Samson

How can she fake a pregnancy that she didn't announce… ?

My ONE critique is that she should have put in a fade-out instead of a cold ending… Just to really drive home the 1980s style A smash nevertheless

He wants to sue Kendrick sooo bad but he know that he can't do that without throwing away any remaining bits of his "cred", so he has to make a matryoshka doll of a lawsuit by throwing in botting accusations alongside the claims of defamation Somehow at the same time, I can believe and I can't believe that he's going through with this. Diss tracks have always been a mixture of battle rapping and humiliation. You are expected to take (to some extent) "creative liberties" when dissing someone. That's why "Ether" is still considered to be one of the best disses ever even though a solid amount of the bars are either false or unprovable. The point was that it humiliated and shocked Jay and his crew and made any possible response look like a bad idea (hence Jay releasing "Supa Ugly" and then apologizing on Hot 97 within literally 24 hours). With this in mind, to me, this does not just feel like a lawsuit against UMG over Kendrick's diss. This feels like a lawsuit against the entire genre. The diss track is an essential organ to hip-hop and rapping. The only thing Drake could do that's lamer than this would be, as I said, to sue Kendrick himself. I'm kind of getting second-hand embarrassment because all Drake needed to do was go lowkey for the rest of 2024 and pop out with a melodic R&B-rap album this summer or fall and people would have probably been over it. It really did not need to go here

What is wrong with people sjhfhjwjhskj

@Vermillion Updated OP and title for you, let me know if it's fine

Yeah like I can't help but think that most of the conspiracy theories about Mangione being the wrong guy are coming from a place of people hoping that he's the wrong guy because they don't want the killer caught. Of course CCTV footage makes anybody look distorted compared to high-quality pictures taken on a DSLR or a smartphone.

I thought that that manifesto was proven false because it didn't feature the quotes that the Altoona police released?

And honestly I'm not even sure if Drake's fans even want to listen to the singles from his recent albums like that. The new songs have been burning out like crazy People weren't gonna be talking about "Rich Baby Daddy" five years from release like they did for "One Dance", even before the beef. I am also very interested to see his first weeks from now on. I was interested to see how they'd look like with the public deeming him cringe and For All the Dogs being his lowest first week yet (if you ignore Honestly Nevermind). His albums actively slid down the Billboard 200 in the two months after "Not Like Us" was out. But now that he's actively warring with his label… Ppl only care when it becomes actually unbearable. Everyone already knew that nothing Drake has released after 2015 has matched the quality of If You're Reading This It's Too Late, Nothing Was the Same, and Take Care. Even For All the Dogs, in all its stinkerific glory, still had "Rich Baby Daddy" to please audiences. As long as Drake was just mediocre and not pumping out straight-up trash (it's a difference between mediocre music and sh*t music, lol), he was fine. As JBJT2786 said, what Kendrick did was expedite this decline. JT skated by only because he releases every 4–6 years, so the decline was not as noticeable But it's infuriating nonetheless bc Drake did so much damage to hip-hop culture in the process. Yea he was making bangers but the behind-the-scenes behavior and the fan culture created a rot within hip-hop. Hip-hop was partially a numbers game (at least since the majors started signing rappers in the late 80s and early 90s), but rappers weren't deemed untouchable just because "he has a #1 you don't". MC Hammer's Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em had a diamond certification by 1991 and he was still heavily criticized for being a pop rapper (which only got worse the moment he danced in a Speedo). Numbers mattered only when two rappers were actively beefing, not in everyday discussions. Drake changed this dynamic by making sure they mattered the moment he blew up and it became apparent that he was beginning to outsell his peers. Then his fans followed. And then he became untouchable via those numbers, even when he began to phone in his music. That in turn maintained the hysteria surrounding him for the rest of the 2010s. We're only now exiting it . Took long enough

