Drake has responded to footage of a Drizzy lookalike, using lyrics from his rival Kendrick Lamar‘s diss, “Not Like Us.”
The 6 God took to Instagram Stories on Sunday (July 28) and reposted a video of a man rapping along to his song “Hotline Bling.”
Drake quoted a line from K.Dot’s track aimed at him, captioning the clip: “Sometimes you gotta pop out.”
On “Not Like Us,” Kendrick rapped: “Sometimes you gotta pop out and show n-ggas / Certified boogeyman, I’m the one that up the score with ’em.”
Though many claimed Drake lost in his battle to Kendrick, a Rap legend recently spoke about how the back and forth was good for the genre as a whole.
Rakim believes that the recent battle was a good thing for Hip Hop, and it “put a lot of things in perspective.”
In an interview with Billboard published earlier this week, writer Angel Diaz asked the God MC if he’d been paying attention to the all-consuming feud. Diaz characterized it as Drizzy representing the “mainstream” to many fans, while K.Dot “represents the genre in a more traditional sense.”
This framing brought out a thoughtful answer from Ra.
“I think that [the battle] was important, because these brothers are at the top of the game, and revered hip-hop,” he replied. “You know, a lot of people in that position won’t accept no challenge, because they got too much to lose. So, it was dope that these brothers put the mainstream success down and said, ‘Yeah, let’s do it.’
“The battle put a lot of things in perspective — because it showed the difference between real hip-hop and mainstream hip-hop,” the legend continued. “Younger artists now know that there’s a difference. A lot of them didn’t even understand that.
“They just listened to the majority, not knowing that a lot of people don’t categorize what they were hearing as real hip-hop. The battle was very needed for the genre. I tip my hat to them brothers.”
The “One Dance” rapper still has plenty of people in his corner, even among those who sided with Kendrick during the battle.
Drake still has a friend in DeMar DeRozan, despite the fact the NBA baller appeared in the video for Kendrick Lamar’s scathing diss against him.
In a conversation with The Sacramento Bee published earlier this week, DeRozan emphasized that Drizzy is still his man and that everything else was just entertainment.
“Drake’s still my man, still my man, none of it changed,” the ballplayer said said. “It’s so easy to get overlooked and look at it for what it looks like, but at the end of the day it’s music, entertainment. Two of the biggest rappers in the world went at it from a competitive standpoint and they battled it out. That’s what you want to see as a fan: Kobe [Bryant] playing [Michael] Jordan one-on-one and see who wins, see the trash talking, and whoever wins out of that, you’re still going to have the debate, so that’s all that is.”
