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1:00

Welcome to Podcast Deluxe, your textured fringe

1:02

with a blowout taper of weekly cultural

1:05

review. I'm John Karamanica, a critic of

1:07

The New York Times. I'm Joe Cascarelli,

1:09

I'm a reporter at The New York

1:11

Times. Joe,

1:14

I know you, like me, had

1:16

an incredibly busy weekend, listening

1:18

to radical optimism over and

1:21

over and over again. We're

1:24

here to talk about all things. Yeah, the real-

1:27

Look, the real loser of the Drake-Kendrick battle

1:29

is Tua Lipa. Chance the Rapper.

1:31

I did put out a song. Sorry

1:33

for you. Friday

1:36

evening, like I

1:39

was actually fully prepared to have a calm weekend.

1:42

Really? I really didn't think this was going to

1:44

happen. I did, but not at this pace. Okay.

1:49

Drake and Kendrick, as I'm sure

1:51

you know, have had an incredibly

1:53

hot burning, deeply

1:56

Toxic Exchange of songs over

1:58

the weekend. According

2:00

this on Monday afternoon. Is.

2:03

This over like icing like there was a chance

2:05

we run afford yesterday and I would have not

2:07

been the right call because it was not yet

2:09

over yesterday. Is this over?

2:12

Before we get into what happened?

2:15

Three. Puts out a song last night.

2:17

The hard part. Six, Yes. That

2:20

team at around nine o'clock east coast time

2:22

last night. To read

2:24

sounds. Fatigued, And

2:26

frankly sounds not well edited. Insensitive status

2:29

with legislated as the eat Out with

2:31

Cramps Susteren could have had a could

2:33

have taken a kind of dad yeah

2:35

you gotta love would Are they said

2:38

get a couple on your words out

2:40

of at the Us since ended up

2:42

yet or be sounds odd. not defeated

2:44

exactly, but he sounds tired, little bit

2:46

resigned. He figures Bolland on home yes,

2:49

like to use C is. Not

2:51

introducing new narrative sees fully

2:53

existing with him the Narrative

2:56

Loucks. A on

2:58

he's cutting off the next. Pay attention

3:00

to me like Kendrick, I know. Yeah

3:02

and more songs for me to self

3:04

out. I'll see you. Out. There

3:06

fire after my the after the victim

3:09

and I keep promising I'm taking and

3:11

not to. Do you think there's a

3:13

fleeting that air. Drake is like on

3:15

the tarmac. been waiting for like four

3:17

days. What is that sliding doors moment

3:19

of ram ruin? Oh and for all

3:22

the dogs came out and Drakes his

3:24

stomach her and that is going to

3:26

take a longer have a full. That's

3:28

the medications rep weren't like what is

3:30

what is. He. Went off the

3:32

grid. Six. Months,

3:35

a couple a deal and we went by

3:37

mean and we wouldn't be here. Now I'm

3:39

do you think it's over? I do

3:41

think it's over. I don't believe beating

3:43

Kendrick. I definitely don't think she's bathing

3:45

ten drink and will get into who

3:48

was beating whom were move. Ah, there

3:50

was a That was a big part

3:52

of this. Chess match

3:54

was the. or

3:56

the idea of be or retroactively coin and

3:59

be idea of Chats frankly as

4:01

opposed to checkers. Yeah, I don't

4:03

think that's what this is drake

4:05

sounds done I

4:07

think kendrick might take victory lap.

4:10

I think kendrick might dance in

4:12

the end zone a little bit. Uh, You

4:15

know, I think he might Pass

4:17

on drake's body As as

4:19

he said in the in the last, you

4:21

know, I look I like We

4:24

not to just jump into like who won but I

4:26

don't even think that's going to be the substance of

4:29

this conversation because The

4:32

fight has been decided by popular vote and

4:34

also like Everyone

4:36

won and nobody won. Yeah, I mean that's like

4:38

I mean it's an easy thing to say Um,

4:42

I think my main takeaway of

4:44

the last 48 hours Um,

4:47

and we talked about this a little bit before

4:49

recording also I was texting with friend of the

4:51

pod justin charity Thinking a

4:54

lot about fandom and obviously

4:56

in the stanmore era There

4:59

really is like nobody's convertible, right?

5:02

You're either on team a or on team b the

5:05

thing that I think i've realized in the last 48

5:07

hours is drake

5:11

fandom Comes at different

5:13

levels of fickleness and

5:15

some people are willing to be pulled off

5:17

that And i'm not saying they

5:19

go full kendrick necessarily, but they are willing to

5:21

entertain Maybe he's not

5:23

the person that I thought he was with drake Whereas

5:26

most kendrick fans are not willing

5:28

to entertain that despite drake's

5:31

allegations in Um

5:33

family matters which are quite serious

5:36

and quite undermining to

5:39

The public product, right? whereas

5:43

the narratives about drake are largely

5:46

well articulated Enduring

5:49

popular narratives about him. Yeah like

5:51

a tweet thread every four weeks

5:53

about something that is roughly Problematic

5:56

about drake we've talked about In

5:59

the past? What? Drake? Should be allowed to rap

6:01

about or can't rap about. That been

6:03

litigated over and over again. On.

6:06

It's. Rate has more.

6:10

Pressure. Points in in a battle.

6:12

Like obviously, Kendrick has more to work

6:15

with, but I. But. I would

6:17

have thought that Kendrick has further default.

6:20

Because. People do put him on a

6:22

pedestal even though literally the subject of

6:24

half of Kendrick work. He's do not

6:27

but the Alabama so I'm an imperfect.

6:29

I'm literally like I'm not out at

6:31

number so I'm like great person but

6:33

I'm not a perfect person and he

6:35

saying especially on the last album like

6:37

please don't do this to me anymore

6:39

If anything it's alienating and makes it

6:42

hard for me to be on my

6:44

actual cells when everybody expects me be

6:46

perfect to seize. Been saying that and

6:48

people have been ignoring him but three.

6:50

Trying to weaponize alleged misbehavior

6:52

against him alleging that there

6:55

are there was physical abuse

6:57

and his relationships with his

6:59

longtime partner. With. Our seats

7:01

it should all be sad. Like everything

7:03

in this is a lot of without

7:05

without receipt and way more of this

7:07

piece is unfair. O L verifiable than

7:09

people wanna act like ah but that's

7:11

the thing. But because there's so much

7:13

discourse about Juri and these kind of

7:15

like casual to be threads of like

7:17

years a video this and here's a

7:19

tweet: this and beers at Up People

7:21

mistake that for. Fourth, Overall,

7:25

I think what we're seeing is a

7:27

misunderstood him in a have the role

7:29

that these are display in our lives.

7:32

you frame miss in terms of sand

7:34

dumps but I actually think of it

7:36

more in terms of seat. And

7:39

I think Drake has. Essentially,

7:42

after ten plus

7:44

years of goober

7:46

popularity. More.

7:49

heat than any artist at his level

7:51

maybe ever knew was the exception of

7:53

taylor swift know i was gonna say

7:55

michael jackson no interest emergence has been

7:57

a great through a high school in

7:59

this beef and the

8:02

subject of some of the best wrapping

8:04

from both guys, some of the best

8:06

metaphor and flips, you know,

8:08

I'm Michael Jackson, no, you're Michael Jackson. You're

8:10

Prince, you know, what if you're Michael Jackson,

8:12

you know. I thought

8:14

Drake's use of that on

8:17

Family Matters was a really

8:21

nice continuation of that motif.

8:24

But I think, you know, we talked about this

8:27

last year when For All the Dogs came out.

8:29

I called it Drake Derangement Syndrome. And I do

8:31

think the distaste for

8:33

Drake is so, so, so

8:36

extremely personal to people. It's

8:38

not enough for him to

8:40

be a run of the mill

8:43

rapper misogynist. He has to be a

8:45

serial predator. It's not enough

8:47

for him to be corny

8:49

or appropriative. He has to

8:51

be an active ruiner of other

8:54

people's sounds and careers like he

8:56

or racially,

9:00

not ambiguous, but the

9:02

weaponizing of Rick Ross continually calling

9:04

him white boy and the

9:07

sort of his narrative about do I belong,

9:09

like putting that narrative on Drake of does

9:11

he belong, does he not belong? Can

9:14

he say certain things? Can he not say certain things?

9:17

Having that very early in this battle,

9:20

which I think seems to

9:22

have gotten under Drake's skin. And

9:24

I do think what Kendrick did most effectively

9:27

in all of these songs and we'll get

9:29

to a breakdown of the sort of the

9:31

back and forth. I think

9:33

what he did was he took

9:35

existing narratives, pressure points about Drake

9:38

and he expressed them

9:40

in a way that only Kendrick

9:42

Lamar can with very intricate rhymes

9:45

with very intense

9:47

storytelling, a couple

9:50

entendres. And

9:53

just as a time out, we

9:55

talked about this previously, a lot

9:57

of y'all are reaching. much

10:00

reaching the whole all of rap

10:02

fandom has become the true detective

10:04

reddit from season one You

10:06

know like every like everything a lot of

10:08

reaches. I don't know. I don't want to

10:10

belabor it, but it is just The

10:15

yes, I mean rap is

10:17

not Joe was also born on June 6 true

10:21

616 in Fairfield, New Jersey That's

10:26

where I was born did you I do not know that Actually

10:30

that explains why The

10:34

New Jersey to Florida by fly I mean

10:36

it's yeah, it's really the same place extremely

10:38

real uh, but I think I think Kendrick

10:41

Was able to play the notes

10:43

that people wanted to hear yes,

10:46

but in such an elaborate way

10:49

Because he's that kind of writer

10:51

and that kind of rapper that

10:53

it worked on so many levels

10:55

and like he played the crowd

10:57

Perfectly and that's why public opinion,

10:59

you know We don't

11:02

have who knows how accurate the polling

11:04

is look we looked at Instagram a lot We looked

11:06

at Twitter a lot X whatever you

11:08

want to call it. You see you a conversation

11:10

in the rapid media

11:12

podcast ecosystem Nobody's

11:15

really calling this for Drake right no like it does

11:17

not seem that way it doesn't seem that way I

11:19

think even Drake low-key is not calling this for Drake

11:22

because of the tone of what he put out I

11:24

agree and it was really interesting one of the last

11:26

things he said was oh I would really like that

11:28

last song you put out Uh, because

11:30

I can because I can dance to it if

11:32

you weren't calling me a predator uh

11:35

over and over and over again, um, but

11:38

I think I

11:40

think Kendrick won on

11:42

Kendrick's level in terms of Intricacy

11:45

and check and I think Kendrick

11:47

won on Drake's level in terms

11:49

of hits hits and internet moves.

