Stan culture is a truly rotten experience. It impedes any innate curiosity and favors an exclusivity with one specific person or artist. It also creates this unhealthy relationship between celebrity and fan, often teetering into the obsessive. In the age of the internet and social media, the mainstream feels closer than ever. Consequently, when the Drake and Kendrick Lamar beef devoured all of 2024, naturally, people took sides.
For Kendrick and his fans, the argument was simple: Drake didn’t represent the true human soul and expression. He targeted his musical, social, and racial identity alike in an onslaught of diss tracks. For Drake and his legion of OVO acolytes, Kendrick was essentially an absentee. How could you be the greatest when you’re hardly around? Additionally, he argued that Lamar wasn’t nearly as insightful or deep as many would like to believe.
Even though Kendrick Lamar handily won the feud, the fans still continue the beef. Both sides vehemently oppose playing the other’s music, regardless of the quality. So how do you break down what works about both of these artists? How do you get a Drake stan to earnestly engage in Kendrick’s material? Moreover, how do you get Kendrick’s base not to dismiss Drake’s music outright?
How To Get Drake and Kendrick Lamar Fans To Understand Each Other
Here’s the thing: Drake and Kendrick really aren’t that different from one another. In a larger career outlook, they do a lot of the same things. However, how they did it has been the key difference and the crux of their beef. Drake’s rise certainly had its ups and downs, but through the power of YMCMB and UMG, he became one of rap’s primary stars very quickly, toppling the charts accordingly.
Meanwhile, Kendrick Lamar’s prestige is through a lot of institutional support. Albums like good kid, m.A.A.d city and To Pimp A Butterfly were incredibly thoughtful and cinematic in their approach, leading to a ton of award show love accordingly. But at the end of the day, their goals were the same: to be the best rapper alive.
Consequently, when looking at Kendrick’s discography, a Drake fan should only ever look at it as someone doing the same thing their fav did through a different lens. Kendrick grew up in Compton and trudged through to gain industry love and the crown of the West Coast. Drake grew up in Toronto and trudged through to gain legitimacy after being deemed too soft to be the top hitmaker.
The post I Tried Explaining Kendrick Lamar’s Discography to Someone Who Only Listens to Drake—This Is What We Both Learned appeared first on VICE.
