Yeezus) people are going to believe it as long as you
have the consistent wordplay to back it up. When Kendrick kicked ass and took
names literally, not only did he set the bar high for everybody else in the
game, he also set a standard of consistency for his entire career. K. Dot has gone for the throne as the King of
New York (not to be confused with Jay Z who is the reigning King of Hip-Hop and
Money Making) which means one wack verse and hip-hop fans will put him in the
bottomless pit of Rappers We Once Loved, right next to Lil Wayne and Busta
Rhymes. Kendrick rightfully placed the
standard for lyricist back where it was before the Souja Boy era. He put New York back where it was before the
south took over. He unintentionally killed what was supposed to be Jay
Electronica’s break out moment. He gave Big Sean another number one hit. He put lyricist
back in the job description of being a rapper and he did it all with one verse
on a song that he can’t even take the credit for. Ten years ago this song would
have never generated this much excitement or buzz but because we have been in
the club snappin and rollin, smoking and pussy poppin for years, we are easily
impressed by a real MC. I’m convinced Hip-Hop
is in a transitional period. We are slowly but surely deprogramming ourselves from
dance craze rap, auto-tune and senseless club bangers, to actually listening to
what we are listening to. The bar has been set, let’s see who makes the cut.
“What is competition? I’m tryna raise the bar high; Who tryna jump and
get it? You better hop off a sky dive”
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