11:52

Yeah, and That puts

11:54

Drake in a really tough position Now

11:56

when you're talking about the quality of the songs

11:58

themselves, I Do you think with

12:01

some distance, especially if things

12:03

like the claim that Drake had a fake

12:06

daughter, did he or did he or not,

12:08

plant that information, either way seems

12:10

to not be true, would be, I would be very

12:12

surprised if it turns out to be true. And that's

12:14

a big part of one of the main pieces in

12:16

this. But this is what I'm saying. But this is

12:19

what I'm saying. In hindsight,

12:21

when we compare the quality of these songs,

12:25

I think it might end up looking a lot like

12:27

Jaya Nas, which that battle

12:29

was called for Nas. Yeah. Pretty,

12:32

pretty at the moment, decidedly. Yeah.

12:35

You listen back to those songs. No,

12:38

I agree. I mean, that,

12:41

I think that that that could be where

12:43

we land. Interesting. Interesting. And

12:45

we can talk about how we feel about these

12:47

individual records on a purely musical level. Okay. Later.

12:51

Can we just run through briefly? Let's just do the list

12:53

of the songs and then we'll talk more detail, but let's

12:55

just do the list. Okay. Should

12:57

we go back to before this weekend or you want? Yeah,

12:59

I can start at the beginning. Okay.

13:02

Well, first person shooter. First person there. So we

13:04

got to go to last year. Right. This

13:07

is on For All the Dogs. So for all the dogs

13:10

and yeah, first person shooter. And

13:13

Kendrick seems to indicate at some point in this last

13:15

week that he was asked to be on this song,

13:17

that it was supposed to be the three of

13:19

them. Drake doesn't really say

13:22

anything notable on this song. Certainly

13:24

not about Kendrick Lamar. No,

13:26

but J Cole compliments the three of them that

13:29

says we're the big three. Group

13:33

hug. Yeah. That

13:35

also the edits, all the wrestling edits

13:37

and the, you

13:39

know, everybody did great. The, should we just say

13:41

everybody did great this weekend? Everybody

13:43

made the videos so much content.

13:45

I know. Yeah. The

13:48

J Cole memes, the like Drake says the

13:50

most heinous thing in the world. Kendrick says the

13:52

most heinous thing in the world. J Cole is

13:54

a Labrador retriever with a butterfly landing on its

13:56

nose like that. Yeah. That's J Cole

13:58

is sipping out of a popcast mug. On the

14:00

zazzle store for podcast history. We can all

14:03

agree will look kindly on J Cole being

14:05

like you guys have I'm more convinced than

14:07

ever that Drake

14:10

called Cole and was basically like it's

14:12

about to go nuclear like with love the

14:15

last report I saw was that schoolboy Q

14:17

called J Cole. Oh really and was like

14:19

hey out of it Yeah,

14:22

okay. Well someone called J Cole. It was just literally

14:24

like you don't want and J Cole knew Of course,

14:26

he had this one in his stomach when he laid

14:28

down to go to sleep Yes, he knew in his

14:30

heart, but like I'm sure someone told him like you

14:32

want no part of this yeah, he he wanted an

14:34

exhibition game and Kendrick

14:37

claims he wanted an exhibition game But

14:41

these guys jumped immediately to opposition

14:43

research, which I think is

14:45

really what happened here and we'll get to that So

14:47

first person shooter then like that like that.

14:50

This is on the Metro and Future album

14:52

We've not for us. We don't trust you

14:55

first one I Guess

14:59

just a party sitting in the studio just hanging

15:01

out and just being like, you know, I hate Drake

15:03

take that guy What if we just made a whole

15:06

ass album about it, too? Right.

15:08

Well, we have so many songs will make two

15:10

out even by a trick Kendrick. Let's just call

15:12

you think he's free He's around right call Kendrick

15:16

so like that comes and Do

15:18

you think he would do you think Kendrick was

15:20

spoiling for this fight or was he just doing

15:22

the normal thing? He thought

15:24

he was doing control the thing that he

15:26

does every couple years where he's like You

15:29

guys are all right, but I'm the best and

15:31

I think he thought he was doing literal bar about it You

15:35

know control to me I'm

15:38

not even sure it's a great verse at this

15:40

point. Oh, no. No, no, but it's like you

15:42

have to like account for like Foaming

15:45

at the mouth. No rap Twitter. Yeah, I'm

15:47

just being like it's the most meaningful Boba

15:49

and it's like no It's like a guy.

15:51

It's like again. It's the

15:54

fist. It's like yeah, it's that It's

15:59

very very, very, it

16:01

achieved what it meant to achieve,

16:04

which is to get people discoursing

16:06

and setting Kendrick apart

16:08

from that discourse. That's what that verse

16:10

is designed for. More than a decade

16:12

ago. Yes. And that's what it is.

16:15

It's been that long. I think it's 2013, right?

16:17

Come on. Which

16:21

is crazy because that's only one year

16:23

after Drake brings Kendrick on tour to

16:25

open for him. I'm still

16:27

putting out records somehow after getting absolutely

16:29

assassinated on this on the

16:32

song. But to me, this was just control too. But

16:35

this is a much better song than control

16:37

with a much better impact as a song.

16:40

That's the thing that... With hit makers. Yes.

16:43

This is Kendrick Lamar matching, being like, okay, I'm

16:45

going to get on a future song, which is

16:47

unlikely in the first place. And I'm going to

16:49

make a verse that people want to hear where

16:51

they play future songs, AKA

16:54

in the club or in the car. So

16:57

it works on that level. And I do

16:59

think if this song would have came and

17:01

went like control, Drake wouldn't have felt the

17:03

need to get in. But all of a

17:05

sudden, this is encroaching on his territory because

17:07

this is a number one song. This

17:10

is a number one Hot 100 smash that

17:12

is going to be certainly now one

17:15

of the defining songs of Kendrick's career

17:17

and of the year. Yes.

17:20

In all genres. So that's

17:23

why I think eventually Drake

17:26

is like, all right, I got to step up. We're going

17:28

to do this beast thing again. Okay. But

17:30

who comes next? Are you

17:33

talking about Rick Ross? No, I'm talking about

17:35

J Cole. Oh, J Cole. Yeah.

17:40

Seven minute drill. Just then

17:42

retreats back into the hedges. But he still had

17:44

the best idea. He still had the right idea

17:47

of how to go about this, which is like

17:49

your music's all right. But it's not that good.

17:52

Made it sound lightly complimented. I

17:56

do think a lot about you fell off like the

17:58

Simpsons. I

18:00

don't know, I don't watch The Simpsons. The

18:03

cold thing, then the Ross, then Ross? No,

18:05

I guess push-ups, K.O. Push-ups, then Ross. Yeah,

18:08

yeah, yeah. So Drake comes out with push-ups,

18:10

and this is like at this point, this

18:12

is a full three weeks

18:15

after, like that? Yeah, this is more

18:17

weeks. More, yeah, this is months. Mid-April.

18:20

Yeah. And like that was like March

18:23

22nd. So like what's in it for Drake?

18:25

Do you think at this point, and again, we'll get more in

18:28

the weeds, but do you think at this point Drake is like,

18:30

I've given it enough time, it's a

18:33

one blow victory. I'm

18:35

going to put this out and it's done. No,

18:37

I think he knew that he was

18:40

starting an actual back and forth, but

18:42

the thing that push-ups is doing that

18:44

even the next Drake song, which we'll

18:46

talk about, not counting the AI 2

18:49

buck Snoop Dogg troll, which

18:53

I do think might have upped

18:55

the stake a bit. But

18:58

I think push-ups was like, okay,

19:01

everyone is talking

19:03

trash about me. I

19:06

can't just do nothing. This

19:09

album is huge. These future albums are huge. Kendrick

19:11

is likely going to launch an album off of

19:14

talking about me. You know, like I have

19:16

to fight. And

19:18

a lot of this is egged on by the internet. I will

19:20

say one of the things we learned in this beef is that

19:22

both of these guys are reading

19:24

everything you post about them. Yeah,

19:27

that's true. And everything you post

19:29

about the other one. But also we

19:31

knew that about Drake, but we didn't

19:33

know that about Kendrick. And we totally

19:35

ourselves, and I think Drake would say

19:37

this as well, underestimated his savviness

19:40

and how much he wanted to play in

19:43

this digital way.

19:47

Do you think that it

19:49

is Kendrick himself or

19:51

do you think that Kendrick just has

19:53

someone next to him whose job is

19:55

basically being his announced Drake? You think

19:57

they print out the tweets like Trump?

20:00

He writes on them with sharpie. Yeah, basically.

20:02

Yeah Serious questions.

20:05

I would like to know like does Kendrick have a burner

20:07

account. I Bet

20:09

he does. Well, we saw like he does

20:11

have the fence that where he posted the

20:13

push-ups video. Oh, right Okay,

20:16

I'm public fence. Yeah, so I think yeah,

20:18

I think both these guys are doing a

20:20

lot of I think the screen time notification

20:24

Next Sunday is gonna be like your screen

20:26

time was up 23 hours percent Yeah,

20:31

okay. So after push-ups Is

20:34

this Taylor made freestyle? Yeah, Taylor made for you

20:36

or the Ross thing. Okay, we'll leave her across

20:38

out of this Taylor

20:41

made freestyle and then which was Drake

20:43

saying like where are you like? This

20:45

is another thing that's sort of like Looking

20:49

back Maybe

20:51

this was this was a

20:53

false step You think

20:56

that if you say you're taking too long, right? What?

21:00

I mean, it was just funny given that he took three

21:02

weeks. Sure But but I

21:04

would say the difference is like that

21:06

was not a was not a direct

21:10

It wasn't a diss song. It was a verse

21:12

with subliminals in

21:15

the in semantic, I think I think the

21:17

the the back and forth

21:20

Actually starts with push-ups.

