‘I can even predict your angle’: How Kendrick Lamar’s rhetoric discredited Drake forever – The Arizona State Press

Almost everyone remembers what they were doing when Kendrick Lamar dropped “Not Like Us.”  Today, the music video on YouTube has over 145 million views and the Spotify track has more than 800 million streams. It’s not just an iconic moment ingrained into the memory of hip-hop fans, but a cultural phenomenon that has caught the attention of anyone who is even remotely familiar with rap. We know Kendrick won, we know Drake made bad diss tracks — but what separates the two as artists? “The art of emceeing is a combat sport,” said Matt Kirkpatrick, a part-time professor at the School of Music, Dance and Theatre. “Beef is ingrained in this culture because iron sharpens iron.”  The dispute started with a similar tone, with Kendrick and Drake taking tiny digs at each other using sneak disses, but it has since morphed into something that has flipped the trajectory of hip-hop culture and forced fans to take sides.  What makes this specific “beef” different is the fact that it occurred during a time when hip-hop has become less regional due to the internet, thinks Marlon Loria, the face behind YouTube channel MarLoria, who made a video about the controversy with...