In the ongoing war between hip-hop titans, Kendrick Lamar has released “Euphoria,” a response record that comes in the wake of Drake’s “Push Ups” and “Taylor Made Freestyle.”
On the track, Lamar lays out a series of bars that addresses much of the fallout from his verse on Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That,” a track that set off a series of diss responses from Drake, J. Cole and Rick Ross. It largely squares on Drake, and he begins with a verse over a languid beat.
“You not a rap artist, you a scam artist with the hopes of being accepted / Tommy Hilfiger stood out, but Fubu had nеver been your collection,” he begins. “Know you a master manipulator, and habitual liar, too / But don’t tell no lie ’bout me, and I won’t tell truths ’bout you.”
On the six-minute “Euphoria,” he goes after Drake for using AI on “Taylor Made Freestyle” to manipulate Tupac Shakur’s vocals. “Somebody had told that you got a ring, on God, I’m ready to double the wage / I rather do that than let a Canadian n—a make Pac turn in his grave.”
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He sums up his thesis roughly halfway through the cut. “This ain’t been ’bout critics, not about gimmicks, not about who the greatest / It’s always been about love and hate, now let me say I’m the biggest hater / I hate the way that you walk, the way that you talk /I hate the way that you dress I hate the way you sneak diss, if I catch flight, it’s gon’ be direct.”
Lamar’s response comes more than a month after “Like That,” a song that shook the hip-hop foundation after the rapper came at Drake and J. Cole for their collaboration “First Person Shooter,” on which the latter included Lamar in “the big three.” In the time since, J. Cole released his response track “7 Minute Drill” and later regretted it, removing it from streaming platforms. Drake, meanwhile, released “Push Ups” and “Taylor Made Freestyle,” the latter of which was taken down from social media after Shakur’s estate threatened to sue him.
