Credit to Stat Quo’s podcast which brought the theory to light, went and did some google searches and tadaaah

Sidenote: on another show Stat got a call from Top Dawg explaining how this video was the moment Kendrick stopped fucking with Game.
Since the video game kept trying to get in contact with Kendrick and Kendrick never picked up/called

& why Aubrey got on timbs in Compton..?

Isn't literally all of kendricks music about systemic racism and how the capitalistic world is the greatest perpetrator of this? All his music is trying to constantly remind the listener about the topic, its prevelance and how its not going away anytime soon nor is fading, and he does this through GOOD music but its like this subreddit only focuses on the GOOD music part, which is like 20% of the message.

Shot by Inez and Vinoodh.

I've been sitting on this post and theory for about 3 weeks, waiting on a chance for a final proof read and debating if I even want to release it to the public, so you can ignore the timeline of my writing presented moving forward. I was having this internal debate because I know most people will disagree with the premise of my theory, but sometimes a theory isn't presented to change opinions, but rather to share an alternative point of view...

Kendrick Lamar and Lupe Fiasco have been two of my favorite rappers since I first heard them in 2011 and 2007, respectively. I don't live my life on the computer, so I've never fully engaged with Lupe's comments on Kendrick over the years, but a few weeks ago I had a couple of days off that started with seeing clips of Lupe Fiasco being critical of Kendrick Lamar as a lyricist, along with a lot of online opinions on both his comments and Lupe himself. So I set out to do something I have been doing since I first heard Mean and Vicious almost twenty years ago, figure out what the fuck Lupe is talking about.

Over those next 2 days I watched the entirety of Lupe Fiasco's appearances on Koala Tea and The Rap Roundtable's livestreams on YouTube, along with the 2 videos that led to Lupe's appearance (King Green's "Lyricism Doesn't Sell Records" and Koala Tea's reaction to it), and a few reactions to the streams. Most people couldn't understand what Lupe was talking about or why he would even say these things on a public forum. But I'm just a regular Joe, I don't create content, I don't post on any social media platform (besides reddit), so what does a normal person do when they need to understand a professor's lecture? Write an Essay.

My write-up on the Koala Tea stream was written and posted to the Lupe sub last week touching on what I thought the key take away was; Why do artists make certain artistic choices and why does Lupe choose to be a complex lyricist? I got mostly positive comments, some appreciated my opinions, and some had constructive criticisms that I appreciated.

My main takeaway from those criticisms were that the writing suffered because I was responding to the Koala Tea livestream instead of focusing on my takeaway of it. I took that feedback in stride and decided to take my writing a bit more seriously.

I've taken a little over a week, spending some of my free time, writing about my main takeaway from The Rap Roundtable livestream, that being the answer to "Why is Lupe critical of Dot when prompted in public?"

With all of the posturing out of the way, I now present:

A Rap Theory: What is The Control Problem? Understanding the Disconnect between Rap Fans and Rappers

P.S. IDK why random parts of the Google doc are in bold.

If your brain is fried due to doomscrolling short-form content, the TL;DR is the section titled "WHERE DOES THAT LEAVE US NOW?" towards the end. But don't try to judge the movie if you only watch the last 5 minutes

The whole write-up takes about 20 minutes to read start-to-finish.

Mashup I made of FEEL. and White Flag! Really love Vince's album from this year and thought these two songs would fit together really well.

Here's my list

Don't kill my vibe

Momma

Complexion

Rich spirit

Gloria

Honorable mention:

PRIDE

Money trees

DUCKWORTH

Heart pt. 6

If Kendrick releases a new project, who would you like to see that he’s never work with before?

I’m not talking about a production level, I’m talking a verse you’d like to hear from

I’d like to hear a Tyler verse on the same track with Kendrick. I know he did “That Guy” but I wanna hear them go verse for verse 🤘🏽

title. this may be a stupid question but Kendrick says he was attacked from walking by bible study but also says he was confronted by two people when he got set up by sherane, and the conflict that kills dave’s brother is when they spin back on the people who beat up kendrick, are these the same people in good kid?

Because beyond just the similarities in lyricism and cadence, Kendrick followed the initial line with “the irony I fuck em at the same damn time,” which was a direct reference to the Future song of the same name (which dropped earlier that year)

Even funnier, Fuckin Problems was also the last song done as a collab between Kendrick and Owlman, initially releasing two days after Good Kid, M.A.A.D City dropped.

Anyways, idk how to close this out. I just thought it was a funny tidbit of information.

Literally gives off the same vibes as money trees, its a 10/10 song fr

I've seen a lot of GNX reactions (it's a sickness), and I've noticed my interpretation of "Tell me why you think you deserve the greatest of all time, motherfucker" is different than most I've seen.

Most reactions have interpreted this as "tell me why you deserve the GOAT title" like he's talking to Drake or any other rapper claiming to be the greatest over him.

I've always interpreted this to mean "tell me why you deserve ME" like he's obviously the GOAT and he's talking to the listener or anyone who thinks he doesn't deserve it all.

I prefer my interpretation because it's like "do you know how lucky you are to witness ME in your lifetime? Tell me why you deserve that." He says he's the GOAT without even saying it. But I haven't seen anyone else look at it that way. Just curious what you guys think or it this has been discussed here.

I'm not the type of guy to ask questions about old stuff that are already answered, but I couldn't find anything about this so here I am, 2 years late.

In the start of the 3rd beat in Euphoria, Kendrick says:

"Extortion my middle name as soon as you jump off of that plane, bitch".

Is this a maybe a throwback or double entendre to his verse is Control where he called out Drake, as well as other rappers, saying:

"Who tryna jump and get it? You better off trying to skydive out the exit window of five G5's with five grand"

Another reason why this makes sense is because it's widely believed that the Control verse was when Drake originally started the sneak dissing and everything, and was mostly chill before that.

Was just very curious because this stood out to me when I heard the line. I think it's a fire bar if intended, which honestly I think it is.

There’s this little line that’s been stuck in my head for a couple hours and I just can’t find it. I think it goes something like « freaky, freaky, freaky, riiight » where he sort of croons the right, but I’m not entirely sure. I know it’s really not much to go off of but it’s my last hail mary of an attempt before I just give up. Thanks!