Big Sean ft. Kendrick Lamar & Jay Electronica - "Control"
I'm usually homeboys with the same niggas I'm rhymin' with/But this is hip-hop and them niggas should know what time it is/And that goes for Jermaine Cole, Big KRIT, Wale/Pusha T, Meak Millz, A$AP Rocky, Drake/Big Sean, Jay Electron', Tyler, Mac Miller/I got love for you all but I'm tryna murder you niggas
Kendrick Lamar basically shit on everyone last week and took over the world with his extended verse on a Big Sean track that won't even make it to his album Hall of Fame. The official story is that clearance issues with the sample forced them to cut it, but if I were Big Sean and Kendrick Lamar put me on blast on my own song, I'd keep that shit as far away from my record as possible. The only reason he released it at all probably has as much to do with typical hip-hop hubris as it does with the dread hanging over him while considering what K-Dot might do if he threw it out.
Threatening to murder his peers (in a non-violent rap way) is just the tip of the iceberg, so terrible is Kendrick's fury. The entire song is a critique of modern hip-hop culture. Offer Kendrick pills and he'll pop you. No more designer clothes. No clubs. No pictures. No Instagram. We're not listening to a diss track, this is coliseum music. The emcees that should take the greatest offense to this song are the ones he didn't mention. Everyone else should step their game up.
Having his verse book-ended by Big Sean and Jay Electronica is a perfect illustration of that notion. Big Sean's bars are like the unskippable FBI warning on a DVD. Then you finally get Actual Rap Music and have to sit through the credits as read by Jay Electronica hoping your favorite character will pop up again at the end. When he doesn't you've officially listened to "Control" from start to finish for the last time. Jay Electronica's career might already be over. At this point, he doesn't even get a syllable out before I hit stop.
To date, a handful of emcees have released response tracks dissing Kendrick. They are mostly terrible but indicative of the current level of competition in hip-hop. Call yourself the King of New York when you're from Compton and people are going to get upset.
All the rappers mentioned by name in "Control" have remained silent.
Eminem ft. Liz Rodrigues - "Survival"
Eminem is back with a new anthem to listen to while kicking open your ex-wife's front door. This is not the best song you'll hear all year, but believe me when I say that you will hear it. This has sporting event playoff banger written all over it. Even when Em is dropping irrelevant "ain't never gonna' stop me" radio hits, the man still has flow. Give it a listen but skip the hook.
Danny Brown - "Hand Stand"
New Danny Brown is new Danny Brown, even if it's a relatively low quality radio-rip of a song that would comfortably fit into a genre of music we can safely refer to as twerk rap. That is, music to twerk to.
We are still waiting for an official release date on Old, Brown's follow-up to the masterful XXX, but all signs indicate it happening in the future. Like all things do.
Earl Sweatshirt ft. Frank Ocean - "Sunday"
Young rap prodigy Earl Sweatshirt will at last debut Doris, his first album after returning from the foreign shores of Samoa, on August 20th. That's tomorrow. If the anticipation is corroding your flesh as though a delicate acidic mist is drifting through the corridors of your ancient castle by the sea, you can stream the entire thing over at the Odd Future Tumblr. And you should.
"Sunday" is a straight up relationship song and features fellow Odd Future world-beater Frank Ocean actually rapping, a secret talent he's been suppressing since he last spit on OF track "Oldie" a hundred years ago.
The next time you think about putting off writing the next great American novel or finally learning how to play the guitar, recall that Earl Sweatshirt is only 19 years old.
And Kendrick Lamar is watching you.
