THE world woke up to a track titled “Control” and let me tell you, the last time I heard such a track name, it was lively, loud and was by Janet Jackson. This time, it was by our friend Big Sean who visited Nigeria last Christmas season to play in DBanj’s concert. The loud part got lively by another rapper who has now graduated into the big leagues, Kendrick Lamar. I missed opportunities to see this rapper while in Toronto when he was still aspiring and NXNE was on and you got just too tired to attend every single rap concert.
Kendrick Lamar was featured in the middle part of the track with Rapper Jay Electronica at the end. Hold up, twitter went crazy! Every tweet had Kendrick in it. He was trending all over the globe, Nigerians did not fully understand it. I reached out to two of the BEST hiphop sites @MTVRapFix and @HipHopWired to find out what the ruckus was about?
Hip-Hop Wired sent me the relevant links on request and I listened to the track. It was a handful! Kendrick dissed certain rappers quoting “murdering’’ them lyrically and taking their fans, he named A$AP Rocky, Drake, Pusha-T and ranted about material things, red corvettes, white shirts, even a prosthetic leg and Lindsay Lohan. It was the rappers he mentioned and didn’t mention that became the subject of twitter all day. I reached out to several rappers to hear from them and many had a lot to say. Even my son, Kay Jeezy, an aspiring 12-year-old rapper, thought it was hype. My 22-year old son, a Los Angeles Rapper and Film Director @DGHXL called it “attention Lamar needed to be relevant.” He also mentioned that Jay Electronica was his favourite rapper.
Church Chizzle, a dynamic Toronto rapper was asked if Toronto rappers were scared by Lamar mentioning Drake’s name. Chizzle told me “Not at all, Kendrick just named who he felt he’s in competition with. I will probably do the same in his position.” Rapper Ice T, a veteran rapper and actor tweeted “I’m sure there’s gonna be a lot of replies and diss tracks. Don’t trip. It’s just Hip Hop. Competition-year-old.” The American-Nigerian twin Producers Taiwo and Kehinde Hassan known as Christian Rich also tweeted me that “Hip hop needed a push and Kendrick Lamar just gave it.”
Now every rapper learned how to get relevance in the game from this day of Kendrick frenzy. Lamar, who has not tweeted since July 27th while on his China and Japan tour thanking fans over there has gained even more followers on twitter and passed the two-million mark. He has however retweeted his Top Dawg Entertainment merchandise handle, a smart move to get fans shopping. He used Facebook on Wednesday to drop the song. He has not responded yet to his fans but several rappers like Joel Ortiz have been on MTVRapFix Live with Sway Calloway to talk about the hype. The question now is which rapper is going to reply first with their own diss track? I analyzed it on my audio portal Reverbnation.com/HipHossip. Follow me on twitter @HipHossip for all updates.