kendrick lamar
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Kendrick Lamar gave fans everything they wished for, and more. The Compton rapper’s Pop Out show went down on Juneteenth at The Forum in Inglewood, but was streamed worldwide via Amazon Prime, bringing the Los Angeles vibes, and Drake slander, to the globe.
Billed as The Pop Out: Ken & Friends Concert, the star-studded cameos did not disappoint. Tyler, The Creator, YG and even the good Dr. Dre were just several of his high-profile guests. And really, you knew you were in for a time when Kendrick started his set by performing “Euphoria,” which the crowd seemed to know word for word.
K. Dot hit fan favorites like “King Kunta” and “Be Alright,” but the guest artists that really got the crowd going were from his hometeam Black Hippy contingent that includes Jay Rock, who performed “Money Trees,” Ab-Soul and ScHoolboy Q, who performed “Collard Greens.”
But the best was saved for last, with Kendrick Lamar asking Dr. Dre (who performed “California Love”) to do him one last favor before he left the stage, and that was to kick off the DJ Mustard-produced, Drake diss track “Not Like Us.”
K-Dot proceeded to run back the song a smooth fives times (six if you count it playing when he finally left the stage_, with the crowd, and surely the home audience, too, rapping along bar for bar. As expected, the “A-mnor” line was a crowd favorite, with Kendrick simply letting the venue hold the moment the first time, and mimic Neo’s fame bullet-time motion from The Matrix the second time.
However, the truly epic moment was Kendrick inviting various rappers who repped different sets of Crips and Bloods, as well as NBA stars Russell Westbrook and DeMar DeRozan, onto the stage, “This sh*t making me emotional. we been f*cked up since Nipsey died,” said Kendrick. “We been f*cked up since Kobe died.”
If you know anything about LA gang culture, you know Kendrick pulling that off and keeping everything peace was major. The moment was captured in an epic photo and encapsulates the influence Kendrick Lamar has on culture.
Check out the reactions to Kendrick Lamar’s Pop Up show, that kept trending for hours after it conclusion, in the gallery.
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Fans from all around the globe will be able to tune in to Kendrick Lamar’s The Pop Out – Ken & Friends concert slated for Wednesday (June 19).
The concert, presented by pgLang and Free Lunch, will stream live from the Kia Forum in Inglewood, Calif. on Prime Video and the Amazon Music‘s Twitch Channel starting at 4 p.m. PT/ 7 p.m. ET.
Read on for details on how to stream free on Prime Video.
How to Watch Kendrick Lamar’s Concert on Prime Video
Prime Video subscribers can stream The Pop Out – Ken & Friends for free. If you’re not subscribed, click below to launch your 30-day free trial to Amazon Prime to watch the concert on Wednesday.
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‘The Pop Out: Ken & Friends’: Stream Free on June 19 at 4 p.m. PT/7 p.m . ET
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Besides live concerts, Prime Video carries a range of exclusive TV series and movies such as The Boys, Fallout, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Swarm, Harlem, Invincible, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, Fleabag, The Summer I Turned Pretty, The Wheel of Time, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, The Legend of Vox Machina, The Goat, Them 2 and Reacher.
Those who want to watch internationally, can access different streamers with a VPN such as ExpressVPN or NordVPN.
Lamar’s concert livestream coincides with Amazon’s Black Music Month celebration “honoring the contributions of Black artists, producers, and songwriters who have defined culture.” In honor of Black Music Month, Amazon launched the “Forever Influence” campaign featuring Amazon Music Originals and exclusive video content.
K-Dot previously teamed with Amazon for Kendrick Lamar Live: The Big Steppers Tour live from Paris in 2022.
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Source: Arturo Holmes / Getty / Elliott Wilson
No one man should have all that power. UPROXX’s new Editorial Director and legendary Hip-Hop scribe Elliott Wilson is no longer welcome in Toronto, and it allegedly has to do with Drake being salty.
Wilson spoke on The Bigger Picture podcast about the fallout after he decided that Kendrick Lamar came out on top in the highly entertaining back-and-forth with Drake.
Wilson revealed that Drake was in his feelings after his co-host DJ Hed pointed out that Wilson was no longer wearing OVO gear and asked him how he felt about Drake unfollowing him.