21:22

Yes. No, no, that's fair Okay,

21:24

so Taylor made freestyle and then would

21:27

Taylor made freestyle will say also He's

21:29

saying you're not dropping because Taylor Swift

21:31

is dropping which becomes relevant Not

21:34

on the first Kendrick response, but on the

21:36

second Kendrick response. So we'll get there. Um

21:40

After that is euphoria. Yeah, so that's

21:42

where it came out last Tuesday man

21:44

Were we ever so euphoria is going

21:46

to be the number one song in

21:48

the country this or Tommy Richmond? Also,

21:51

how crazy would have been if one of them

21:53

wrapped over the Tommy Richmond song? That's

21:56

there's a lot of there a lot of different

21:58

paths missed opportunity here. Just one of the Yeah,

22:00

um So euphoria that

22:02

is six days ago feels like about

22:04

nine months ago, right? What

22:07

did you think of euphoria when it came out not

22:09

knowing what was gonna happen after? This

22:13

is a three-part song You

22:16

know, it starts slow Kendrick sort

22:18

of saying like We

22:21

don't have to do that, you know, yeah, don't lie

22:23

on me. I know what you're gonna do Yeah,

22:25

I know what you're gonna do. I won't tell the

22:27

truth. You don't lie about me I won't tell the

22:30

truth about you and then it gives

22:32

it angrier and angrier I

22:34

will I detest I think about you all

22:36

the time and you make me miserable. I

22:38

wish you didn't exist. Yeah, um, I thought

22:42

that I Like

22:46

this as a song and I also

22:48

like it because to me

22:50

it makes sense in the Kendrick catalog

22:53

It actually feels like it's of

22:55

a piece with earlier great Kendrick

22:57

songs He's

22:59

doing character work. It's not like he's doing character work

23:01

the way that Drake was doing character work with AI

23:04

Kendrick character work historically is multiple

23:06

versions of himself Competing

23:09

narratives about himself talking to

23:11

each other. This is these

23:13

are this is Kendrick being like

23:15

I'm gonna The Incredible Hulk

23:17

like I don't don't make I

23:19

could be this guy, but don't push me I'm gonna

23:22

I could become this guy and I might become that

23:24

other guy and you don't want any parts of that

23:26

other guy This is this

23:28

is a classic Kendrick type

23:31

song that I thought was effective

23:34

in needle and Drake I

23:37

found it at first my first

23:39

reaction was Profunctory I

23:41

really didn't think everyone was the the

23:44

I feel like the overwhelming response to

23:46

this online was oh He

23:48

hates Drake I know he says literally that

23:50

he hates Drake but like you can hear

23:53

it like he like he. he's mad at

23:55

everything This guy stands for and I was

23:57

sort of like yeah like it sounds like

23:59

he. Knows he has to respond. With

24:03

hindsight, I think that. Some.

24:05

Of that was intentional. I think the.

24:08

The like, Am I gonna go

24:10

there and mess of the song

24:12

tonally as well as lyrically in

24:14

what was on purpose. Ah, but

24:16

I didn't. I I.

24:18

Don't know this. I don't wanna listen. I don't want

24:21

to listen to the saw. I find the I find.

24:23

I don't think it's the best of all these kendrick

24:25

song. I don't think it's the worst. Early more comes.

24:28

Having. Songs I fall is are not

24:30

as effective for the some of those

24:32

decisions he's making. Vocal is always been

24:34

challenging for me. With can Dragon the

24:36

wages is a voice in the second

24:38

section the song. It did.

24:41

I find rate i find a great

24:43

and i'd i know he's doing some

24:45

about on purposes ah. Yeah,

24:47

I just it. it's so it's

24:49

bombs quite long. As

24:52

the quits the fabulous new Kendrick

24:54

Lamar. Oh yeah, look I f.

24:57

If. If it was gonna go. Push.

25:00

Ups This. Direct.

25:02

Response. Kendrick or

25:04

spot like I. I. Didn't I

25:06

didn't and yeah know a lot stand on

25:08

but that is not what he was doing

25:10

here know but what's also. But I will

25:12

say the middle section of the songs the

25:15

I hate, I Hate, I Hate section barred

25:17

from a Dmx and I'm a Vm Armed.

25:22

To me. I. Don't

25:24

know if it's great thing. But.

25:27

It shows. This is where the same

25:29

pivots to make. Yeah, this is where

25:31

pivots from. I'm. A guy

25:33

who makes rap songs. It's like saying

25:35

some kind of like on generous things

25:38

about appear. And. This is where

25:40

a pivots into like. I

25:42

literally been sitting on this animus for

25:44

so long, even if it's performed as

25:47

trust. But it is. It's it's it's.

25:50

It's. Of a warning flair. Of

25:52

saying like that anything that follows

25:54

from destroying forwards is rooted in

25:56

this degree of Adam. as it's

25:59

not like. The bars for

26:01

you. It's I literally wish

26:03

to like. Under my

26:05

you as a human being blinded

26:08

as reveals it activates the main

26:10

drake insecurity which is bats give

26:12

our while. Neither authentically blacks, new

26:15

or authentically have your ah yes

26:17

and that he's not welcome. This.

26:20

Is the think part of

26:22

Drakes proposition? Is. That he's.

26:25

Flexible. He's fluid.

26:27

He's welcome in any city,

26:30

in any style in any

26:32

seen. Sees. It seem

26:34

listener, he's a keen eye doctor and

26:37

absorber of styled all gets used against

26:39

them in the grace of which like

26:41

for years. If you are pro Drake

26:44

you say this is why Drake is

26:46

so good season, affective, absorber and regurgitate

26:48

or emphasize. Since I don't have a

26:51

number of different approaches, sees brought any

26:53

number of like sub, cultural or result

26:55

files into the mainstream and can really

26:58

wrap Edson route and can wrap in

27:00

a number of different ways you can

27:02

bring. The fighting is endless. Side saying

27:04

but like siri him a little bit, try

27:07

to wrap in a kindred mode during later

27:09

in this battle and like actually it's like

27:11

maybe one modi can't totally wrap him sleep.

27:15

Europe most modes but that's of up

27:17

is a cigarette for hims I'm. So.

27:21

Where do we get going off as

27:23

we're talking about euphoria and were And

27:25

where were you? Far as going, he's

27:27

touching on the right so so Zurich

27:29

night. So. It. To me the

27:31

middle part of euphoria is where you

27:33

know the battle is going to be

27:35

very different because if greek response chance

27:37

to respond in kind of play fighting

27:39

way he actually as to assert himself

27:42

and it's not a trace. Never served

27:44

himself for this any number of like

27:46

tough break songs over the course of

27:48

his catalogues. There's any number of like

27:50

how dare You Come For Me songs

27:52

at various points is catalog but I

27:54

don't the he's ever been. Addressed.

27:57

By. Up here. Zeist

27:59

just respectfully. Can. I

28:02

can get that got like you know all

28:04

this stuff to your point forks it's all

28:06

on the internet, search solely on the Internet

28:08

any number you can any day look on

28:10

twitter. people say things like this about him

28:12

but it's another thing. if Kendrick we took

28:14

on tour is a you theoretically are appear

28:16

of although as I've said all a prior

28:18

episodes don't ever think they were fully pearce

28:20

and will be they do the same thing

28:22

they might be now both his debts. it

28:24

is an unexpected that's a chess moves around

28:27

the Drake was ready for at a will

28:29

get to that yep yep or is seamless

28:31

euphoria. Then. He gets back to act. Which.

28:33

Is three should have seen coming but

28:35

it's crazy. Actually wild and I think.

28:37

We. All were very surprised,

28:40

and Kendrick does it. Tellingly

28:43

six have seen no way on

28:45

Instagram. Psyched up coming

28:47

to your house? Yeah. I

28:50

read probably couldn't get the sample cleared. Of

28:53

because is an algorithm some. Featuring

28:56

the playing of during Cycle that

28:58

Recycle sorry ah you know and

29:00

that's where we started. Get these.

29:03

Easter Egg conspiracy theories. this is all the

29:05

things he man, there's a lot. This is

29:07

where the reaching starts and this is where

29:10

of that. Be a cast. As a strength

29:12

Zach Be attaches a quite a presence. quite

29:14

a good stray. ah Zach be a gun

29:16

or responses on the clock to black as

29:19

ah you're comfortable with such as this to

29:21

me of guy at the like that this

29:23

to me is the least of Activists or

29:25

Cowles A songs on this is like you

29:28

talk about having like a limitation with Kendrick

29:30

is what it does for you. like. The.

29:33

Thing that I kept returning to do

29:35

a sort of at a Forty Wales

29:37

like this is a real cannibal ox

29:39

as floats on. And I say this

29:42

as a person who like loves the

29:44

cold same it's like get odds of

29:46

that dismissing yes, But I do think

29:48

there is something when Kendrick goes into

29:50

that particular register. That's. Like. Him

29:53

for kit and also slightly detached

29:55

from the beach. Like.

29:57

It's kind of like post rhythmic in a way.

30:00

Not exactly in the pocket. It's like. If.

30:03

I go where the pocket minute walk

30:05

away from the park, in the dancers

30:07

somewhere else, always keeping a loose mind

30:09

of where the pocket is on. This

30:11

is to me. The. Most

30:13

ah, This. Is the toughest

30:16

record. To listen to even

30:18

tougher than Mr. Crown. Suitable debt Side

30:20

spears I spy chance at that's of

30:23

get the sooner but I think this

30:25

is important the up so this is

30:27

to me is the least tattoo record.

30:29

While he starts with the abstract poetry

30:32

pseudo Christmas he says i never thought

30:34

I'd here in a disarm i live

30:36

in the city and rhythms of a

30:39

Shooting Star. Me

30:41

to fail. As a

30:43

spot so A but he doesn't

30:45

he doesn't. Important thing here. Tactically

30:47

isn't which is the second half of

30:49

the song. He switches modes

30:52

and he says. Have

30:54

a mall in your Operation Rescue are

30:56

all your friends are Guy: You're frightened.

30:58

Spikes owed. You're paranoid Drake Now you're

31:00

right to be paranoid. And for you're

31:02

not even paranoid on the right levels.

31:05

When you're paranoid on this levels, look

31:07

at the guy next move, the guy

31:09

next to the guy next few. They're

31:11

feeding me information and. And.

31:13

This has been a through line. Where are the

31:15

or are they? This has been us through. I'm

31:18

since. Ah, the weekend District on

31:20

the second. Neutral. but how can I

31:22

be scared of you? Out leaks in

31:24

your operations. Is there's this? Sense.

31:28

That. Kendrick, See it again. True or

31:30

not. Beaten. By Drake or

31:32

not. The idea that Kendrick

31:34

saw the whole spiel. And.

31:37

And moved accordingly. Is

31:40

why you on this piece beyond.

31:42

The Beyond. the music see on the line

31:44

said it's also because it's massively that he

31:47

did that it's that no one expected him

31:49

to do at the us this is like

31:51

i do things a lot of the reaction

31:53

to who's winning or who's in advance really

31:55

has a lot to do with what are

31:58

your expectations of this person I think

32:00

because people didn't think Kendrick was a gamer,

32:02

like not in this way. He

32:04

might have been like, I'm the best rapper, but

32:07

there's a difference between I'm the best rapper and

32:09

I've been collecting dirt on you for weeks and

32:11

weeks and weeks and weeks, potentially months, potentially years,

32:13

in order to absolutely either you in your own

32:16

house. That's different. No

32:18

one expected that of Kendrick, so he gets a

32:20

tremendous amount of credit for the chasm between what

32:23

people thought he would do and what he actually

32:25

did. Whereas Drake,

32:28

Drake basically lived up to exactly what

32:30

Drake did Drake. Drake did Drake. And

32:32

if anything, Kendrick also did

32:35

Drake. Yes. He

32:37

back to back. He also made hits,

32:40

which we'll get to. So this

32:42

also sets up, there's

32:44

the Lo-Fi cover art for this. It's

32:47

a Maybach leather glove.

