What The Hell Just Happened in Music This Week?

Summer ended.

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Image via Complex Original
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It's been a whirlwind of a week since Sunday's MTV Video Music Awards.

Don't worry, we covered all the winners (as if anyone really cares) and the performances (all that really matters) so if you missed the show, you could still figure out why everyone was talking about Miley Cyrus. But while the world overanalyzed her twerking (while much of the world learned what "twerking" is) Cyrus hit the studio with Kanye West and filmed the music video for Mike WiLL Made It's "23."

Also this week, Danny Brown dropped the hynoptizing video to his new, Paul White-produced song "ODB," Jay Z premiered "Holy Grail" on Facebook, and last night, Lil Wayne actually dropped Dedication 5. All that and more in What The Hell Just Happened in Music This Week? 

RELATED: The 2013 MTV VMAs, Graded and Reviewed: The Good, The Bad, and The Miley

Reportedly, Kanye West got Miley Cyrus to stop twerking for one second to record a remix.

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Diddy and J. Cole had a not-so-nice little "talk" at a VMA after-party.

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Eminem went "Berzerk," announced MMLP2, and is back to being blonde.

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Another Danny Brown song called "ODB" dropped and it's insane.

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Kendrick finally spoke on the "Control" verse and its responses.

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Date: August 29

For two and a half weeks following the release of "The Verse," there was an uneasy silence hanging over hip-hop, like a country at war waiting for its leader to come out and reassure everyone that everything was okay. Sure, there were the countless response verses, the inevitable moment in every interview with anyone even remotely associated with rap when Kendrick Lamar's name was brought up, the rumors of a fight between J. Cole and Diddy. But everyone, it felt like, was growing restless: When would Kendrick himself speak on It? What would he say? Had he reconsidered and ceded the title of King of New York to Papoose after all?

Finally, on Wednesday night, we got the first hint of what Kendrick thought about the whole thing, via a snippet from an interview that ran the next day on Power 106's Big Boy's Neighborhood. Later, Kendrick spoke with Peter Rosenberg on-air at Hot 97 and made an appearance on "Chelsea Lately," doing his diplomatic rounds as any world leader should in a time of crisis and wavering hope.

And we discovered that the verse that set the hip-hop world on fire was basically just Kendrick doing what he figured he was supposed to do when somone like Big Sean asked him to record a guest verse on a song—rhyme well and be competitive. For all the hand-wringing and speculation and arguing and rumors of beef and resentment and amazement, the verse was, as Kendrick told Rosenberg, "really just a feature verse."

Here's the thing, though: The reason that Kendrick's version of "just a feature verse" is different from everyone else's, the real reason everyone else needs to really step their games up: Having a lasting impact on rap culture, actually elevating an art form, takes more than playing the game for hype. Kendrick is competing, but he's also trying to play a whole different game than a lot of rappers. (To be fair, he's gotten himself into a position where he can play a different game, rather than struggling to get attention in this oversaturated atmosphere. He really is in a different league, lyricswise, than most of his peers.)

Kendrick gets that you don't become Biggie or Tupac by landing on a few cool blogs and playing the right secret shows. Building a legacy isn't about "just living in the moment of perfection." He made a point of explaining that, right now, he only has one album out, which is little guarantee that he'll be anywhere, known by anyone, in 20 years. He also shared his opinion that the greatest rapper ever is Snoop Dogg, an interesting, sensible choice given Snoop's remarkable record of staying relevant for two decades.

Kendrick mentioned talking to Jay Z and Diddy, and made a point of noting, on Power 106, that the "real kings of New York" understood what he was saying. In contrast, he told Rosenberg, the people trying to turn the verse into some massive slight were missing the point:

"I think the ones that really took it out of context were the people that we know want to grab an opportunity that's off the fact of the hype of the record rather than actually tuning in and listening and knowing how hungry I am. A lot of people think it's about talent. That's where they get it wrong. I'm saying I'm the most hungry."

At the same time, Kendrick said he understood why rappers like Papoose were seizing the moment, and that he'd listened to several of the responses. (His favorite, he said, was King Los's.) In a moment of empathy that also worked as a deft backhanded diss, he pointed out that he and the rest of the Top Dawg Entertainment crew were doing whatever they could to get attention back in 2005 and 2006, and recording a verse to cash in on buzz was simply what people have to do sometimes.

After the buzz comes the legacy, though, and that's what it turns out Kendrick was going for on The Verse. It's already worked better than he could have possibly expected. —Kyle Kramer

RELATED: Kendrick Lamar Finally Speaks on "Control" Verse

Jay Z finally became a business, man.

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Date: August 29

RELATED: Jay Z Premieres "Holy Grail" Video on Facebook

Lil Wayne dropped Dedication 5. Seriously. It's out.

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