Hip-hop’s got 99 problems? Well, misogyny is definitely one. This rap civil war between Kendrick Lamar and Drake, which has it’s origin in October last year, took over genre in April and May. There have been eight out and out diss tracks and a trail of peripheral lore; and to no one’s surprise women are once again bearing the brunt of two men’s mud slinging contest.
Drake dropped the first beat on such vicious allegations in his three part diss Family Matters. In the track, he accuses Lamar of beating his fiancee, Whitney Alford. “They hired a crisis management team to clean up the fact that you beat up your queen,” he rapped, after facing stinging jabs in Lamar’s Euphoria and 6:16 in L.A. Kendrick retaliated to Family Matters with his Meet the Grahams, comparing Drake to Harvey Weinstein—”a sick man with sick thoughts” who “hates Black women”. Speaking to Drake mother in the track, Lamar adds “And we gotta raise our daughters knowin’ there’s predators like him lurkin’”.
If that was not enough, K Dot in his final diss, Not Like Us, explicitly accuses Drake of being a paedophile—“Certified Lover Boy? Certified pedophiles,” Lamar raps in the song. “Say, Drake, I hear you like ’em young…make sure you hide your lil’ sister from him”
But this shouldn’t be confused as hip hop’s step in the “right direction”—to be progressive or an attempt to hold the boy’s club accountable. To reveal, or worse, use such shocking allegations, which they apparently knew all this while, to win a rap battle is deplorable. These men have made women who are potential survivors of sexual abuse, grooming and domestic violence the collateral damage of their boo-s and ooh-s.
Also read: Hindu pride hip-hop: Indian rappers are now singing about Kaali, Shiva, Kashmiri Pandits
The code of silence
None of the allegations have been proven and Drake’s response to him being accused of pedophilia would be laughable if it wasn’t so nauseating. “I’m way too famous for this sh*t you just suggested,” he raps in The Heart Part 6. He promises that if he did it, he would’ve been arrested. As if this 37-year-old man with a reportedly $ 250 million net worth is oblivious to the fact that the legal system is imperfect, if not messy. Very few rapes are even reported to law enforcement, and fewer still lead to arrests and convictions. If you add fame, wealth and power to this equation, the consequences are often nil. But surely, Drizzy is “way too famous” to care about that.
It’s not just misogyny that this diss war is capitalising on. Lamar’s lyrics are laced with liberal doses of homophobia. In Euphoria, he alludes to Drake being “feminine”, explicitly comparing him to rapper Sexyy Red and saying that he can twerk with women who he sees as competition. Given Lamar’s straight and ardent Christian identity, euphemisms of which have appeared time and again in his lyrics, these recent digs aren’t just harmless and light-hearted jabs.
Diss tracks are supposed to be rife with insults and call outs but this one has gone on to reaffirm the code of silence—one that even enemies are willing to uphold within hip-hop’s boys’ club. It’s exactly what Lamar proudly claims in Euphoria “But don’t tell no lie about me and I won’t tell truths ’bout you”. Calling out each other on the horrible things they have done to prove who is the better rapper is not being progressive. It is at best, a sickening attempt at weaponising the post #MeToo culture to win a fight.
Views are personal.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)