Last night, after a full day of watching people respond to Kendrick Lamar’s allegations that he was a pedophile running a child trafficking ring out of his mansion, Aubrey Graham (better known to the world as Drake) finally responded. Look, I’ve never been in a feud with Kendrick Lamar. And I’ve never been accused of, by all accounts, the worst crime a person can be accused of. So I’m not going to pretend I have any idea what was running through Graham’s head as I sure he was doom-scrolling social media reading about himself.
His response came in the track “The Heart Part 6”, a reference to a series of songs Lamar has released. And as far as responses go…
It’s really stupid.
“The Heart Part 6” can basically be boiled down to three arguments; one of which I kind of understand and the other two which completely baffle me. For my sake as a writer, I will now quickly rank these from least to most stupid:
- Kendrick never responded to Drake’s allegations made in earlier tracks. Graham points out that Lamar has been so busy lobbing grenades that he didn’t respond to any of the claims made in the track “Family Matters”, specifically that Lamar has abused his partner Whitney Alford and that he is not the father of the child they have together. This line of attack provides Drake with some of the best lines in “The Heart Part 6”, specifically when he ends the verse by telling Alford, “You can hit me if you need a favor/And when I hit ya back it’s a lot safer.”
- Kendrick is so obsessed with pedophilia because he was molested as a child. This is where the ground starts to get shaky and it does so in a hurry. Drake recalls a line from Kendrick’s last album, Mr. Morale And The Big Steppers which references abuse as a child and comes to a big conclusion: the only reason Lamar is so obsessed with the idea that someone is a child abuser is because of his past trauma. Drake tells Lamar that he feels bad for him and will pray, but then later kind of takes that all back by saying, “I’m praying you recover from both incidents/But you a piece of shit so this shit really no coincidence” which feels like he is saying that, if there was trauma, it was caused because Kendrick is a bad person. The “I’m rubber, you’re glue” rationale doesn’t really work for me, but following it up with, “You deserved it” is a horrible look.
- The allegations of child abuse was all just a trick. This is where the train comes off of the track. For three tracks now, Kendrick Lamar has laid out a pretty clear case: many people at OVO Sound (Drake’s label) are actively against Drake, sending out leaks and spreading information to people. With “The Heart Part 6”, Drake fires back what I’m sure he thinks is his silver bullet: “What if that was what I wanted the whole time?” After denying the allegations basically by saying there is no way he wouldn’t be in prison if everything Kendrick claims was true, Graham announces that every Lamar learned was just a big hoax put on by OVO. Apparently, all of the leaks were intentional so Drake could have this specific moment and now he can accuse Drake of the worst crime anyone in hip hop can commit… not verifying his sources. Drake would then go on to accuse Kendrick, multiple times, of poor journalism, as if he is now rap-battling Wolf Blitzer. If this were just about the unknown daughter, I could understand the merit of this being a silly practical joke. But let’s be clear about what this was: If everything Drake is claiming is correct, he allowed the world to hear claims that he was a child trafficker and abuser for 24 hours all so he could just have a “Gotcha!” moment. There are no words to explain how dumb this thinking is.
I’m not sure what effect this is going to have on either rapper. My suspicion is that Drake, at this moment, is still too big to fail. I’m sure his legion of fans will believe “The Heart Part 6” and use it as their way to point out that their idol cannot be the monster he is portrayed at. Kendrick has always been a cultural and critical darling, and I think his reputation has only grown from this. In short, in thinking what the long term impact of this all is going to be, the answer is: probably nothing.
Sure is fun to watch, though.
Fancy Boys Club 
Drake also contradicts himself because he says the people Kendrick is getting his info from are all clowns but then says he told them to feed Kendrick the misinformation so he’s calling his friends clowns? Also, like his defence is that if he was a pedophile he’d be in prison but lots of them are free so not really much of a legit comeback in my opinion.
LikeLike