The Petty 6 God
“It’s funny because Drake is the kind of dude that, even if he doesn’t f**k with you, he still follows you. So, he’s not an unfollow kind of dude. [But] I saw somebody in my comments say, ‘How do you feel about Drake unfollowing you?’ I got my emotions about it… but look, it’s hard… that’s my guy, I respect him,” Wilson said.
Continuing the conversation, Wilson revealed that he got “calls” from people telling him she should not set foot in Toronto right now.
“I got the calls from OGs — I’m not really welcomed in Toronto right now. I grew up in NYC and you know not to go into other people’s projects. You might visit shorty but you ain’t got no business being over to those projects looking for no problems,” Wilson said. “So, I would not go to TO if me and Drake weren’t good. I just think it’s a tough time to manage these relationships with artists… You develop these connections with them, and then you have to manage these relationships and its ups and downs with that.”
All of this is because Wilson agreed with everyone else that Kendrick Lamar won.
Drake is a very petty individual.
Speaking of Drake, he just hopped on a new Sexy Redd song that features the BBL Drizzy beat.
You can watch the latest episode of The Bigger Picture below.
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Kendrick Lamar and his war of words with Drake was largely expected to be a war of words but has transformed into a huge cultural moment that transcends the battle. K-Dot’s blistering “Not Like Us” landed the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 charts and gave DJ Mustard his first No. 1 debut.
Kendrick Lamar, 36, threw the first of the most current shots in the direction of Drake (and J. Cole) on the relatively tame “Like That” track from Future and Metro Boomin’s WE DON’T TRUST YOU collaborative album. From there, the stakes were raised when J. Cole fired back but retracted his diss track “7 Minute Drill” in the name of friendship.
Drake then leaked the track “Push Ups” before officially releasing the song and egging on the beef by daring Lamar to respond. Upping the ante, the Canadian superstar then released the “Taylor Made Freestyle” using AI-generated 2Pac and Snoop Dogg voices aimed at Lamar, which the estate of the late Tupac Shakur later took down.
Lamar returned the volley with “euphoria” which is also in the top 10 of the Hot 100 and just days later with “6:16 in LA” which prompted Drake to drop “Family Matters,” a track that is currently charting in the Hot 100 top 10 along with “Not Like Us” and “Like That.”
It all went left with Lamar’s creepy “Meet The Grahams,” which sits at No. 12 on the Hot 100, and “Not Like Us” came immediately after. It was an effective one-two punch as “Meet The Grahams” is sonically darker than “Not Like Us” with the latter now becoming the song of the summer.
Drake’s final salvo, “The Heart Part 6,” was seen as him waving the white flag and moving on from the battle. And as far as fans go, Kendrick Lamar is decidedly the winner of this feud.
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It was pretty obvious to much of the Hip-Hop culture that Drake was taking an ass whippin’ in his much-publicized and discussed battle with Kendrick Lamar. Although plenty of Drake “Stans” swore the 6 Gawd was somehow winning the war, the King of The North has seemingly waved the white flag.
In a recent post on his Instagram stories, Drizzy shared some artwork which featured a samurai staring down an army of warriors (the man done took shots and clapped back at a number of rappers in the past few weeks), and simply wrote “Good times. Summer vibes up next.”
Looks like Drake is officially done going back and forth with Kendrick Lamar, Rick Ross, The Weeknd, Metro Boomin’ and whoever else got roped into this battle.
The post comes after Top Dawg Entertainment founder, Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith, took to X to announce that the battle between his artist, Kendrick Lamar, and Drake was “over” and called it “A win for the culture, while keeping it all on wax.”
Truth be told, we’re kind of glad this is over. Not because the music wasn’t dope (it was), but because fans began to really take aim at Drake which allegedly led to one of his security guards getting shot in a drive by next to his home in Toronto and Drake’s OVO flagship store being vandalized in London.
The hate for the Drake was beginning to get too real. It’s probably best that the culture move on and everyone retreat to their respective sides.
What do y’all think about Drake apparently throwing in the towel? Is it enough? Did he take the L? Let us know in the comments section below.
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Source: Bernard Smalls / @PhotosByBeanz
Kendrick Lamar’s verbal war with Drake is boosting his streaming catalog numbers and whittling his rival’s own down.
