Questlove is not on board with the rap beef between Kendrick Lamar and Drake.
The Roots drummer and Oscar-winning filmmaker took to Instagram to share his thoughts regarding the battle’s potential negative impact on hip-hop, captioning the post, “Here We Are Now…Entertain us,” quoting Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”
“Nobody won the war. This wasn’t about skill. This was a wrestling match level mudslinging and takedown by any means necessary — women & children (& actual facts) be damned,” Questlove wrote.
“Same audience wanting blood will soon put up ‘rip’ posts like they weren’t part of the problem. Hip Hop truly is dead,” his post continued.
After his post, many questioned how Quest could make such a bold declaration about hip-hop being dead after being a part of rap’s most brutal beefs. In 2001, Quest was the drummer and musical director of JAY-Z’s MTV Unplugged where he dissed Nas in the live performance of “The Takeover.” Although he turned off the comments on IG, numerous people expressed their dismay at the Grammy winner’s statement on X (formerly Twitter).
“Wasn’t Questlove the drummer on ‘Unplugged’ live where Hov performed ‘Takeover?’” one user wrote. “A battle where women and children were also mentioned? Shut up, man.”
After years of throwing subliminal shots at each other, the epic rap battle was officially launched when Kendrick dropped a fiery verse on “Like That” from Metro Boomin and Future’s We Don’t Trust You album where he took aim at Drake and J. Cole’s for their track “First Person Shooter.”
Cole said that he, Kendrick, and Drake were the big three of the rap game. Kendrick took exception to the rhyme and on “Like That” rapped, “Motherf**k the big three/It’s just big me!”
Since that time, the diss tracks have become extremely personal, with scathing allegations coming from both sides. Drake accused Kendrick of abusing his partner on “Family Matters.” Kendrick returned the favor, alleging that Drake is a pedophile and has a secret 11-year-old daughter on “Meet the Grahams.”
After a week where a combined six diss tracks were dropped from the two rap superstars, no new songs have been released so far this week.