32:49

It's like on a

32:51

pattern. On a pattern.

32:55

You know it's supposed to be meaningful. You don't know what it

32:58

is. You get some reaches on the internet. I think

33:00

all those people were quite wrong

33:02

about what it was he was

33:05

hinting at. But he's playing into the game.

33:07

He's saying, here's a piece of the puzzle.

33:09

You don't see the whole puzzle yet, but

33:11

remember this. And

33:14

he's setting up everything he does next.

33:16

What we find out, that's Friday afternoon.

33:18

What we find out Friday night

33:21

is that Drake had been preparing,

33:23

almost over preparing. All week.

33:26

All week. Maybe longer. Drake

33:28

had been shooting a music

33:30

video. Like a double document. A

33:33

music video, right? So it's

33:36

nearing midnight on the east coast. The

33:39

chatter among the vloggers. Drake's

33:42

gonna drop. First it's on

33:44

Instagram. Only there's an

33:46

in-between thing here, which is that the

33:48

teaser on Instagram is the buried alive

33:50

interlude parody. Oh did that

33:53

actually come first? Yeah. So that

33:55

was in the post. It was simultaneous. It was on

33:57

the post where Drake said, go watch the

33:59

family matters. I also

34:01

want to say that song is underappreciated as

34:03

part of the whole thing. I agree. And

34:06

that's as close as he does get to rapping like him. Yeah,

34:08

where he literally mimics Kendrick's appearance

34:10

on Take Care, which to me

34:13

is the only bad part of

34:15

Take Care. That's

34:17

one of the worst verses

34:20

in mainstream rap of the last 15 years,

34:23

so Drake making fun of it was

34:25

appealing. Only

34:28

Matters YouTube video. Crushing

34:31

the Good Kid Mad City van or

34:33

not, depending if you follow

34:36

car Twitter saying it's

34:38

not the same car. I can't

34:40

speak on that. Yes, it's

34:43

a symbolic version of the Good Kid

34:45

Mad City. This is a three-part song.

34:49

Another mistake I think Drake makes here is

34:51

that he goes after everyone again. See,

34:53

I don't agree that that's a mistake, but okay. Why? It

34:56

draws attention to the fact that it was an unfair fight. No,

35:00

because I think that it's

35:02

an awkward look. In

35:05

order to win a battle, you have

35:07

to win a battle. And

35:09

part of winning a battle is going

35:11

to Rocky and being like, I just

35:13

killed you. Going to Ross and

35:16

being like, I killed you. Going to whoever,

35:18

Metro, whatever, and saying, I killed you. Like

35:20

that's part of it. So I think on

35:22

the path from Drake

35:24

wanting to be the ultimate

35:26

champion of the Royal Rumble,

35:28

I do think along

35:30

the way, you have to

35:32

take all the secondary players and

35:34

dismiss them. And we were

35:37

joking previously about Metro just getting one

35:39

half a bar or something, which he

35:41

eventually takes advantage of later this week.

35:44

But to me, I think taking

35:46

on, quote unquote, Rocky and Ross

35:49

and then dismissing them, they're

35:51

never going to respond. That's

35:54

an easy victory on the way to

35:56

theoretically the bigger victory. Now

35:58

Kendrick never took his eye on it. off of no no

36:00

no of course but also there is no one else for

36:02

Kendrick to look at right for

36:06

all of Kendrick's fans who say he

36:08

is the best rapper and he is

36:10

the most talented and the most gifted

36:12

and most decorated and Grammy Award-winning and

36:14

Pulitzer Prize-winning all this other stuff have

36:16

you pulled today John is today

36:19

Pulitzer time wild day to

36:21

have Pulitzer I'm not

36:24

Gallaudet Pulsars Met Galas Kendrick's gonna

36:26

win again right now they're giving

36:28

it you're gonna

36:32

be like meet the grams that's

36:35

right and I mean we

36:38

disagree but that's fine so

36:40

I think Drake had to do it like for

36:43

all the thing about he should been

36:45

laser focused on Kendrick at that point

36:47

for better or worse it's

36:49

still a 20-beat one and I

36:52

don't think that Drake is wrong to and

36:56

just be like you deserve four bars and

36:58

then you'll never I mean Rocky will respond

37:00

nobody will hear it well we're a year

37:02

from now or what someone

37:04

said he'll respond with that outfit right you know Drake

37:06

said that they don't yeah so like Ross is gonna

37:10

respond with IG story yeah but I do

37:12

think that Drake had to do that was

37:14

to foreclose upon those

37:17

response opportunities the other thing we

37:19

learn for good on this

37:21

song while he's going

37:23

through the ranks future

37:26

one future one absolutely Drake

37:28

is like future not even mad at you

37:30

I love you you got use yeah I'm

37:32

not mad at you usually like literally I

37:34

love future can't you

37:36

see the video of allegedly Travis

37:38

Scott like Dran dancing on like

37:41

a Greek island yesterday another another

37:43

person who gets to play all side yeah

37:45

with no consequences oh we should we should

37:48

do a whole segment on like everybody the

37:50

Kanye no one cares

37:52

but kind but you know I know like

37:54

Kanye doesn't love that that's not but like

37:56

I mean it's very telling I mean this

37:59

is also about generational tensions, obviously, and

38:01

like everybody who's mad at each other

38:03

is old, respectfully

38:05

on the way out. And

38:08

Kanye is further out than

38:10

this generation. They're not worried

38:12

about him. Jay-Z. Jay-Z

38:14

too is like, you know, monocle

38:17

on. Jay-Z has sort of like... Jay-Z listens to

38:19

all these songs. I'm not sure. Yeah, no, not

38:21

yet. He's getting the printed out digest so he

38:23

can write on it for sure. He

38:25

should be worried about Ian.

38:28

Yeah. So Family

38:30

Matters, the

38:33

third verse of Family Matters, this is... This

38:37

might be the best music in the beef. Yes,

38:40

it's up there. Yes, it's among the

38:42

best music for sure. And it's Drake

38:44

playing his card,

38:46

his oppo research card, which I think we should do

38:49

a little detour here into the

38:51

history of oppo research. We don't have to do the

38:53

full history, but I do think push it to you

38:55

Ru and Rap Beef. I think when

38:58

we were growing up, different times,

39:00

but overlapping. Okay. Okay,

39:03

Daddy. Rap Beef

39:05

was about saying

39:08

something really mean and juvenile about

39:10

your opponent and threatening

39:13

them with physical harm. That

39:16

certainly was part of it. An amusement. Okay.

39:20

And push it to you, not

39:22

the first to do it. No, that's

39:24

why I'm saying. I don't think... Drake's

39:27

such a big story via

39:29

song. He should have gotten the

39:31

Pulitzer. With story about it on. Yeah,

39:33

he should have gotten the Peabody. That

39:40

I think Drake, especially the victim

39:42

of that, feels like

39:45

that's the only way to win a Rap

39:47

Beef in the internet era. Now we're talking...

39:49

What is in the... So going back, we're

39:51

talking about... But also Jay and Prodigy. Jay

39:53

and Prodigy, that's an accent. That's

39:56

an accent mark. I actually don't know that.

39:58

Putting up a picture of... Prodigy doing

40:01

doing ballet as a child dance as

40:03

a child or mother ballet modern who

40:05

recall it's real So you think you

40:07

can dance hours? But

40:10

that is oppa research 50

40:12

calling out the fact that regressive

40:14

the correct answer But these

40:16

were not the reason

40:19

these songs existed No,

40:22

but they did change the tenor and tempo Like

40:24

this is like I don't know that the push

40:26

a thing is as radical a shift as I

40:28

think you're proposing Because I agree

40:30

that I'm things a reaction to it is

40:33

what what is radical? Which is that this is

40:35

the only way you can destroy someone is if

40:37

you pull out their deepest

40:39

darkest secret It's also tough because we live

40:42

much more in an age of information Right

40:44

now like we live in the age of 1090 Jake

40:47

like we live in the age of

40:49

everybody trying to receipts and screen grabs

40:51

And who liked what comment and who

40:53

then followed who yeah who unfollowed who

40:55

what screen? Did you save the screen

40:58

grab of the thing from 10 years

41:00

ago so that you can weaponize it

41:02

today? I hope everybody's still paying for

41:04

their iCloud storage and have all their

41:06

old screen grabs. It's a different

41:08

era So I just think it's it's of the era,

41:10

but I don't know that it's Specifically

41:12

changed the tone of rap beat because

41:15

to me what Jay did to Prodigy

41:18

fundamentally Re-org

41:20

re-aligned the tenor of that

41:23

particular moment intention, and I

41:25

think that Frankly

41:28

most rappers aren't famous enough to

41:30

be summer jam-screened Mm-hmm like like

41:32

now everybody's kind of famous right

41:34

everyone can be summer jam-screened The

41:37

thing that pusha did effectively to

41:39

Drake was it wasn't just I have

41:41

this embarrassing piece of information about you

41:44

He threaded it through with these same

41:46

with with a biographical Reading

41:49

basically a psychological Dissection

41:52

that then you know

41:54

in a sort of three-act structure results

41:56

in Drake hiding a child And

41:59

I think Drake used, again,

42:02

unverified the Kendrick information,

42:04

the idea that he is abusive

42:06

or has been abusive,

42:08

allegedly, to his partner in a

42:11

former partner. Attempts to use it

42:13

in a similar way, which is

42:15

to say you present yourself as

42:17

this, Black Messiah with

42:20

a Black family, but really you're doing this,

42:22

which can be wrapped about on his album,

42:24

and then you're doing this, which nobody knew

42:26

about. And

42:28

I think that Drake thought that was it. He

42:31

ends with a song saying, you're dead. And

42:35

honestly, the thing that I have

42:37

been most surprised about in this

42:39

entire back and forth is

42:42

that people are willing to believe anything

42:44

about Drake, and people are not willing

42:46

to believe anything about Kendrick. And

42:49

we say that not having proof of anything.

42:52

But it's like, if you're willing to extend

42:54

to Kendrick the grace that the things that

42:56

he's saying are true, which seem to not

42:58

be the case, especially with the

43:00

alleged daughter, which we'll get to, but

43:03

no one wants to extend that grace to Drake, number

43:05

one. And because the information

43:08

that Drake is putting in the world,

43:10

also that potentially one

43:12

of his children is not fathered by him,

43:14

which again, but by his manager, unverified,

43:17

we don't know anything. Maybe

43:19

you guys said crazy things about each other. I

43:21

don't want to. Yeah. We

43:24

don't want to. And also, I mean,

43:26

I think one of the main takeaways

43:28

today, Monday, is people are exhausted,

43:31

people feel a little gross. And

43:34

you definitely saw an older generation on

43:36

Twitter who's closer to my age, basically

43:38

be like, this is on the

43:40

verge of getting physical. This is on the verge

43:42

of getting IRL. Let's

43:44

hope it doesn't do that. And the reason

43:46

people feel that is because of the

43:49

nature of the revelations. Now

43:51

that said, when people are beefing with each other, people

43:54

say crazy things about each other all the time.