According to reports, the heated battle between Kendrick Lamar and Drake is carrying over to streaming as the former’s catalog is outpacing the other. The battle between Kendrick Lamar and Drake saw Lamar issue four tracks beginning with “Euphoria” which entered the Billboard Hot 100 charts at number 11 and garnered 27.6 million audio demand streams from May 3 to May 6 according to Luminate. “Not Like Us”, the infectious and scathing diss track that’s now become a club anthem, had 21.1 million streams since its debut on May 4, with the incisive “Meet The Grahams” earning 8.8 million streams so far. “6:16 in L.A.”, the second of the tracks, hasn’t hit streaming platforms yet. This also includes Kendrick Lamar taking the number one streaming status in Drake’s home country of Canada, standing at number one on Apple Music’s Top 100 chart as well as Spotify’s Daily Top Songs Canada chart.
Going further, removing the diss tracks only highlights how many listeners are tuning in to hear Kendrick Lamar’s music. During that same four-day period, his discography attained 50.62 million streams, showing a 49% increase from the same period the previous week. In comparison, Drake’s overall catalog streaming numbers took a hit once his response tracks, “Family Matters” and “The Heart Part 6” were removed from the equation – the data shows the streams at 100.7 million from May 3-6 as opposed to 105.9 million from Apr. 26-29. That represents a 4.9% drop.
While Drake can be okay with the fact that his overall streaming numbers still outpace Kendrick Lamar’s with twice as many, the recent hit has reflected a distinct turn against the Toronto superstar. Other streaming numbers that stand out are tied to the rise of “BBL Drizzy,” a song that producer Metro Boomin used for an instrumental to fire back at Drake after the rapper called him out in response to the “Like That” track with Future and Kendrick Lamar that he appeared on. R&B legends Teddy Pendergrass and Al Green also saw an uptick in their streaming numbers as a result of the feud, with the former’s “You’re My Latest, Greatest Inspiration” hit from 1981 saw a boost of 76% in streams from Apr. 26-29 (76,000) to May 3-6 (134,000) due to it being sampled in “Euphoria”. Green’s “What A Wonderful Thing Love Is” from 1972 saw a 283% rise in streams after its usage in “6:16 In L.A.”.
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As we all know, Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign centers around fear mongering, divisiveness and ultimately revenge (for himself). And though Joe Biden’s campaign has been reluctant to go down such a dark route to entice people to vote for him, he has decided to inject a little “hate” into his latest campaign ad.
Borrowing one of Kendrick Lamar’s new classic diss songs “Euphoria,” the Biden-Harris campaign took a snippet of the song to throw some shots at Donald Trump by using his own words against him throughout the ad. Highlighting the hate they feel for Trump’s many ways and actions such as taking away women’s abortion rights and the way that he blames immigrants for damn near everything that’s “wrong” with America.
The ad features Kendrick’s bars in which he spits: “It’s always been about love and hate, now let me say I’m the biggest hater/ I hate the way that you walk, the way that you talk, I hate the way that you dress/ I hate the way that you sneak diss, if I catch flight, it’s gon’ be direct.”
We’re not gonna lie, it was hilarious. He even threw in the “sneak diss” posts on Truth Social. Whoever’s idea this was is in line for a raise. Just sayin’.
No word on whether Kendrick Lamar has gotten wind that his song was used to attack Donald Trump in the ad and how he may feel about it, but Biden supporters have been loving it, and the MAGA side has surprisingly remained silent about it. We guess they’ve never heard of Kung-Fu Kenny. If they did they’d probably blame him for the Coronavirus or something.
Will Trump respond to Joe Biden’s latest jab at his horrendous history? Will he call on his own MAGA music “heavyweight” Kid Rock to help him clap back? Maybe Kanye West? Guess we’ll have to wait and see.
What do y’all think of Joe Biden’s latest campaign ad? Let us know in the comment section below.
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Questlove opined on the ongoing beef between Drake and Kendrick Lamar but some fans called his statements dramatic after the war of words largely concluded. The veteran drummer from The Roots band believed that the battle between the two titans took nasty turns, thus signaling a death knell for Hip-Hop.
Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, 53, took to social media to issue one of the loudest detracting statements yet to emerge against what is one of the biggest Hip-Hop beef battles in the history of the genre.
“Nobody won the war,” Questlove opened his statement with. “This wasn’t about skill. This was a wrestling match level mudslinging and takedown by any means necessary — women & children (& actual facts) be damned.”
The statement continued with “Same audience wanting blood will soon put up ‘rip’ posts like they weren’t part of the problem. Hip Hop truly is dead.”
The caption of the Instagram post with the statement read “Here We Are Now…Entertain us?,” which seems to be aimed at Drake and Kendrick Lamar.
As it stands, K-Dot doesn’t seem to want any manner of reconciliation with Drizzy and said as much on the track “euphoria” where the Compton lyricist rapped, “Whoever that’s f*ckin’ with him, f*ck you n*ggas, and f*ck the industry too” and once more on “Not Like Us” with the lines, “The industry can hate me, f*ck ’em all and they mama.”
As far as responses go, Drake’s last missive was “The Heart Part 6” and the two have left it at that. The Canadian superstar is contending with other issues after a security guard was shot outside his home in a drive-by shooting along with another incident in which a man was arrested for trying to break into the the massive mansion.
On X, formerly Twitter, the comments from Questlove garnered some sharp responses. However, we’ve got reactions from all sides below.
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Kendrick Lamar is contention for the Rap MVP of 2024 award. He has just surpassed Drake’s Spotify streaming record with “Not Like Us”.
As reported by Digital Music News the Compton, California native is putting numbers on the board like never before. The streaming service recorded that his diss track going at the 6 God has broken the single-day streaming record on Spotify with 10.986 million plays in the United States. Ironically this moment just makes their Rap war that much more ironic as the song that previously held the record was Drake’s “Girls Want Girls” featuring Lil Baby.
While their beef has been strictly lyrical it has unfortunately turned physical. The Toronto Sun reports that Drake’s bodyguard was shot outside of his mansion on Tuesday, May 7. Local police say a drive by shooting occurred outside the property that left the 48-year-old with serious injuries as one of the bullets hit him in the upper chest. The unidentified man was immediately rushed to Sunnybrook Hospital to be treated. Toronto Police Inspector Paul Krawczyk, of the Integrated Gun and Gang Task Force, says that security cameras did capture footage of the crime but investigators are “dealing with video quality issues.” Drake has yet to comment on the matter.
You can listen to Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” below.
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A day after it was reported that a man was shot outside of Drake’s residence in Toronto, more bad news comes for the embattled King of the North. Word out of London is that Drizzy’s OVO flagship store was vandalized with a specific message for the Canadian crooner.
Just a few days after Kendrick Lamar released his scathing Drake diss/club record, “Not Like Us,” a fan in the UK apparently took the song to heart and decided to spray paint “They not like us” across the front window of Drake’s OVO store, HotNewHipHop reports.
More than just your average diss record, K. Dot’s “Not Like Us” accuses Drake of not only being a sexual predator, but also employing a team of pedophiles who reside in his multimillion dollar mansion in Toronto. To make matters worse for Drake, Kendrick turned the diss record into an actual catchy club cut complete with a bouncy beat and sing-a-long phrase towards the end of the track.
As we stated before, the vandalization of the OVO store comes after a security guard was shot outside of Drake’s mansion early Tuesday morning. Though the security guard is alive, according to NBC News, he remains in serious condition.
Per NBC News:
Officers found the security guard suffering from an apparent gunshot wound, Inspector Paul Krawczyk said at a news conference. The guard was standing outside a gate when he was injured.
Police said in a news release they believe he “was shot from a vehicle which then fled the scene.”
He remains in the hospital in serious condition, Krawczyk said.
Krawczyk said authorities do not know how many people were involved or what kind of car they were in, but he noted that the shooting was captured on video.
Yeah, Kendrick Lamar and Drake might have to hold a joint press conference at some point to calm things down if things like this keep happening because things seem to be getting out of hand and quickly. If 50 Cent and The Game were reluctantly able to do so in 2005 when their beef began to violently spill out on the streets, K. Dot and Drake can do so also. Just sayin’.
What do y’all think about the OVO store getting vandalized and one of Drake’s security guards getting shot? Let us know in the comments section below.