when you refuse to acknowledge Biden's sponsorship of this genocide
Yet another strawman. At no point did I do such a thing. I have a long and storied history of opposing Biden's allegiance with Israel and complacency with their war crimes.
I’m not going to continue engaging with someone who is deliberately and maliciously strawmanning in bad faith.
I’m not going to continue engaging with someone who is deliberately and maliciously strawmanning in bad faith.
Biden is center-right, but ok tankie.
Says the one calling the literal roadmap of a fascist takeover of our country “just another DNC talking point to ignore.”
You do realize that Project 2025 wasn’t created by democrats, right? It’s a very public plan, made for conservatives, by conservatives, representing the modern American conservative and the platform that Trump’s agenda is built upon.
I wonder how much they pay you to sow discord within the progressive left as a means to get their puppet back into office so he can send over confidential state secrets again.
Himmler and Hitler were both far-right, but nice strawman arguments.
Israeli officials themselves are explicitly telling you that Biden is impeding with the progress of their genocide, and that Trump would better support their agenda.
Israeli officials themselves are explicitly telling you that Biden is impeding with the progress of their genocide, and that Trump would better support their agenda.
It’s almost as if you didn’t even read the comment that you replied to.
That’s a really long-winded way of saying “boot on your neck” lmfao
Russian bot detected
Starting to believe this is a Russian bot.
They literally have, though. What!? On every count. Are you drunk?
Yeah seriously, what kind of logic is that? Why would they lie about something like that?
There’s no shot that you genuinely believe voting against Trump is voting for the Nazis.
please keep fighting
This would be a nice sentiment if we were talking about Jeff Bezos and Martin Shkreli. When we’re talking about black men at the pinnacle of pop culture, we’re talking about the people that inspire entire generations.
I think Cole has the right approach when it comes to influencing the community.
People always omit the next part where AI “Tupac” says “heard it on the Budden Podcast so it gotta be true.” It was obvious from the beginning that Kendrick was eventually going to go there, so Drake dismissed it as an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory early.
Drake has written for Kanye West, Dr. Dre, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Alicia Keys, Jamie Foxx, and more huge artists. That is, by definition, contributing to the culture.
Listen, I love Not Like Us, it’s a total bop, but that doesn’t mean that I’m required to subscribe to the notion that Drake is nothing more than a culture vulture.
I don’t need to agree with Kendrick or take his word as fact to sing along to “Certified Lover Boy? Certified Pedophile! WOP WOP WOP WOP WOP … A Minorrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!”
Just like I don’t know if the daughter story was true, but that doesn’t take away from meet the grahams being arguably the greatest diss track of all time.
But let’s be honest with ourselves, here. He does not contribute to the culture? We just got the biggest rap beef of the century, in part due to his contributions. Kendrick started it all off when he threw direct shots on Like That, but we wouldn’t have gotten Not Like Us if it weren’t for Drake responding.
He does not contribute to the culture? The guy that was so dominant in the industry that a singular feature by him became by far the most coveted path to fame for roughly a decade straight?
Again, I’m tired of having to defend myself for being able to appreciate the artistry and penmanship from both artists. This has been an issue I’ve encountered from both sides and I’m fucking sick of it.
As a fan of both, I don’t see it that way. I know that there are definitely Drake Stans like that, but there are also people who give Drake undeserved criticism, and any time you try to combat it, a lot of Kendrick Stans will just assume you’re one of those Drake Stans that take any and all criticism of Drake personally.
Signed, a HUGE Kendrick fan who is sick and tired of having to defend myself to hip hop elitists and bandwagon Kdot Stans for simply respecting Drake’s pen and the contributions he has made to the culture.
I love how much we ate off of this beef, but I’m getting really sick of the divisive tribalism coming from both fandoms. I’m seeing so many insufferable people in both subreddits and it’s making me nauseous.
Thanks for giving it an open mind.
As for his "best verse," I'm not entirely sure. Family Matters is full of witty wordplay and hard-hitting punches, but it's still pretty new, so there's more analysis to unpack there. That and the fact that it was completely and immediately negated by meet the grahams, which is one of the greatest diss tracks of all time, whether or not the accusations were true.
You could easily go with just about any verse from his Timestamp series, such as 8am in Charlotte (Which included a 7-syllable multi: “Thank God, at the crib, dippin' my foot in the lake // I swear that y’all turned me into the villain, I couldn't escape") but that song had quite a few writers involved, so I'll eliminate it from the running in the interest of good faith.
While I mentioned earlier that Boi-1da and Hollywood Cole have writing credits on B.B. King Freestyle, they were the primary producers and engineers of the song, so it's typical for them to have small contributions. Remember: their main job is production, not lyrical composition. It's clearly apparent from the bar structure and syntax that it's Drake's signature writing style. To save you from having to hear it in Drake's voice, I edited together his verse from the linked Rhymes Highlighted video into a single picture. Typically, when I see people refuse to give any respect to Drake's pen, I end up directing them to that video.
Other songs where he gets into his lyrical bag include tracks like Pound Cake, Sandra’s Rose, Lemon Pepper Freestyle, Diplomatic Immunity, and Champagne Poetry , which I analyzed with Rhymes Highlighted a couple years ago (the things I missed were outlined in the link). I feel like he really tastefully utilizes the “less is more” approach toward the end of that verse; sacrificing the depth of his rhymes to say something a bit more profound. Everything he says after the beat switch is really profound IMO, and doesn’t come across as insincere whatsoever.