This is true! I keep seeing tweets finally discussing this including this one from Audiomack co-founder Brian Zisook: While I'm happy that the discussion is finally happening, I can't help but be annoyed that it took Kendrick (or anybody) humiliating Drake at the highest degree to start it. Every other time that people have tried to hold this discussion, it's been immediately shut down with "Oh but he got X million streams and Y number of #1s so you're just jealous" from both Drake stans and casual fans alike. It's weird, because while everyone (including Drake himself) noticed it, we were still "forbidden" from discussing it seriously because "you mad that he outsold ya faves xD". Meanwhile it's been acceptable to discuss artists' commercial decline in basically every other case in hip-hop. Very happy to talk about it, annoyed at the fact that the most extreme circumstances were necessary to finally talk about it lol

So this is how it ends? This story got me feeling second-hand embarrassment Maybe I'm too empathetic, but I can't stop remembering that there were several outs given to Drake throughout this saga to prevent him from embarrassing himself. We could go all the way back to 2013 to the "Control" verse that Drake took personally, because one could say that that verse per se was an out because it was just sparring. I don't think I have much to say about the filings that people in this thread haven't already said. Kind of crazy that Drake is upset that Spotify's algorithm promoted a hit single chosen by the people when he was on gospel and techno playlists the week Scorpion came out. But in terms of his brand… People talk about this as "the beginning of the end", but I would say that that started after 2020 with Drake dropping single after single and almost nothing sticking. People want his melodic stuff back—"Wait for U" is his biggest song since Scorpion and that's an R&B-rap hybrid song. It's still getting airplay on R&B, hip-hop, and rhythmic stations and is still charting on Spotify and Apple Music in the US. Instead he wants to go all in on this macho sh*t that only his suburban male fans want. I'm sure he's noticed that his new music lacks the same cultural capital that everything pre-2019 did. He didn't scramble over it because he was still posting big first-week numbers. But because this year has been the biggest threat to his legacy (and it's been effective), he's scrambling and operating out of pure spite. Drake knows that "Not Like Us" was an organic smash—we heard it at clubs, pubs, house parties, proms, quinceañeras, weddings, restaurants, and from people's cars driving past our homes The song has four Grammy noms, and the music video is also nominated Nothing is gonna happen, but if something did happen, it would not be able to take back the effect that that song has had on Drake and hip-hop as a whole.

I'm sitting here rereading these tweets thinking that I became illiterate or something

I keep seeing ppl online say Bernie's theory of politics was proven a failure on Tuesday night and I'm literally so confused because WHAT could they be possibly talking about

Maybe I'm misreading but like I feel like the right does the same exact thing? Right-wingers/Republicans who "stepped out of line" with regards to Trump either got laughed at or were straight-up excommunicated from the entire movement

I don't think I have anything to respond with, I agree with you. Thank you for even responding with this much let alone responding at all <3

I've been mostly offline this week bc I know I am too prone to doomscrolling and whew wasn't that a good idea? What does this thread think is behind Kamala's loss? What do we make of the discourse about young men? I know I'm being lazy but also I do not feel like scrolling through like 900 pages My hunch is that a lot of the discourse abt young men is somewhat overblown (i.e. there's a shift but idk how pronounced it actually is? Exit polls can be really messy) but I guess we'll see when Catalist does their analysis

Oh that Kendrick Juneteenth concert he performed at left a lasting impression

This is great. A mix of boogie + soft rock. I really like the half-step modulations from the first chorus to the second verse, and the second verse to the second chorus; atypical for a mainstream artist

Go. It's not like you're attending a Kidz Bop concert lol

It's starting to become a little too obvious that these companies are using the controversy surrounding Lesserafim and Illit to boost their group's buzz and it's kinda pathetic These companies need to focus on promoting their idols' talents instead of orchestrating stunts. We already know Nmixx sing live because they sing live on almost every stage—what is the purpose of cutting the backing track? Squ4d should have just let the speculation die down instead of outright confirming it bc now those girls are going to get lashed

I'm locking in with this bet

Apple definitely made a list of popular and acclaimed albums, found a randomizer, and decided to share whatever shuffled list would be made Nothing else makes sense