43:56

But that's the other thing. The fact-checking, back and

43:59

forth. I don't need that. that either in the

44:01

same way I don't need the opposition researcher I

44:03

don't think that should be the gold standard of

44:05

what you're trying to do I don't think that's

44:07

a trump card I don't think that's an ace

44:09

in the hole necessarily unless you use it particularly

44:12

well I

44:14

was listening back last week to Cameron Disick

44:16

Jay-Z he calls him 38 years old

44:18

36 years old 42 years old all in the same song it doesn't

44:24

matter like it doesn't have to be true

44:26

I just want to say that's possible to

44:29

be all the same is it

44:31

possible to wear sandals with jeans and be the king of New

44:33

York no that's not

44:35

even not even in 2024 I

44:37

have to say candidly not even

44:39

at what I just mean like the

44:42

the hyperbole she used

44:45

to be part of this and now you

44:47

have not only the fans but the artists

44:49

being like well actually the age of consent

44:52

is saying that that's just a logical response

44:55

to how beefs are litigated because it's Joe

44:57

over a literal now but also but it's

44:59

like when Jay did the prodigy thing yeah

45:02

there were not multiple media outlets to

45:04

you know I mean obviously your threat magazines

45:06

and whatever but it's like it was

45:09

as close to kind of like state-sponsored

45:11

radio right as you could get yeah

45:14

I mean barely it doesn't like that

45:16

photo doesn't even really exist right but

45:19

it was literally like the

45:22

most famous rapper took someone who

45:24

was not the most famous rapper exposed

45:27

them yeah and there were so you imagine

45:29

I'm trying to imagine back Jay using a

45:31

scan like a copy machine like you went to kinkos or something

45:34

like I'll blow this on a CD-rom I went to kinko let's

45:36

put a CD-rom

45:41

and they went to a flop metal

45:43

and like put it in the thing

45:45

it said can you make this big

45:47

like it was like that we need

45:49

an oral history of how they got

45:51

that's true prodigy's dance childhood dance photo

45:53

on one screen yeah I don't know

45:55

to me it feels like a logical

45:57

response to how information is processed

45:59

It takes a lot of the fun out of

46:01

it though, I will say, for me. Well, that's why

46:04

I mean, there was, I will say, this beat was

46:06

fun until it wasn't fun. And when

46:08

I first heard the back end, the

46:10

family matters, like obviously, immediately, you feel

46:14

like you're witnessing a thing that you wish you

46:16

had not seen. You either, either

46:19

one of two things is true. Either the thing that

46:21

Jake, either the thing that Drake is saying is

46:24

accurate and you've just done

46:26

irreparable damage to your application.

46:28

Yeah, the man's family. Or

46:31

Drake's lying and talking about

46:33

abuse in such a casual

46:35

way to minimize like

46:39

the actual conversation around abuse. Neither

46:42

of those feel good. But

46:45

I'm more, again, I remain completely

46:47

surprised that here we are on

46:49

Monday afternoon and people are basically

46:52

like Kendrick one. And

46:55

doesn't matter what. 48 hours ago

46:57

or 70, however many hours ago, the

46:59

main takeaway was Drake

47:01

said this horrific thing about Kendrick and

47:03

his family and everybody was like, really?

47:07

The reason, one of the reasons

47:09

that got so pushed aside is

47:12

what happened. AI.

47:14

What happened less than 30 minutes

47:16

later, which is Kendrick release

47:18

is a track that is roughly 10

47:20

times darker. Man.

47:25

We disagree on this. I

47:27

really like this song. I mean, I

47:29

say like, it's not like, I'm not going

47:31

to put on me to not playing on your way

47:34

home. I'm not playing it for pleasure. Yeah.

47:38

To me, this is a great

47:41

disrecord. This is I'm addressing

47:43

your son and saying

47:46

how terrible the father you are addressing your

47:48

mother and saying how terrible of a son

47:50

you are and dressing your father and telling

47:52

him how terrible he must have been to

47:54

raise a person like you. I'm

47:57

addressing your dog. It's

48:00

where it gets a little wonky, but like I'm

48:02

addressing your daughter and saying that daddy has forgotten

48:04

about you and neglected you and I'll take care

48:07

of you or I'll like hope I'll look out

48:09

for you. Um, sociopath, we can

48:11

agree on your sociopath.

48:13

Honestly, it's so pure. It's

48:19

really, I mean, tell me you've never

48:21

had beef with someone and like wished

48:23

to say something to their loved ones

48:26

about the real person they were. Cause

48:28

I promise you I've had that thought.

48:31

Here's the, here's my problem. I haven't written

48:33

songs, but I've had the thought. Have you

48:35

written the poem, the poem? I might have

48:37

written half the email. This is Kendrick

48:40

at his most theatrical

48:42

and this is Kendrick at

48:44

his most always theater. This is a

48:46

thing. But this is like, this

48:49

is creative writing 601. You

48:52

know what I mean? This is Iowa workshop. MFA. MFA

48:56

Kendrick. This is like,

48:58

this man thinks that he is Shakespeare. Like

49:00

when he's, when he's writing this song, like,

49:02

like he thinks like he's doing this like

49:05

with a quill, you know what I mean?

49:08

And it also has this tone

49:11

again, purposeful. And he's a, he is

49:13

a writer. He knows how he is

49:15

writing. It's this, he recommends

49:19

him ayahuasca. He tells this imaginary

49:21

11 year old child that she's,

49:23

that she's, that she's loved. Like

49:28

just the, the, the

49:31

pure condescension, you know, the like,

49:34

I love it. I

49:36

genuinely love it. Kendrick is always telling

49:38

us that he is not perfect and

49:41

he's always telling us how enlightened he

49:43

is. And I'm just

49:45

like, this is like, also

49:47

he's basically, he's defending

49:50

all women against all

49:52

predators. Drake

49:54

flips that on him later. You know, this is like,

49:57

this, it's, I

49:59

can't. I can't listen to it. I can't listen to

50:01

this. Okay, Timmy. I can't take

50:03

it seriously. I take it because we went

50:06

from a level of, it's

50:08

the work, like it's so, it's so,

50:10

like it's

50:13

very literal for something that is

50:15

also so theatrical. But it's also

50:17

like, look, you have to understand

50:19

this beef to the extent

50:21

that it started, it started as I'm the best

50:24

rapper. It's Kendrick saying I'm the best rapper. It's

50:26

not the big three, it's just big me. Yeah.

50:28

So this is Kendrick saying I'm the best

50:30

rapper. I'm using those skills to say, not

50:33

that you're the worst rapper, but that you're

50:35

the worst person. Right?

50:37

It's weaponizing the I'm the best rapper

50:39

narrative. And it's actually saying, you know,

50:41

you know how good a rapper I

50:43

am? Not only can I beat you

50:46

with bars, but I can use those

50:48

bars to beat you with condescension, dismiss,

50:51

like disgust and

50:53

distaste. Something

50:56

I said about my distaste

50:58

for this as a song totally

51:01

trumped by it as a strategic move.

51:03

This song is why Kendrick Lamar one

51:06

knocked. This is the this is a knock out. This

51:09

is the knock out. It comes 30 minutes after an extremely

51:12

elaborate, extremely well constructed,

51:15

extremely fun

51:17

and scary and uncomfortable Drake

51:19

diss that he he thought

51:23

he had it. And Kendrick said

51:25

not only whether he made, whether

51:27

he knew Drake was writing this song or

51:29

not, he knew

51:31

the angle. He said in the first he

51:33

said, I know everything. I know. I can

51:35

even predict your angle talking about family matters.

51:38

So your name, your song family matters. It's

51:40

Meet the Grams. Yeah, it's it's

51:42

it's flawless. Now as a as a

51:45

strategy. Now here's where it's lacking to

51:47

the degree that it's lacking. I

51:49

would say at this point, Kendrick

51:52

has released three songs in a row, including

51:55

euphoria that even though euphoria is a hit

51:57

in the big sense, I think euphoria as

51:59

big as it is because it came first.

52:01

It came first in this cycle. I

52:04

think if it came in the middle, I don't think it's a hit. But

52:07

Kendrick has now released three

52:10

non-hits. Three

52:12

non-hits. And

52:14

so if you're on Drake's side,

52:16

you may say, okay, maybe

52:19

he got one. Maybe he got one conceptually.

52:21

Maybe he's saying all these terrible things about Drake

52:23

and maybe it's hitting some sad pressure points or

52:25

whatever. But he can't make a hit. And

52:29

Kendrick is just sitting there like, mmm-hmm.

52:33

Yep. Mmm-hmm. Um.

52:36

Sunday rolls around. Saturday?

52:39

Saturday. Saturday rolls around. Man,

52:42

this all happened. I've lived a hundred

52:44

and what day. A hundred lives since

52:47

this thing started. Um, Saturday rolls

52:49

around and Kendrick finally loads up

52:51

the mustard beat. And

52:54

not like us comes. And

52:56

this is actually, if you're

52:59

gonna play chess with someone, you

53:01

have to be savvy enough to plot

53:03

out not one move, not two moves.

53:07

You have to see the entire playing

53:09

field. You have to understand what could come

53:11

if the pachinko goes into the least

53:13

likely corner. And

53:15

I think in Drake's mind, the least likely corner

53:17

is that Kendrick has a hit.

53:20

Like an actual hit. Like a popping record.

53:23

Mmm-hmm. This is a popping record. Yeah, Kendrick

53:26

flipped the board. Yes. And he

53:28

hit a dance. And he hit a pop record. And he hit

53:30

a dance. So there's chants. There's like chants along,

53:32

O.B. Ho, like freaky ass,

53:35

like there's just like he's

53:37

doing Draco's flow over a mustard

53:39

beat, which

53:45

is his own rap genius page somebody else can dissect.

53:47

Yes. Doing kind

53:50

of what Drake would do. And

53:54

it's, you know, like what is a hit anymore?

53:56

But it's like, it's catchy. This is the thing.