As for the Conway, tidbit, I deliberately limited it to 4 bars so that he wouldn’t completely blow Future out of the water because I wanted to show that a trap artist and a true emcee can use the same techniques in different ways, and to illustrate the subtleties of why the emcee is an emcee. That particular verse is a lot more impressive when you consider that he continues the rhyme scheme throughout the entire 28 bar verse, using the “or” rhyme 77 total times, while adding variance in the amount of internal syllables rhymed.
Once in a line:
I’m nominated for Grammys, Mary good morning gorgeous,
Twice in a line:
The forty pourin I wet up they street, I’m Stormin’ Norman
Three times in a line:
It’s gory gory my aura more of a horror story
I’ll be honest with you, I appreciate your good faith response, but I’m not quite sure what you mean by this:
His bars don’t resolve well. They just flow into the next line, which is something that should be done sparingly.
Isn’t the “flowing into the next line” shtick kind of what makes certain emcees the greatest at what they do? Examples of artists that do this consistently include MF DOOM and Royce da 5’9. I really fail to see why it’s something that should be done sparingly. I feel like everyone in Griselda and adjacent are excellent at using it tastefully, despite the frequency of usage.
Anyway, back on the topic of Drake, I personally can’t relate with your criticism of his voice, but I’m not going to tell you how to feel about that, because that’s something that’s purely subjective and can’t really be graded objectively in hip hop. Drake is probably an objectively better singer than a lot of rappers, but we’re not talking about singing, we’re talking about RAPPING, so that’s entirely irrelevant. If you dislike Drake’s voice, I will not argue with you there. I say the same thing to people who hate Lil Wayne’s voice and Kendrick’s voice. Certain rappers have distinctive voices that certain people are just going to find grating, and there’s really nothing I could possibly do to change your mind there.
However, would you be willing to, for objectivity’s sake, read an excerpt of Drake lyrics in the voice of someone you like, such as Ghostface, Biggie, Pac, Ren, Cube, or whoever it sounds natural in your head as? Would you at least be willing to look at some of his lyrics from a purely technical perspective, and set aside your personal feelings about the man as a person, his voice, or his sincerity?
If you’re not willing to do that, then I truly believe that you’re only starving yourself of a chance to at the very least take a mutual appreciation in a piece of art, if not give you the slightest amount of respect for Drake’s pen when it comes to technical ability. At the end of the day, we both live and breathe hip hop, so we should try to find common ground, rather than continue down a path of divisive tribalism.
I’m willing to do this outside of the context of a “comparison” with some of Ren’s bars. I was only challenging you to offer a comparison track so that you have a frame of reference for just how high Drake’s lyrical ceiling can actually get.
No, I said better rhymes, not more rhymes.
You got me there. I misremembered your comment, which caused me to misquote you. I will concede to you on that, and I apologize for getting that wording wrong. In my defense, I conflated the two for a valid reason:
Multisyllabic rhymes are inherently better rhymes than single syllables. And, multies that rhyme more syllables are better than multies that rhyme less (i.e. five syllables vs two). Furthermore, bars that include internal rhyme scheme techniques (such as the techniques of shadowboxing and segmentation) are objectively better examples of rhyming than bars that do not include internals. Does that make sense? Hear me out, because if you’re an actual hip hop head, then I’m sure you’re tracking…
In your opinion, which of the following examples has “better rhymes” within four bars? Option A or Option B?
Option A:
Smoke the first 48 hours,
Grind 22 and sleep 2 hours.
Put 24's on the new Audi,
White on white like baby powder.
-Future, Commas
Option B:
Imported foreigns, this currency I get more and more in,
And more from tourin', leave Florida then I'll perform in Europe
PJ soarin', the PJ pourin' before I'm boardin'
In Bora Bora with Laura, Lauryn and more adoring
-Conway the Machine, Give & Give
Obviously, it’s Option B, right? But they both use double syllabic rhyme schemes. So why is Option B so much better? Because there’s a higher quantity of rhymes, meaning it has objectively far more lyrical depth. This is why you likely won’t listen to “mumble rappers” or the current Rage subgenre (Playboi Carti, for example). That music has very little lyrical complexity.
As someone whose favorite rapper is MC Ren, please tell me you are following. Like, everything I’ve said in this comment has been facts, correct? Stay with me.
Rhymes are quantifiable?
Literally yes, exceedingly so. Rhymes have syllables. You can literally measure the amount of unique syllables that rhyme, as well as percentage of syllables that rhyme. These are quantifiable metrics. I’d love to demonstrate, if only you’d engage in good faith for once.
It’s a really simple question. Obviously you might have a handful of answers (as I have for Drake), but you also might have one or two that stand out as some of his best rhyming performances (as I also have for Drake). Why are you afraid of the head-to-head, bar-for-bar comparison if you’re so confident that you are objectively correct? So, just tell me:
If for nothing else, I’d genuinely like to be put on to music that I’ve potentially never heard. Unlike you, I’m genuinely engaging in good faith arguments. If you’re right, I’ll expose myself as proven wrong, right here. But only one of us can be right. This isn’t a subjective topic. You said, quote, “more rhymes.” That’s an inherently quantitative statement. So let’s talk about it.
Set your elitism aside for 5 fucking seconds and just tell me your favorite song by Ren when it comes to rhyme schemes.
Not particularly, but I think I'd struggle more with it if I were truly brand new to the game. I've done quite a bit of work on mentality even since before coming back to retail.
How Many Of You Are New?
worldofpvp