“A word of advice, never go into a rap battle with Kendrick Lamar. »» February 2 in Los Angeles, during the 67e Grammy Awards ceremony – the prestigious awards of the American music industry -, Sean Ono Lennon, son of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, launched the young artists present in the room in the tone of the joke. During this evening, Californian rapper, 2018 Pulitzer Prize in the Music category for his album Damn, won five awards with his song Not Like Us, A anthem for the black and Latin communities of the American West Coast, at the same time as a bomb sent to the figure of the other Hip-Hop superstar, the Canadian Drake, 37 years old.
For the past year, the two artists have been engaged in one of these Titans clashes which rap lovers revel in. Among other grievances, Kendrick Lamar criticizes his colleague from Toronto, son of an African-American drummer from Memphis and a white Canadian educator, for appropriating Californian black culture. In Not Like Us, He also points to the supposed penchant of his opponent for very young girls (“Say, Drake, I Hear You Like ‘Em Young”,, “Say, Drake, I heard that you loved them young”), and accuses him of surrounding himself within his security team of “Certified pedocriminals”, thus diverting the title of Drake’s album, Certified Lover Boy (2021).
Kendrick Lamar, who will be on tour in the United States and Europe with singer Sza, from April 19 to August 9 (with a visit to Paris La Défense Arena, on July 15 and 16), and who works on a film, Whitney Springs, whose exit is scheduled for July, there is no shortage of an opportunity to expand your best enemy. And the opportunity was too good, on February 9, at the Superdome Caesars in New Orleans, during its half-time performance of the Super Bowl, the final of the American football championship watched by more than 120 million viewers.
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