The "real rap" answer to Drake and Future's What A Time To Be Alive has been gestating for just about as long as those two stars' chemistry, and like their more hedonistic counterparts, Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole seem to have held out for a full-fledged collab project until they were both top-tier rappers. The two highly-regarded lyricists have been circling each other since Cole produced "HiiiPower" for Section.80, but despite continually hyping up their joint release, it wasn't until last Friday that they finally reconvened with a coordinated effort. Two "Black Friday" remixes arrived at the exact same time, each featuring one MC freestyling over a track from the other's most recent album. A unique move in hip hop, the strategy is most reminiscent of 7" split singles in punk rock, which can sometimes feature likeminded bands covering each others' material.
It was a perfect storm of excitement, both artists breaking the relative silence that followed their most critically-lauded albums to date, taking breaks from conceptual musings (for the most part) to just flat-out rap. And it all happened on a day during which most of us either sat in food-related comas or shopping-induced stupor. Couple that with a (Freudian?) slip from K Dot's sister, and the two God MCs' collab tape/album jumped from the realm of Madvillainy 2-level far-fetchedom back to the top of everyone's "most anticipated" lists.
As we did while waiting on pins and needles for To Pimp A Butterfly, we're going to reign in all of the wild speculation on the project, and instead turning a critical eye to the two most recent products from its creators. There's very little chance that we'll be seeing either freestyle on the tracklist, but giving each a closer look may provide a better idea of what we'll get if when these guys get around to dropping their full-length.
Compare
For starters, let's think about the album tracks that Cole and Kendrick chose. "A Tale Of Two Citiez" is the most aggressive track on 2014 Forest Hills Drive, and "Alright" is the most chipper on TPAB, but they're linked in their commercial appeal and somewhat disguised political commentary. Cole would sound more at home on "Momma," and Kendrick could've delivered a more thrilling "Fire Squad" remix than everyone else who's attempted one, but it was clear that they both wanted to go for mass appeal after releasing their artsiest full-lengths to date. Cole gets his hands on a track that's done more damage on the radio than anything on his album, and Dot satisfies the TPAB naysayers by setting his paintbrush down and once more going to battle.
Although they both tie in nods to their most recent material, it's immediately clear that while intellectualism won't be sacrificed (duh), shit-talking bravado is the aim here. For these two, that entails just as much community-minded ranting as it does individualistic swagger-- politics, the state of the rap game, and fame-phobia being some of their favorite topics-- but this time around that resembles a passionate protest much more so than a nuanced persuasive essay. The specters of Donald Trump, police profiling and unfair taxation lurk over Lamar and Cole's verses, but both seem to be there more for punchline's sake ("Play with him, bitch you better off voting for Donald Trump," "Got a middle finger for Uncle Sam / I done paid so much taxes I can fund Japan") than provoking deep thought.
The two MCs look down their noses at the rest of the rap game, with Kendrick asking us to abort "baby rappers" and Cole claims that biting his flow will give you Ebola. Search for subliminals aimed at mutual foe Drake all you want, but somewhat surprisingly, it's Cole who has the most apparent one: "If I quote it, n*gga / I wrote it, n*gga." Their disdain continues its common thread in their views on fame and money, each nodding to their personal hypocrisies when it comes to their elevated status. After bragging about his sold-out stadium tour and "cream like a Laker," Cole catches himself with a "But I ain’t coming to talk about all that paper / That’s what they talk about when they ain’t got shit to say"; similarly, Kendrick's claim that he's "rollin' deep in that paper like two Adeles" is countered seconds later with the downside of his flush bank account: "It’s seven figures and retainer for the case nowadays." These are two confident-but-conflicted guys who are equally unafraid of boasting and humbling themselves.
As far as references go, most importantly they both take time to let us know who's responsible for putting this together, with Dreamville president Ibrahim Hamad getting doubly name-checked. They're both well-read, voracious listeners, and that shows with Cole's nod to "Robert's Rules Of Order" and "Ain't No Way Around It," and Kendrick's Tupac-via-Shakespeare quote and allusions to "Belly" and "Friday."
Contrast
Despite constantly getting grouped together as members of the same rarified class of rap elites, Cole and Kendrick have had clear differences since day one, and those continue to pop up on these freestyles. Cole excels by taking recognizable topics, phrases and themes and expanding upon them to give more depth than your average MC, and Lamar's bread and butter has been disintegrating those rap tropes, usually by looking at them from completely different angles. The "Alright" remix is peppered with clichéd phrases-- “shout out to the haters,” “ain’t no way around it,” “keep this shit 100,” “snakes in the grass,” “same shit, different day"-- while Kendrick opts for new spins on old topics-- everybody claims to be the second coming of Tupac, but when Kendrick does it, he also sons an entire swath of the game with "I’m the son of the pioneer that got you n*ggas on." This is not to say that the latter approach is more impressive than the former (punchy, familiar lines often make verses all the more memorable), but it makes one of them a revisionist and the other a radical.
In keeping with Cole's desire to retain ties to the rest of modern hip hop, and Kendrick's to completely sever the cord, is the fact that Cole sounds like he's looking over his shoulder while Kendrick closes his eyes and ignores all else around him. Neither use drugs, but Cole brags about it ("No promethazine, I'm a king") and Kendrick uses more of a "high on life" approach ("My DNA is DMT," "I'm snapping off my endorphins"). Likewise, Cole's always taking a minute to revel in the attention he gets from the ladies ("Spit different flows, hit different chicks"), whereas Kendrick tends to focus on romance only when he's able to devote an entire song to it ("These Walls," "Complexion").
Reference-wise, it's clear to see that these two MCs both watched a lot of TV as kids, but tuned into very different channels. Ever the jock, Cole crams mentions of the Knicks, Staples Center, the Lakers and Chris Paul into his verses, while Kendrick shows that he was more likely watching ("mighty morphin'") "Power Rangers," '90s classics like "Belly" and "Friday," David Blaine specials, or PBS documentaries on Jimi Hendrix. If they were in high school together, they'd both be taking honors classes, but Cole would be the popular sports star and Kendrick would be the quiet kid who defines himself by the variety and amount of culture he consumes.
Conclusion
What's immediately clear after listening to the two "Black Friday" freestyle is that Cole and Kendrick have much more in common with each other than Drake and Future do. They tend to focus on similar subjects, hold similar opinions, and approach the rap game as something in need of repair. However, they do offer the very different perspectives and complexities that makes for the best duos-- Kendrick as the avant-garde Andre 3000 or John Lennon, Cole as dazzling classicist Big Boi or Paul McCartney. On their upcoming project, we won't get any moments as mismatched as "Live From the Gutter," which had Future on welfare, seeing "hell everywhere" while the most harrowing situation Drake can muster is a night when he had to tell a girl "Shut your mouth and take what's coming." Cole and Kendrick are a duo that can see eye-to-eye on more than just being super-famous rappers, that can effectively talk politics, religion, cultural appropriation and hip hop ethics without boring us.
Who knows if this thing will actually come out on February 16th, but for now, we've got two of the year's most enjoyable freestyles to savor.