54:00

Has had catchy records in the past, but it's

54:02

not exactly what people love Kendrick for He'll

54:05

have the occasional thing and if you're in LA long

54:07

enough and listen to LA radio long enough

54:09

You will think Kendrick has a lot of catchy hits,

54:11

but the minute you leave LA No

54:14

other part of the country plays Kendrick the

54:16

way that LA plays Kendrick This

54:18

is just like a legitimate like this could get played

54:20

on on me even though. It's the most LA song

54:24

Maybe of Kendrick's career. Yes, but it could

54:26

but because it's just fundamentally a very

54:29

Lightly toned catchy

54:31

record and and that's the thing Drake

54:33

the thing that Drake didn't anticipate is He

54:36

made Kendrick a hitmaker He

54:39

made Kendrick make a danceable

54:42

quote-unquote pop record That

54:46

maybe it's not the the the

54:48

kill shot Maybe it's not

54:50

the one that's the most damaging to Drake But

54:53

it exists because of all those other

54:56

kills and I would even argue that

54:58

in fact It might be because it

55:00

is the most it is the Drake

55:03

is Drake is a predator Drake Drake

55:05

likes underage girls unverified

55:09

But it takes the meme the Drake

55:11

meme of the last Five

55:14

years Drake has already referenced this on

55:16

an album You know,

55:18

why are people making these jokes about me? I dare you to make

55:20

them to my face and it takes

55:23

a serious accusation And it

55:25

does the thing that I'm asking for out of a rap

55:27

beef, which is that it makes them funny It

55:29

makes them light it makes its playground

55:32

insults You can sing along to it

55:34

and try to strike a call I mean, you know,

55:36

he's saying along to it He

55:39

makes it the the the the kind of

55:41

money lines are the most

55:43

damaging and you know, they're familiar And

55:45

he did it right after The

55:48

meet the grams coup From

55:51

there the Drake had to respond

55:54

on Sunday with the heart part six.

55:56

He had to Yes,

55:58

I couldn't like He bowed out

56:00

again like he did after Sorry of Adidon

56:02

after getting back to

56:04

back and then stomped

56:08

on and then his

56:10

big record getting stomped on and then a

56:12

victory lap and then we just never heard

56:14

from Drake again. I think his career might

56:16

be actually damaged. He

56:18

came back. It's

56:21

a little over protest-y this record,

56:23

The Hard Part 6. Yeah,

56:26

it's, you know, as

56:28

we mentioned a little bit earlier, it sounds

56:30

fatigued. It

56:32

sounds like someone who... There

56:38

was probably a clever way to respond

56:41

to it, but this is somehow too

56:43

fast. You can tell he's caught flat-footed.

56:46

This is not something that's been in the tank. This

56:49

hasn't been on the hard drive for

56:51

a week. No, it's all response to

56:53

what happened previously. It feels 48 hours

56:55

and it could

56:58

have used... It's not

57:00

as artful as most Drake records. This is

57:02

the thing about Kendra. Kendra can do a

57:04

sort of unstructured song, but he does it

57:06

in an artful way and the

57:09

people who are into unstructured

57:11

rap think that it's genius. Drake

57:14

isn't like that. Drake is a king of

57:16

structure and when

57:18

you listen to this, you're like, this

57:21

isn't as tight as it should be. You

57:24

could get away with this subject matter, but this

57:26

is not as tight as it could be. See,

57:28

and I actually thought Drake was going to go

57:30

in a different direction. I thought, not like us,

57:33

put the fight back on Drake's turf by

57:35

making it fun again after Meet

57:39

the Grams. I thought if Drake would have

57:41

come back with punchlines on

57:44

the level of not like us, just

57:46

jokes, just bars and

57:49

jokes over a fun beat, it

57:53

might have been closer. But the fact

57:55

that he went once again to the

57:57

grave stuff, to the, I'm

57:59

not a predator. Do you think

58:01

he could have done similar subject matter over

58:03

a bouncy beat? Yeah, I think

58:05

if he would have gone zingers, it

58:08

would have ended on a different note. Maybe if

58:10

he would have gone zingers, Kendrick would have came

58:12

back with whatever else he has in the chamber

58:14

and we would still be hearing songs. Look, it's

58:17

Monday afternoon. We might still get a Kendrick song

58:19

today. We're turning into Kendrick's song, Kamaro. Yeah, like

58:21

stay on stream. We're

58:23

sleeping here today. But

58:26

I thought by going so

58:29

serious, again, I

58:31

talked to my mother, quite

58:35

a strange misread of Kendrick's song,

58:37

Mother I Sober, which seemed very

58:39

undrake. Even

58:43

again, if he wants to make, he could have

58:45

made that point. It's a distasteful point. He could

58:47

have made that point in

58:50

a different tone, but he made it in quite a somber

58:52

tone. It

58:57

felt, you said it didn't

58:59

seem defeated, but he's sighing

59:01

at the end. He's saying, hey, this

59:03

is great exercise. Good luck with your

59:05

album. It also makes me wonder about

59:08

back channel stuff because roughly around the

59:10

same time that this comes out, Punch

59:12

goes on Twitter and is like great

59:14

battle. Yeah, from CD. It's a great

59:16

battle. Good for the culture. Maybe

59:18

it was top. Both of them, I think. Both.

59:21

Okay. Good for the culture, which is

59:23

kind of their way of being like white flag. You

59:26

know, like I think it

59:29

makes me think that there won't you

59:32

said you think there's another move from Kendrick.

59:34

So I don't know if that's going to

59:36

be the case or at least not in

59:38

this immediate could be like, he could be

59:40

holding fire to be holding fire. Look, this

59:42

is my main takeaway. Both these guys

59:44

are going to put out absolutely massive

59:46

next album. So probably this summer, Kendrick's

59:48

death, certainly sooner than Drake. If I

59:50

were Drake, you know, we always say

59:52

this like take a breather. A

59:55

lot of big artists could, could say

59:57

bye. But it could take some time off. So,

1:00:00

okay, he's put out albums in the wake

1:00:03

of these kinds of things before scorpions And

1:00:06

so on and so on But

1:00:10

no matter what they do next it's gonna be

1:00:12

it it extended their it extended

1:00:14

their careers Okay, so then let's I want to

1:00:16

talk about this on two levels before we kind

1:00:19

of like tie it all together Where

1:00:22

does this competition leave Kendrick the musician

1:00:24

and where does it leave Drake the

1:00:26

musician? And then where's the leaf Kendrick

1:00:28

the person and where's Lee Drake the

1:00:30

person start in musician your take is

1:00:32

big albums coming Kendrick

1:00:34

is on a higher plane than he was

1:00:38

Two weeks ago or four weeks ago, whatever it

1:00:41

is and they both come back really strong and

1:00:43

really big Kendrick I don't

1:00:45

know Kendrick's approval rating before and after

1:00:47

this beef feels near 100% to me

1:00:52

I just think no, but like I

1:00:56

This is actually an interesting thing. Call

1:00:58

Drake whatever kind of culture

1:01:01

vulture appropriative You

1:01:04

know white boy, whatever you want to call him

1:01:07

I think Kendrick welcomes more people

1:01:09

into discussing hip-hop openly you see

1:01:11

a lot of people Tuning

1:01:14

into this beef and offering commentary Who

1:01:17

I don't think would be there if it was? Drake

1:01:20

and schoolboy Q. Yeah, I mean

1:01:22

it's like you taught like Kendrick

1:01:24

is the I don't listen to hip-hop but

1:01:27

Artists of our lifetime they both I

1:01:29

think have significant white fan bases But

1:01:31

they're different white fan bases Drake cuz

1:01:33

Drake makes pop songs and people know

1:01:35

those songs Drake is like wallpaper to

1:01:37

people He's he's just part of the

1:01:39

air Kendrick Kendrick

1:01:42

has fans Across

1:01:46

And I also and I also do things

1:01:49

generally speaking the nature of

1:01:51

Kendrick fandom is like I'm

1:01:54

smarter than blank blank blank

1:01:56

dot dot dot whatever and it could be a

1:01:58

number of things filling And that's the

1:02:00

nature of it. And I think that there's

1:02:03

a certain kind of fan who really wants

1:02:05

to feel that way. And often

1:02:07

that fan is an outsider or like

1:02:09

coming from a totally different place.

1:02:11

And it's like, I've identified like the quote

1:02:14

unquote smartest thing. That's a

1:02:16

real phenomenon. So

1:02:18

I think there are different levels of events.

1:02:20

Kendrick's bigger, bigger, more respected than ever. His

1:02:23

last album, as J. Cole pointed out, quite

1:02:26

a difficult listen. And then

1:02:28

nothing, you know, I don't hear a lot of

1:02:30

people talking about Mr. morale going back

1:02:33

and being like, Oh, that felt like to

1:02:35

me at the time, Mr. morale felt like

1:02:37

an album that was deliberately put out to

1:02:39

undermine this pre-existing Kendrick narrative. And it felt

1:02:41

like it did that on a musical level

1:02:43

and also on a word for word level.

1:02:45

It was like, I'm gonna make songs about

1:02:48

how I don't wish to be the person

1:02:50

that you have said I am. And

1:02:52

also those songs are gonna be less catchy. Yeah.

1:02:56

And with some exceptions, yeah. And also

1:02:58

like you could say like butterflies, like

1:03:00

not catchy, but it's right. It's

1:03:03

artful. Yeah,

1:03:05

it's different. It's like a profound statement of

1:03:08

art. Mr. morale is less that,

1:03:10

but I think by design, to me,

1:03:13

I agree with you as far as

1:03:16

where Kendrick stands now. I

1:03:18

think Drake maybe

1:03:21

misunderstood Kendrick's silence as

1:03:24

a weakness. And

1:03:27

I think thought like, Oh, this guy's off the grid and

1:03:29

he wants nothing. He doesn't want smoke. And he says that

1:03:31

at the end of the hard part six, he's like, I'm

1:03:33

glad I could get you rapping for your fans. It's like

1:03:35

Kendrick put out a long EP

1:03:37

or a short album about Drake in

1:03:40

the last week. Absolutely. You

1:03:42

should honestly put it on straight. But

1:03:46

to me, what

1:03:49

this does for Drake is I don't know.

1:03:53

Because the thing is like when you are the 20,

1:03:55

when you are the one versus 20 and 20 come

1:03:59

for you. if you take an L, you're

1:04:02

still the one. Yeah. I

1:04:04

don't think anything's happened that makes him not the

1:04:06

one. I agree. I

1:04:09

think, and what I, I

1:04:11

think the jokes are louder. The

1:04:14

Drake detractors who existed, who we've

1:04:16

heard from every album since more

1:04:20

life, you know, I think that's still

1:04:22

there and the jokes aren't going away.

1:04:24

This doesn't like clear the air. But

1:04:26

I think what it does do is

1:04:28

one of the things that many people

1:04:30

complain with about Drake is that his

1:04:32

subject matter is stale. I think this

1:04:34

gives him a new round of subject

1:04:36

matter. Will it be fruitful or will

1:04:38

it still be everyone's coming for

1:04:40

me because I'm at the top and it's really hard and

1:04:42

I'm isolated in my, in my mansion?

1:04:44

Like maybe, but I do think it's,

1:04:48

there's going to be some motivation here. We're not going to hear him

1:04:50

rapping obliquely about Kanye anymore. Okay.

1:04:55

Drake age 37. Kendrick

1:04:58

age? Almost 37. Uh,

1:05:01

Rick Ross age 48. Uh,

1:05:07

future age? A$AP

1:05:12

Rocky age? Who cares? Sorry.

