Kendrick Lamar, Drake, and the Advantages of Beef
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The rap superstars Drake and Kendrick Lamar have been on a collision course for a decade, buying and selling periodic diss tracks to claim their superiority—however earlier this month the long-simmering beef erupted right into a showdown that mentioned as a lot in regards to the artists because it did in regards to the artwork. On this episode of Critics at Massive, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz look at how the back-and-forth devolved from a litigation of craft right into a collection of ad-hominem assaults alleging every little thing from cultural appropriation to pedophilia. They focus on the best way rivalries operate within the artistic world, fuelling new work and compelling audiences to pay nearer consideration to it than ever earlier than. The hosts additionally take into account different feuds of word, from a nineteenth-century debate over Shakespearean actors that resulted in violence to the author Renata Adler’s blistering takedown of the movie critic Pauline Kael in The New York Evaluation of Books. Why accomplish that many of those schisms revolve round elementary questions of authenticity and belonging? And, as soon as they begin to spiral, is there any going again? “Battle may be productive emotionally and in addition artistically,” Schwartz says. “However this isn’t a spot that we will completely reside.”
Learn, watch, and hear with the critics:
“DAMN.,” by Kendrick Lamar
“To Pimp a Butterfly,” by Kendrick Lamar
“Management,” by Massive Sean that includes Kendrick Lamar and Jay Electronica
“First Particular person Shooter,” by Drake that includes J. Cole
“Like That,” by Future, Metro Boomin, and Kendrick Lamar
“Push Ups,” by Drake
“Taylor Made Freestyle,” by Drake
“Again to Again,” by Drake
“euphoria,” by Kendrick Lamar
“6:16 in LA,” by Kendrick Lamar
“meet the grahams,” by Kendrick Lamar
“Not Like Us,” by Kendrick Lamar
“THE HEART PART 6,” by Drake
“Stormy Daniels’s American Dream,” by Naomi Fry (The New Yorker)
“The Perils of Pauline,” by Renata Adler (The New York Evaluation of Books)
New episodes drop each Thursday. Comply with Critics at Massive wherever you get your podcasts.
