Last night should have been Big Sean‘s big night. His shining moment after returning from a lengthy sabbatical. And he would have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn’t for that meddling Kendrick Lamar.
On Friday (March 22), Sean Don kicked off his comeback with the new track “Precision,” a banger of a return record that should have been the buzz of the internet, along with Future and Metro Boomin‘s We Don’t Trust You album. Then, K-Dot entered the chat and detonated an atomic bomb via his verse on the We Don’t Trust You track “Like That.” The feature finds the Compton, Calif. spitter going in on Drake and J. Cole.
“N***as clickin’ up, but cannot be legit, no 40 Water, tell ’em/Ah, yeah, huh, yeah, get up with me/F**k sneak dissin’, first person shooter, I hope they came with three switches,” Kendrick snaps.
“Muthaf**k the big three, n***a, it’s just big me/N***a, bum, what? I’m really like that/And your best work is a light pack,” he adds, challenging the idea of a rap triumvirate of himself, Drizzy and Cole.
Kendrick also seems to directly address the For All the Dogs rapper rhyming, “N***a, Prince outlived Mike Jack’/N***a, bum, ‘fore all your dogs gettin’ buried/That’s a K with all these nines, he gon’ see Pet Sematary.”
And just like that, Kung Fu Kenny’s eclipse was complete.
History Repeats Itself, Sort Of
This is not the first time Kendrick Lamar has walked away with Big Sean’s shine. Back in August of 2013, Big Sean released the song “Control,” which features Kendrick and Jay Electronica. The loosie was released in promotion of Sean’s Hall of Fame album, which dropped a couple weeks later. However, Kendrick’s explosive verse, where he claimed to be the king of New York, was one of the biggest moments in hip-hop of the year.
Despite the entire talk about the song being about Kendrick’s viral verse, Sean was initially peace about Kendrick getting all the props. However, in 2015, Sean noted in an interview with Complex that there was a lot of negativity surrounding the track. He later appeared to throw subliminal shots at Kendrick on the songs “Me, Myself and I” and “No More Interviews.” In 2017, Kendrick Lamar released “The Heart Part 4” and later “Humble,” both of which fans believe contain shots at Sean.
Fast-forward to Wednesday (March 21), when Big Sean released a new freestyle on which he slights rap’s perceived Big Three: Kendrick Lamar, Drake and J. Cole.
“I think where I lack most as an artist is consistency/I just haven’t had the energy to compete with enemies,” the Detroit rapper spits. “Or y’all so-called bigger three/But every verse I lay, fans love to say, ‘Man, n***as is sleep!'”
There was no way Sean could know that two days later, Kendrick Lamar would strike again and take the internet by storm on Sean’s big day. Hell, Kendrick didn’t even know, but two times is a coincidence. If it happens again, this might be a pattern.
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