1:05:16

Uh, that's okay. Kanye age 46. Yeah.

1:05:20

Okay. Uh, what those

1:05:22

numbers have in common is that

1:05:25

they're much, much older than 24. Right.

1:05:30

And so this to me feels actually

1:05:32

like a big commentary on rap

1:05:34

generation and you really

1:05:37

start to see who is

1:05:39

invested and who's staying home. Who's staying

1:05:41

home? Little babies staying home.

1:05:43

21 Savage. 21 Savage staying home.

1:05:45

There's a number of people who see a five

1:05:48

to 10 year runway of their career in front

1:05:50

of them who want no parts of this. I

1:05:52

don't know what they're doing behind the scenes, but

1:05:54

like publicly they want no parts of this. Like,

1:05:57

well, Dirk, absolutely nowhere

1:05:59

to be shot. No, no, no.

1:06:02

I'm very struck by How

1:06:06

and I I think we talked a little bit about Jay-Z

1:06:08

and Nas previously I don't know what their ages were during

1:06:10

that battle, but I think it was younger than this They

1:06:13

still have a lot of career in front of a

1:06:15

lot the biggest parts of Jason career certainly one front

1:06:17

of him. I Don't

1:06:20

know if this battle never happens are

1:06:23

the biggest years of Drake and Kendrick's career

1:06:25

in front of them definitely not but

1:06:27

now It's possible and also

1:06:29

I mean, this is something I feel like people

1:06:31

you see a talk on Twitter a little bit

1:06:34

Where's the next generation of superstars or the

1:06:37

next next generation of superstars? Like if

1:06:39

it's a little baby in 21 or dark, that's

1:06:41

one level If it's

1:06:44

the generation where everybody passed away That's

1:06:47

you know, it's like you don't have a counter narrative.

1:06:49

I'm actually really really curious to

1:06:52

see how rappers who are 20

1:06:55

to 25 are gonna

1:06:57

maybe try to capitalize on this moment

1:06:59

like maybe there's an opportunity to do

1:07:02

something that brings people together and

1:07:04

that tells a different version of

1:07:06

where the story of the Where

1:07:08

the genre is going because these

1:07:10

are ultimately mid-career mid to late

1:07:12

career rappers Relitigating stuff

1:07:14

that they've been litigating in some form

1:07:17

or another on record or

1:07:19

off or more than for more than a decade

1:07:21

And we're still talking about it the

1:07:24

answer sexy red dancing with

1:07:26

Zach Brian on stage Like

1:07:28

that's the thing that's gonna bring us all together

1:07:32

On Twitter though, apparently not everyone was a was happy people were

1:07:34

mad, but crazy thing to be upset about But

1:07:38

sexy red on stage with Zach Brian Maybe

1:07:42

that's how we should go. That's

1:07:44

peace. That's peace Looking

1:07:55

to sell your car Carvana makes it easy

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car without ever leaving the comfort of home.

1:08:21

I use the New York Times Games

1:08:23

app every single day. I love playing

1:08:25

connections. With connections, I need to twist my

1:08:27

brain to see the different categories. I think

1:08:29

I know this connection. Look, Bath is a

1:08:31

city in England, Sandwich is a city in England,

1:08:34

Reading is a city in England, and I'm gonna

1:08:36

guess Derby is a city in England. I started

1:08:39

Wordle 194 days ago and I haven't missed a

1:08:41

day. The New York Times Games app has

1:08:43

all the games right there. I absolutely

1:08:45

love spelling bee. I always

1:08:47

have to get genius. I've

1:08:49

seen you yell at it and say, that should

1:08:52

be a word. Totally should be a word.

1:08:54

Sudoku is kind of my version of lifting heavy

1:08:56

weights at the gym. At this point, I'm probably

1:08:58

more consistent with doing the crossword than brushing my

1:09:01

teeth. When I can finish a hard puzzle

1:09:03

without pins, I feel like the smartest person

1:09:05

in the world. When I have to look

1:09:07

up a clue to help me, I'm learning something new.

1:09:10

It gives me joy every single day.

1:09:12

Start playing in the New York Times

1:09:14

Games app. You can download

1:09:16

it at nytimes.com/games app. Welcome

1:09:22

back. It's Popcast Alux. It's Jon.

1:09:25

It's Joe. We've covered so many songs this week. We've

1:09:28

covered a lot of songs. We've covered so many

1:09:30

songs, like the full album of what we

1:09:32

just talked about. Someone should

1:09:34

box at that like five to

1:09:36

ten years from now. The Drake,

1:09:38

Kendrick Lamar, Beef, including the songs

1:09:40

that are not available. Yeah, including

1:09:42

the Cole record and yes, everything.

1:09:44

The original version of Push Ups.

1:09:48

But no songs this week. It's a little bit of a dud

1:09:50

week, candidly, Dua

1:09:53

Lipa fans. We regret to inform you. Obviously,

1:09:57

we're going to do Snack. We're going to do Snack a little

1:09:59

bit different. because sometimes when we're talking,

1:10:01

Joe and I have a lot of things on our

1:10:03

mind that we don't get

1:10:05

to talk about on deluxe. So

1:10:08

snack of the week is gonna be Snapchat,

1:10:11

maybe this week only, maybe forever,

1:10:13

TBD. There are a few things

1:10:15

that I've been sort of wanting to talk about that

1:10:17

we haven't really had a spot for. So we're

1:10:20

gonna tear into these snacks this week, but

1:10:22

we're gonna chit-chat not just about how chewy

1:10:25

these cookies are. I hope one

1:10:27

of them is probably stale, regrettably.

1:10:29

That's on me. But

1:10:32

also just a couple things that have been on our

1:10:34

minds while we've been up to the past few days,

1:10:36

what's been distracting us when

1:10:39

we haven't been glued to the Twitter

1:10:41

for you feed to watch people argue

1:10:43

about Kendrick and Drake, which for

1:10:46

a person who is on leave that consumed

1:10:49

way too much of my time. There was a

1:10:51

lot of both. Tough times, last

1:10:54

48 hours. All right, what are our snacks?

1:10:57

All right, we have two foreign

1:11:00

chips. Okay, so I bought both of

1:11:02

these. I'm pretty sure I bought them

1:11:04

at the same exotic place. I have

1:11:06

a good exotic place now. I went

1:11:09

there with Karen once, which is when

1:11:11

I got the one that's a great

1:11:13

apparently. Yeah. And then I went the

1:11:15

other day, I was

1:11:17

in the area and I got this, which is a rose

1:11:20

pink salt cookie,

1:11:23

I guess. Beautiful, beautiful package. Great packaging.

1:11:25

The thing that I'm really concerned about

1:11:27

is the one I got with Karen

1:11:29

was a few months ago and frankly, they still

1:11:32

had some of them when I went last. What

1:11:34

do you think generally about a

1:11:36

fruit flavored cookie or a flour

1:11:39

flavored cookie? Yeah, flour is okay.

1:11:42

Flour is okay. Fruit I'm not happy with. So

1:11:45

let's start with, we're gonna start with the

1:11:47

good one. Right. Okay. While I tear into

1:11:49

these. Yeah, do you wanna? What's on your

1:11:51

mind? Okay, the

1:11:54

thing that I feel like I would

1:11:56

have spent time either writing about or

1:11:58

thinking about. the

1:12:00

past few days if the Drake, Kendra thing

1:12:02

had not popped off. I've

1:12:05

been having a lot of fun looking at the

1:12:07

TikTok account for Marc Jacobs. Okay,

1:12:09

never done that once in my life.

1:12:12

Okay, so the Marc Jacobs TikTok account

1:12:15

has been very, very

1:12:17

aggressively doing relatively

1:12:19

low-fi videos with immediate

1:12:22

viral stars. Plus, where

1:12:24

Marc Jacobs? I

1:12:27

have more tickets on. Like, you

1:12:29

don't have any Marc Jacobs. I told you

1:12:31

you needed to wear some. That's my bad. Sorry.

1:12:33

Come on, man. You know I always got

1:12:35

extra. Thanks,

1:12:39

bro. I'll try this too. How

1:12:45

are we? Like people who are

1:12:47

like the TikTok Riz party kids. So like us

1:12:49

next week. We're here. The TikTok

1:12:51

Riz. Okay, these are not the Chips Ahoy

1:12:53

Islands. What? What?

1:12:57

Is there a chip? They're mini. Is

1:13:00

there a hoy? It's

1:13:04

a Chips Ahoy with neither chip nor hoy. These are

1:13:06

about the size of a quarter for our listeners,

1:13:08

our non-veilers. Go

1:13:11

to youtube.com/popcast. Well, I'm already disappointed. The size

1:13:13

of this pink cookie. And yeah, they come

1:13:15

in a package. Pink cookies in a croc.

1:13:18

Pink cookies in a plastic bag getting crushed by

1:13:20

buildings. Those who know know. That's what

1:13:23

this is. That is what this is. Okay.

1:13:30

So anyway, I feel like obviously

1:13:32

most people who do TikTok. Tastes

1:13:34

like perfume. Sorry, go on. That's alright.

1:13:37

Most people who do TikToks, most brands who do TikToks do

1:13:39

these like incredibly labored, like

1:13:41

influencer collaborations or whatever. It's

1:13:44

sort of refreshing to keep the

1:13:46

people who are viral in their

1:13:48

milieu and then just like

1:13:50

throw a Marc Jacobs thing into that milieu.

1:13:53

Like this girl Irene Lee, who does these kind

1:13:55

of like almost

1:13:58

like extemporaneous. hippie-ish

1:14:01

not weirdo one of the

1:14:03

okay weirdo speaking thing direct

1:14:05

to camera real like Gavin

1:14:07

Weiland hours you know what they

1:14:09

say an apple a day keeps the doctors away

1:14:12

but overall today's been great it sends out I

1:14:14

was a monster at work emails were flying I

1:14:16

had ox I played jazz shadow Alice Coltrane and

1:14:18

then it's just like one of those but it's

1:14:20

on the Marc Jacobs Channel and she's maybe she's

1:14:23

wearing a bag or something okay the tiktok Riz

1:14:25

party kids go to a party

1:14:27

wearing Marc Jacobs there's

1:14:29

something about you something a native very

1:14:32

native and this not

1:14:35

spawn not at all no no

1:14:37

it's just really smart they also a few months

1:14:39

ago like they were doing thing with like Oozy

1:14:41

was in their office like dancing on the desk

1:14:43

and twigs was in the office and it's just

1:14:46

like how do we make

1:14:48

videos that make sense in this million

1:14:50

not make videos that are marketing videos

1:14:52

that fit on tiktok they just have

1:14:54

like a really ambitious intern no it's

1:14:56

it's I mean I think it's Ava

1:14:58

who Ava had made used to make

1:15:00

clothes like she did those champion the

1:15:03

sea champion swivel your it's like

1:15:06

back in the day just someone

1:15:09

who I think like understands the medium

1:15:11

and like pays attention now

1:15:13

I'm gonna eat these I

1:15:15

don't even smell good no I mean tastes

1:15:17

like perfume a hundred percent

1:15:21

there's a huge letdown yeah this is

1:15:23

not this is only

1:15:26

exists for the beautiful box boxes

1:15:29

ten times better than the cookie yeah this is

1:15:31

an epic letdown yeah I wonder if these are

1:15:33

expired I don't think they're expired I think they

1:15:36

just oh they're expired okay

1:15:44

yeah these are we were fired in 2023

1:15:47

all right okay pop gas looks

1:15:49

live from the emergency room live from

1:15:51

city MD okay but I'm breaking into

1:15:53

the to the guys are real so

1:15:55

it's a real cookie it's it's chewy

1:15:57

did you know it's gonna be chewy

1:15:59

no I'm Definitely a chewy. Oh, yeah,

1:16:01

because when I did the Google Translate on it

1:16:03

says soft. Yeah, soft Okay, so

1:16:05

chewy has little like raisins on it.