This is the only "negative" thing that I have to say about "The Story of Adidon"—and I put that word in quotation marks because it isn't Pusha's fault. Kendrick tried to keep this beef from turning into TMZ article fare like Drake/Pusha did, but Pusha going down the gossip route with Drake probably taught Drake to do that the next time he got in a beef, and he did. Kendrick obviously had "Meet the Grahams" in stock, but we probably would have never heard it if Drake didn't allege criminal behavior against Kendrick on "Family Matters". Too bad that Drake was actually the first to mention people's family members in this whole thing Literally the one thing he shouldn't have done. If that "bodyguards like Whitney" line never made it out of the booth we'd never hear "Meet the Grahams" or "Not Like Us" and "Euphoria" would have an entirely different set of lyrics (i.e. the "not like that" bit would probably be missing). The whole dynamic would have been so different

Revisiting all of the songs and I think it's clear that Drake messed up by being unfocused, too obviously insecure, out of touch, and thinking he can punch down every rapper because he sells the most out of every artist except Taylor Swift - A common pattern for Drake's beefs is that he's always punching down, or at least tries to. He's frequently taking jabs at rappers who are past their commercial peaks or never had the mainstream appeal that he has; i.e., his strategy is sonning rappers because they don't sell like he does. The weird thing is that in "Family Matters" (aka his "red button"), he attempted to son everybody except Kendrick. Not that he could son Kendrick (especially because Kendrick has sales and acclaim; Drake just has the former), but the departure from the strategy made his disses far less potent. Kendrick had no problem sonning him. Maybe I don't pay enough attention, but is this the first time the Drake has punched up in a beef? - To continue on Drake addressing everyone a certain way but Kendrick: Why was he so unfocused in "Family Matters"? Drake tried to go so hard with this "1 v 20" narrative that nobody outside of his fanbase cared about. Barely anybody even tuned in to the one non-Kendrick response ("Champagne Moments")—Drake, as he didn't prerecord his responses, should have noticed this instead of trying to wack people who weren't even acknowledging him the first time he dissed them in "Push Ups". It made "Family Matters" way less lethal than it would have and more unfocused than anything. - On the topic of "Push Ups": soft-launching the track via leak and then only giving it an official release once enough people said they liked it was a coward move. Namedropping Whitney after what happened to him when he mentioned Virginia Williams was a (stupid!) coward move. Dedicating verses to everyone but the person who actually had smoke for you on record was a coward move. Talking about cowardice… - Drake's insecurities affect his every move; every rapper and every close observer of hip-hop knows it. His insecurities stem from the fact that Toronto is deemed soft compared to the backgrounds of most American rappers. Drake has always put on a persona to compensate for this—the difference is that at the start, that persona came from angst and hunger with a hint of introspection. Now (or at least since the late 2010s), he's no longer angsty, hungry, or introspective; it's pure performance. Pay enough attention and you'll figure out why his new music hasn't driven nearly the amount of cultural capital as his 2011–16 work did. This is open field for Kendrick to play in, and he sure enough went for it four times. - Finally, Drake said some dumb sh*t that just proved Kendrick's point about him being out of touch with Black American culture or sensitivities. The "slave" line in "Family Matters" may have gotten a chuckle out of a few of his fans but it pissed off a ton of people. The fact that Kendrick took that one line and wrote a whole verse proving how out of touch Drake is with Black Americans says enough. Drake dedicating several bars of "The Heart Part 6" to a misinterpretation of a song about a specific trauma that affects many Black American households was another instance of Kendrick being proved right. People lashed Drake so hard for those lines that his fans had to come online and start trying to convince people that Drake was playing some sort of 4D chess—nobody bought it. Now that the initial rush is over I've been able to organize my thoughts. The amount of faux pas Drake made throughout this whole thing is shocking once you start spelling it out. Maybe he should stick to punching down on sitting ducks like Meek Mill

To think that all Drake had to do was NOT mention Kendrick’s partner and we wouldn’t be here He didn’t learn from Push dropping The Story of Adidon for that Virginia line in Duppy Freestyle

Dammit am I actually gonna have to sit down and watch the entirety of ESC live for once I am so perched to see if there's any mess tomorrow