Anyone who is not firmly on one side of the Drake and Kendrick Lamar split is likely to be caught in the crossfire, as J. Cole has discovered over the course of the last twelve hours. He released Might Delete This Later last night, an unexpected EP of songs that might have been praised as yet another strong release from the seasoned rapper, or perhaps the talk would have centered on his uncomfortable (and clichéd) remarks regarding transgender people on “Pi.” Instead, “7 Minute Drill,” a song off the project in which Cole counters Kendrick’s now-famous line on Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That,” is the talk of the rap world. Cole may not agree with what the streets have to say, but they are speaking.
Although Cole didn’t dedicate the whole song to Kendrick, he did give his former pal a “warning shot.” Using Jay-Z’s “Takeover” strategy, he summarized Kendrick’s discography with the following lines: “I was trailin’ right behind and I just now hit mine. Your first shit was classic, your last shit was tragic. Your second shit put niggas to sleep, but they gassed it. Your third shit was massive and that was your prime.” “He averagin’ one hard verse like every thirty months or somethin’ / If he wasn’t dissin’, then we wouldn’t be discussin’ him,” Cole said in reference to Kendrick’s infrequent release schedule.
On the second beat of the song, which was produced by T-Minus and Conductor Williams, he finally backtracked and admitted, “I’m hesitant, I love my brother, but I’m not gonna lie / I’m powered up for real, that shit would feel like swattin’ a fly.” He also rhymed, “don’t make me have to smoke this nigga ’cause I fuck with him.” Cole may be asked by the judge whether he was really competing if this were a 106 & Park Freestyle Friday event.
Cole’s allusion to Jay-Z’s “Takeover” dissection of Nas’ history fails to acknowledge that Jay-Z was also incorrect in 2001 when he said that Nas had “one hot album every ten-year average”—It Was Written, Nas’ Illmatic follow-up, is a universal masterpiece. Likewise, a sizable segment of the rap community believes that Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly is the greatest album of the decade. However, “winning” a struggle really comes down to changing public opinion, which entails fabricating talking points that you may not even find credible.
Some musicians would be justified in criticizing Kendrick for the same reasons that his haters are currently criticizing him for. However, Cole may have been more affected by those same criticisms. Cole claims that To Pimp A Butterfly “puts niggas to sleep,” yet he has battled the persistent criticism that he is uninteresting throughout his career. “The people who like Soul Plane are probably going to think Shawshank Redemption is boring,” he said in defense of himself in 2013.
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J Cole Carried A Knife Into A “7 Minute Drill” Gunfight.
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