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kendrick, drake and elastic truths
fiction compels us to raise silos in our minds that sequester different volumes of belief, lest we walk this world like gullible fools. Avengers: Infinity War (2018) is about one man’s mission to execute Malthusian principles via aggressive population control but we do not believe Thanos is a real person who studied 18th century political economics. our suspension of belief in Thanos’ real-world existence siloes him differently to, say, a character like Queen Elizabeth in The Crown. Here, the disclaimer – “based on real events” – means we suspend our belief as a more controlled burn; there are anchors of reality decorated with nuggets of imagination.
the fiction and the fictionalised. any great success in either attempts to keep the audience captive in the throes of an illusion, desperately evading any brittleness that might shatter it. the threshold of credibility is malleable but sacred, allowing us to enjoy, be invested, be inspired, and ultimately, to be entertained.
it was curious to me how, in the feud between Drake and Kendrick, (the most cinematic happening of the past few weeks) Kendrick’s euphoria positioned the chessboard as a conflict between fact and fiction.
“Don’t tell no lies about me and I won’t tell truths about you.”
a fascinating caution by Kendrick for three reasons (accumulating into a circular flow chart of sorts):
Rap thrives on an unwritten credo of authenticity.
The genre compels its participants to be “real” and, at the very least, Kendrick is aware that his opponent is known for using ghostwriters in an arena where excellence is validated by sole penmanship.
Drake has a complicated relationship with the truth.
Pusha T’s nonconsensual reveal of Drake’s son was an embarrassing moment, one Drake gracefully weathered. Yes, it required him to take quite a public L that is still prevalent in the public memory, but more importantly, it showed that Drake has the capacity to conceal massive secrets about his own life. It was a cultural reminder that we don’t really know Drake—even if he talks candidly about aspects of his life on songs.
Kendrick has a better cultural relationship with truth.
Kendrick’s music is persistently introspective. Mr Morale and The Big Steppers (2022) reveals countless truths about his inner world, from father issues to lust addiction. it is problematic, tender, thoughtful, uncomfortable but above all, honest. he contemplates his failures as a public figure, a partner, a son, and a man; basically spending the whole album 8-miling himself. his entire career has been a skilful curation of personal truth and for it, he is revered as one of the GOATs.
despite Kendrick positioning himself as the harbinger of truth and Drake as a deity of deception, and despite rap’s quintessential credo of authenticity, it would be foolish not to acknowledge rap as a literary realm that is still beholden to the constitutions of fictionalisation.
rap still requires the audience to treat the truth as elastic, to be convinced by the lifestyles that are being portrayed, which makes navigating the unwritten laws of the genre a bureaucratic nightmare, laden with ever-evolving contradictions and paradoxical logics.
something changed within this particular feud.
or maybe it was before, with Pusha T’s Story of Adidon (2018) where, despite quite an elementary and angular lyrical performance, Push was crowned the winner because of the truth bomb he dropped. i don’t believe Push out-rapped Drake. i do believe he was much more personally scathing (and one could convincingly argue the precision necessary to pen such scathing lyricism is a mensurable quality).
that shifted how the audience engages with rap beef somewhat; tsunamis of tea that require proof to necessitate victory, spilt onto a generation who’s never further away from a pocket-sized supercomputer that can either verify and conspiratorialise.
after Kendrick Lamar’s Meet the Grahams dropped less than an hour after Drake’s Family Matters – a consensus slowly began to pick up momentum:
“if Drake is hiding a daughter, then Kendrick wins.”
does this correlation not warp the artistry of the rap battle – these titan-clash exhibitions of lyrical excellence – into pedestrian dirt diggings? a clash of who’s private investigation skills are more robust?
personally, i see rap feuds as wars of micro-fiction; requiring skill, strategy and complete mastery of one’s own lyrical arsenal. how are you going to construct a narrative about your enemy? how dedicated are you to the upkeep of the illusion palace you’ve raised? the truth is elasticised because the skill lies in how convincing you’re able to be.
how do you win “the room?”.
the exchanges of “spilt tea” between Drake and Kendrick are character assassinations to crumble one another’s public image. yet, there is something to be said about this particular feud’s moral investments. Drake alleges that Kendrick’s allegiances to Blackness are performative, that his son isn’t his son and that he physically assaulted his fiancé. Kendrick alleges that Drake is a bad father and, most notably, a paedophile. on the surface, this seems good! the advent of an era where rappers are holding each other accountable for their behavioural failings on wax.
looking deeper at this new paradigm of moralising in a rap beef and there is complication, especially considering the fluctuations of validity. if Kendrick is correct and Drake – one of the most powerful entities in modern music – is indeed a paedophile… then is dropping an irresistibly danceable hit song the most effective way to blow the whistle? if either of them are telling the truth about the other’s transgressions – is a public exchange of multimedia entertainment the best way to enlighten the world of their misdemeanours?
the opposite being true has ruinous effects as well. if what they’ve purported is purely fiction; if Drake’s allegations of Kendrick’s physical abuse towards his partner are false then it sets a worrying precedent.
at a time when Diddy, a longstanding public figure, was caught on CCTV assaulting Cassie – it is hard to not side-eye these allegations, and recognise how they contribute to a wider inactivity towards stamping out abuse of all kinds within the same industrial complex that allows a Marilyn Manson or an R Kelly to run around uncontested. when speaking to my friend, Eshe Kiama Zuri, they rightfully reflected on how the trivialisation of high-profile allegations contribute to a society-wide “stripping of empathy”, reducing the communal motivation to confront abusers and further alienating victims of abuse.
is there any actual investigation—beyond hyper-vigilant online conspiracists—into the seriousness of any of these claims? pretty gritty mud was slung in all directions by two of the most powerful rappers in the world. we’re yet to see any urgency with actually examining the filth.
there is unknowable collateral damage happening before our very eyes – regardless of whether truth is being revealed or fiction is being weaved.
there is a tacit desire growing for the fiction we consume to be more true, for us to get as close to the glass of the zoo as humanly possible without polishing the glass so much that we have to confront our own reflections. you see it in the Baby Reindeer (2024) controversy. in reality tv. in influencer culture. in true crime. the euphoric trip of fiction has worn off, the gateway drug of stories isn’t anaesthetising enough for our squeezed and hectic lives and its leaving a craving much more potent than before. dramatisation blurs the line between itself and the real story its based on more than ever. a more violent high. severely up close magic. how’d he do it?
can we draw a nexus from the entertainments of yesteryear, where the coliseum stands filled with onlookers ululating as gladiators were shredded and mauled to death, or when lynchings and hangings were recreational family outings? has our own intrigue in brutality been obfuscated by the envelope of fiction in such a way that our palaeolithic urges are now trying to make sense of themselves in the context of more contemporary, digi-centered appetites?
…or maybe it’s just rap, my nigga.