Kendrick Lamar has words for Drake and J. Cole on Future and Metro Boomin's new album We Don't Trust You.
"Yeah, get up with me, fuck sneak dissing/'First Person Shooter,' I hope they came with three switches," Kendrick raps on "Like That" at the 2:19 mark, name-dropping Drake and Cole's 2023 Billboard Hot 100 chart-topper off For All the Dogs.
The 17-time Grammy winner/50-time nominee goes on to dismiss the "Big 3" concept and compares himself to Prince in contrast to Drake as Michael Jackson:
Think I won't drop the location? I still got PTSD
Motherfuck the Big 3, n***a, it's just big me
N***a, bum, what? I'm really like that
And your best work is a light pack
N***a, Prince outlived Mike Jack'
N***a, bum, 'fore all your dogs gettin' buried
That's a K with all these nines, he gon' see Pet Sematary
On "First Person Shooter" the Dreamville head rapped, "Love when they argue the hardest MC/Is it K-Dot? Is it Aubrey? Or me?/We the big three like we started a league, but right now, I feel like Muhammad Ali." Drizzy preferred to pretend Kendrick doesn't exist with his line, "Who the GOAT? Who you bitches really rooting for?/Like a kid that act bad from January to November, n***a, it's just you and Cole." He also nodded to MJ, rapping, "What the fuck, bro? I'm one away from Michael/N***a, beat it."
The two longtime friends followed their For All the Dogs collab with "Evil Ways" on the Scary Hours Edition deluxe, plus an extension of Drake's It's All a Blur Tour subtitled after a recurring "First Person Shooter" line: "Big as the what?"
Kung-Fu Kenny, 36, and Drizzy, 37, teamed up three times between 2011 and 2012 on Take Care's "Buried Alive (Interlude)," good kid, m.A.A.d city's "Poetic Justice," and ASAP Rocky's "Fuckin' Problems." But ever since Kendrick's infamous Control verse, they've been sending subs for years. Dot and 39-year-old Cole have a much more congenial history, collaborating on cuts including "Black Friday," "Forbidden Fruit," and "HiiiPoWeR," the 2011 Kendrick banger produced by Cole. (Last year, Dreamville's JID revealed his request to sample "HiiiPoWeR" was denied.)
They also teased a hypothetical joint album for years. Cole said last fall that he and Kendrick scrapped the idea because for them to "do something that’s full of our potential" they'd need to lock in for "at least a year." He hinted that he'll speak about it in depth in the future, but what he elaborated to Lil Yachty in November included: "There’s a few beats, a gang of beats that I did—I gave him. ... So he took them, and in that moment, we talked about, ‘Yo, bro, we should do a project.’ At that time, he’s not on like that, but I’m fuckin’ with him. ... I think at that time, [Kendrick] being so excited—'cause that’s a look for him at that point—so I think he went to Twitter like, ‘Me and J. Cole got something crazy coming.’ ... We put [the rumors] to bed years ago. But at one point in time, it was a real conversation, for sure.”
Future and Metro Boomin's painfully long-awaited We Don't Trust You features The Weeknd, Travis Scott, Rick Ross, and Playboi Carti in addition to Kendrick. While a Pluto album isn't the most natural fit for sniper shots at his co-creator of classics like What a Time to Be Alive, "Life Is Good," and "Where Ya At," it's not out of left field for a Metro project in 2024. (On the other hand, fans are already speculating that Future dissed Drake on the title track.)
In December the 30-year-old superproducer and generational-talent curator lamented how Drake and 21 Savage's Her Loss "still keeps winning rap album of the year over [Heroes & Villains]," Metro's pristine 2022 solo project. He took the post down and seemingly got referenced by Drake calling out "the non-believers, the underachievers, the tweet-and-deleters" who make him "sick to [his] stomach." At the end of the month Metro denied they were beefing and clarified it's "not deep at all lmao." Two weeks later he liked a particular tweet and kept the narrative running:
Anyone who wants to go even deeper on all things Drake/Kendrick/Cole should check out Complex's Ranking the Big 3 Every Year Since 2010 feature by Eric Skelton, Jordan Rose, Jessica McKinney, and Andre Gee. For a rundown of We Don't Trust You's production credits and features, head here. On "Like That," Metro samples Tear Da Club Up Thugs' "Who the Crunkest," which itself samples Rodney-O & Joe Cooley's 1988 song "Everlasting Bass." Metro previously tapped Rodney-O & Joe Cooley's "Nobody Disses Me" for "Steppin on N***as," a standout from 2020's Savage Mode II with 21 Savage.