1:16:07

You think it's expired? Mmm, doesn't

1:16:10

matter. Okay Anyway,

1:16:13

that's I was like spending a lifetime on that

1:16:15

this weekend Also, I saw challengers this weekend and

1:16:17

you mark Jacobs and challengers I don't believe

1:16:20

so but a lot of product placement I

1:16:22

was like a rather shocking for a film

1:16:24

where you're like an artful filmmaker made this

1:16:26

it's like no literally like Disney made this

1:16:29

film Like, you know, it's like there's

1:16:31

a product shot in every almost every single

1:16:33

shot. Mm-hmm The budget must have been huge

1:16:36

with all the product placement Are

1:16:38

we gonna talk about challengers on a future episode?

1:16:41

Should I save it? We might Anyway,

1:16:43

my short read the TLDR Good,

1:16:47

but not in the ways. I thought it was gonna be good in

1:16:49

the ways I thought it was gonna be good actually not good True

1:16:53

story Challengers is a comedy

1:16:56

It's not I think that's I think but

1:16:58

it's like an actual it's like slapstick. Yeah.

1:17:00

Yeah. It's slapstick. It's not not subtle No,

1:17:02

it's not fun. It's like funny sexy comedy.

1:17:04

It's slapstick. Mm-hmm And if you watch the

1:17:06

movie, you'll know what I'm about to be

1:17:08

doing Do you think Zendaya is

1:17:10

funny? No That's

1:17:14

it I don't know is she the she the straight man

1:17:16

or she's trying to be funny It's

1:17:19

a crazy way to phrase it No,

1:17:21

she's not funny The

1:17:23

guys maybe are meant to be funny, right?

1:17:25

I would love to see something You know

1:17:27

some people would do like alternate trailers on the internet I would

1:17:29

love to see someone do a trailer for this film But

1:17:33

as if it was like an Adam Sandler movie, right?

1:17:36

We're like a Will Ferrell movie because there's

1:17:38

enough material to be Zendaya Adam Sandler and

1:17:40

Will Ferrell These

1:17:44

are delicious. Actually, these are also

1:17:46

stale. They don't taste stale to me though. You know, it's really good

1:17:49

You take a chewy chips. Ahoy

1:17:51

a soft chips. Ahoy you put in the microwave. Oh,

1:17:53

yeah, that's a classic This doesn't

1:17:56

have any chocolate so wouldn't These

1:18:00

are more tired as well. I but they hold

1:18:02

up again till

1:18:04

the hospital episode um To

1:18:07

me the nape blue ultra

1:18:09

of cookie is a chewy

1:18:11

chips all the way with pieces of rena

1:18:13

P no, I'm sorry a crispy a regular

1:18:15

chips away with pieces of Reese's peanut butter

1:18:18

cups in it Right not the Reese's pieces

1:18:20

one the Reese's peanut not like you're not

1:18:22

making this at home like no This is

1:18:24

commercially. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've had those yeah

1:18:26

great. Those are incredible like like murder of

1:18:28

Agam absolutely, um Okay,

1:18:31

um, this is better than the other one.

1:18:34

Definitely. I don't like it though

1:18:36

But what tell me a little bit about something

1:18:38

you did this weekend I mostly

1:18:40

watched the end of the first round and

1:18:42

the beginning of the second round of the

1:18:44

NBA playoffs. I've heard of them Yeah, which

1:18:46

is? honestly, the drop-off between

1:18:49

the two rounds is really Sudden

1:18:52

and all of a sudden you go from

1:18:54

three games a day to like maybe one

1:18:56

and it's like a real whiplash because the

1:18:58

first Round of the NBA playoffs is

1:19:00

like you watch all the games. Yeah, basically

1:19:02

if I can yeah, or I record them I

1:19:04

watch most of them. I mean nowadays.

1:19:06

I watch them at home, right? and I watch

1:19:08

them on YouTube TV so you can

1:19:11

skip around and actually this is what I want

1:19:13

to say even more than any other games, which

1:19:15

I Think

1:19:17

will will be lost on you my commentary about

1:19:22

The Knicks and the Orlando Magic all

1:19:24

I know is Jalen

1:19:26

Bronson and then putting the jersey on

1:19:28

the wall Chamberlain statue We

1:19:32

should just play like two seconds from the latest

1:19:34

side talk video because They're

1:19:37

still doing it and it works every time

1:19:41

Even though the schtick might be tired like Knicks

1:19:44

fans deliver great content You've

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always known just how smart she is From

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Forged by the sea. Skipping

1:20:27

ahead, watching the game on a slight delay, so

1:20:30

you can skip most of the commercials, has become

1:20:33

invaluable because

1:20:36

there's three commercials with

1:20:39

three songs that play basically

1:20:41

every commercial break and they're

1:20:44

driving the nation collectively insane.

1:20:46

Oh, I know this

1:20:48

from Twitter. Obviously. What a pro

1:20:50

wants. What a pro wants. So this is starring

1:20:52

two of the young players from Oklahoma City Thunder.

1:20:55

Great team. Shay. Shay

1:20:57

Hill, just Alexander. Best dressed in the NBA. Yeah. By

1:21:01

far. Shout out Shay. Shout out 4G. Picking

1:21:04

up the baton from. Shout out Justin

1:21:06

Reid. Yeah. Yeah. And

1:21:09

Chet Holmron. And they

1:21:11

do the bit where they sing the

1:21:13

Christine Aguilera song that almost definitely neither

1:21:16

of them had ever heard prior to

1:21:18

being hired for this commercial. I think

1:21:20

literally they were not born. Or

1:21:23

they were certainly not cognizant. Yeah.

1:21:26

When that song came out. What

1:21:28

a pro wants. What a

1:21:30

pro needs. Whatever makes me happy

1:21:32

sets me free. So that's one. I

1:21:35

actually mind that one the least. Yeah,

1:21:37

I watched it. I watched it

1:21:39

because people were so mad about it and I was like, I was

1:21:41

ready to be mad about it and maybe

1:21:43

I'm just not invested enough. And well, and

1:21:45

you just haven't seen it every single commercial

1:21:47

break. It seemed fine to weeks on end.

1:21:49

Like it seemed plausibly done. Well the other

1:21:51

one that which is tough because it's an

1:21:53

amazing song is there's a wingstop commercial that

1:21:55

uses no flex zone. I

1:22:01

mean my alarm

1:22:04

tone, my morning alarm.

1:22:14

Okay, incredible. Literally. So you hear it as often

1:22:16

as... I hear it every day. Yeah.

1:22:20

Again, great song. Actually, a good commercial.

1:22:22

It's like weirdly, it's about like the crunch of

1:22:24

the chicken while a family is playing Jenga. But

1:22:27

they play No Flex Zone. They play it reworded or just

1:22:29

they just play No Flex Zone? They just play No Flex

1:22:31

Zone. And they... Wait, remember,

1:22:33

came to the New York Times. They came, I have a

1:22:35

picture of them. You have that in this, by the fourth floor? Yeah.

1:22:38

The best thing that came out of that is Bill

1:22:40

Simmons tried to sing the song from memory on his

1:22:42

podcast. I did not sing this. I just play it

1:22:44

like two seconds. Okay.

1:22:47

No, what? Oh, yeah, that song. And

1:22:51

then there's this other song, I guess

1:22:53

it's a Lekali 47 song. Okay.

1:22:58

And... If you say so. Yeah, it's about

1:23:00

posting a picture on Instagram. It's

1:23:04

an ad for who? It's

1:23:11

an ad for like photo editing phone. Calico?

1:23:13

Google thing. No, no. I

1:23:15

think it's a Google phone or something. It's

1:23:17

like, it's a horrible commercial. It's

1:23:19

a guy editing himself to make it

1:23:21

look like he's throwing his baby higher in the

1:23:24

air than he actually is at the beach. I'm

1:23:26

like, don't do that. Yeah, don't

1:23:28

do that. Don't do that. What

1:23:30

agency, what brand agency told you that

1:23:32

was a good idea? Maybe

1:23:35

I should write this for the newspaper. I just wonder

1:23:37

if these songs, if streaming is going up on these

1:23:39

songs or if streaming is going down on these. Because

1:23:41

people are rejecting. Yeah. Yeah.

1:23:44

Like I don't, this might, the discovery, it

1:23:46

might be anti-discovered. Yeah, we're just

1:23:48

generally discovered a rejection. Okay.

1:23:52

So those are my anti-songs of the week. Sorry

1:23:54

to Ray Schremmurd. Sorry

1:23:57

to my morning alarm. And sorry to these cookies, because they're not. not

1:24:01

very good. What's the number

1:24:03

on this? The rose salt. It's

1:24:06

like a one. That's a one out of 10. It's

1:24:08

yeah. Okay. I'm gonna say two

1:24:10

to two out of 10. And I'm gonna

1:24:13

say these grape cookies

1:24:15

are I

1:24:17

think for me it's a four and

1:24:19

a half. Yeah, I was gonna say

1:24:22

five. I think the

1:24:24

plus side of a grape

1:24:26

cookie being expired is that a

1:24:28

raisin is already an expired grape.

1:24:30

Like it's wow. It's fine. Damn.

1:24:32

And we're all see getting these

1:24:34

takes of podcast deluxe. That's

1:24:37

our show. We'll be back next week.

1:24:40

youtube.com/podcast like subscribe and light

1:24:42

times.com/podcast is where every episode

1:24:44

lives on the website. Zero.

1:24:50

Life is a highway and on it there

1:24:52

will be many sandwiches. There's

1:24:54

only one so go

1:24:56

ahead and hit the turn signal if you

1:24:59

know about this juicy gem of

1:25:01

a detour.