The classic rap battles of yesteryear didn't have social media to gauge which rapper was winning, or which one was getting clowned. Drake and Kendrick Lamar have the blessing and the curse of knowing what their listeners think right away. It's a blessing in the sense that they can tailor their music in real time. It's a curse in that no matter what either rapper comes up with, there will be an X (formerly Twitter) who already thought of it. These two have to outsmart each other and the collective brain power of social media. Neither are doing too well against the latter.
Kendrick Lamar was put on blast May 10 when fans began to collect tweets from the past couple years. These tweets contains jokes and observations about Drake that showed up in Lamar's various disses. It led to a widespread debate about whether Lamar used X to help strengthen his diss, or if he simply had the same approach as a handful of users. The most notable points of overlap were jokes about Drake's favorite cord ("A minor") and the flip of OVO to "OVOH*e." Both of them appeared in Lamar's "Not Like Us" diss. Then it happened to Drizzy. Within hours of the Kendrick Lamar tweet compilations, users put together similar examples with lyrics from the 6 God.
Fans Are Questioning Drake And K. Dot's Pen Games
The examples were culled from random Twitter accounts. One user suggested that Drake name his diss "The Heart Part 6," which is precisely what he did. Another pointed out that Kendrick Lamar claimed to be a "big stepper" despite having a size seven shoe size. Drake made Lamar's shoe size a major part of "Push Ups," right down to having it serve as the basis of the single artwork. Is Drake a lyrics thief? If so, then so is Lamar, right? DJ Akademiks, of all people, came to the defense of the latter.
Ak, who has been a vocal Drake supporter throughout the battle, dismissed the claims that Lamar stole lyrics from Twitter. In his estimation, there's bound to be overlap between songwriters and every clever comment on social media. The same logic can apply to Drake. Sure, some users may have beaten him to the punch in terms of song titles and/or bars. You can take any diss song made in the last decade and find parallels between the lyrics and Twitter jokes. Especially when the targets are this famous.