By most standards, Kendrick Lamar is one of the greatest living rappers. He’s got three masterpiece albums to his name — including last year’s DAMN. — and his live show has only gotten better with time. His songs are vivid, poignant, and brutally honest narratives of the black experience, a celebration of black excellence, and perhaps more than any other rapper, a rebuke of the white oppressor now occupying the White House.
And yet if you ask fellow rapper Lupe Fiasco, Kendrick is vastly overrated.
In a series of since-deleted tweets, Lupe compared Kendrick’s lyrical abilities to those of “1-800-273-8255” rapper Logic. “I’ll put it to you like this. K. Dot is not a top tier lyricist to me and my standards when it comes to punchlines and bars,” Lupe argued. “His overall lyrics are good, his stories phenomenal, but punchline entendre lyrically I don’t see it.”
When a Kendrick defender responded to Lupe by saying “Look Out For Detox” “destroys” any of his tracks, Lupe replied, “I’ve never been destroyed. Also the only issue that the world thinks I have with K. Dot and I actually do is that I think his ‘Control’ verse was wack and super overhyped to be a verse claiming you are the best rapper. It was very weird. I was told it was just bait, but still.”
Even if Lupe has a valid argument, I stopped paying attention as soon as he mentioned Logic.
