XO, Simone @xosimone - Tumblr Blog

Kendrick doesn't just hate Drake as a person. He hates the very idea of Drake.

Hip-Hop is rooted in revolution. In defiance. These are the songs of an oppressed group of people, and decades upon decades people have hated it. Accused of being meaningless and invalid. Media outlets took steps to belittle hip-hop and make sure it isn't recognized as an art form and as a means to fight back.

2Pac spoke of wealth disparity and inequality. Tupac was literally a member of a communist organization when he was younger and never stopped speaking against capitalism.

Lauryn Hill spoke of the struggles a woman faces. Not just women, but black women. Salt-N-Peppa. Queen Latifah. MISSY FUCKING ELLIOT.

N.W.A made sure people knew about police brutality and violence against the Black community.

And now, in this day and age, we're also experiencing an explosion of Queer Hip-Hop. Lil Nas X is at the forefront of this. Lil Uzi Vert came out as non-binary and uses they/them pronouns, even when they knew that a lot of their fans would never use it or even respect them for it. Auntie Diaries, a song about a young man who grew up in a transphobic environment and bought into those beliefs, but could never fully do it because his Uncle loved him so much and taught him a lot of life lessons, and that wisdom translated to him accepting his cousin as a woman as well.

Drake is none of that.

He's the perfect representation of what people think hip-hop is. Flexing. Posturing. Objectifying women. A fucker so insecure he bought 2Pac's ring just to feel like he's part of the black community. Rejected by Rihanna publicly. Tried to groom Millie Bobby Brown. Kissed and inappropriately touched an underage girl during his concert. His songs have inspired so many young boys to treat girls like shit. His belief that the amount of rings and chains and cars he has is the true meaning of success.

Additional Edit: This is my fault. If this post gains more views, then it would be remiss of me not to add to this. It was my fault to begin with, not stating this beforehand because while I did know, I got lost in celebrating Hip-Hop in a place that doesn't usually do so, and rightfully so.

2Pac did fight for wealth equality and better social living for the black community. He also has a long, long history of battery, domestic abuse, and sexual harassment against women. Specifically against women of color. He made a song to celebrate his own mother, but outright refused to give the same show of respect to other women in his life. His hypocritical nature was brushed off in later decades, just the way I did now.

N.W.A is the same. Sexual assault charges, violence—they spoke of Police reform, but refuses to give the same treatment back towards the women in their lives.

50 cent refuses to backtrack on any of his misogynistic lyrics.

Modern rappers of today, such as the dead XXXtentacion. 6ix9ine. Kodak Black.

I do love Hip-Hop. I love rap. And the music itself has always been anti-authoritarian at its core, because those are its roots. And I was happy that circles that did not normally know of it or enjoy it were getting into it, even for one thing like this rap feud.

Lil Nas X, Little Simz, Childish Gambino, Missy Elliot, Queen Latifah, Lauryn Hill—rappers who have at the very least consistently tried to put their money where their mouth is. Who have tried to act in accordance to what they rap and write and sing for.

@shehungthemoon @ohsugarsims finnthehumanmp3 were the ones who rightfully clarified in the comments. I know an apology won't correct my hypocrisy or my stupidity. I should have added all of this before making this post, but I wanted so badly to celebrate a genre of music but failed to do my due diligence in showing a better, holistic view of it. If anyone felt triggered, offended, troubled, frustrated or any other intense negative emotions surrounding this, please do block me. I'm sorry.

xosimone

I love the additional caveat in the edit acknowledging the history of these hip-hop figures and ensuring that they are not exempt from the harm they have done while still being pivotal in the genre. Many things can exist at once.

xosimone

On "Meet the Grahams" and the Moral Turn That Happened During This Beef

I know that I am on hiatus right now, but there is a lot on my chest regarding the rap beef between Kendrick Lamar and Drake that is really making me feel uneasy.

I am a Kendrick Lamar fan, I have been a Kendrick Lamar fan since the 6th grade after hearing "Swimming Pools" so much on the radio that it just became a song stuck in my head. Kendrick is an excellent lyricist, performer, artist, and writer. And while Kendrick is all of these things, he is not the pinnacle of a moral high ground.

The moment that the rap beef between Drake and Kendrick turned into a battle of morals, it dawned on me that we absolutely missed the plot. The point is, neither Drake nor Kendrick are good people, and neither one of them are associated with upstanding people either. It gets incredibly weird to see specific arguments they make about each other when they have either done the thing they have criticized the other over or are affiliated with someone that has.

Neither one of them actually care about what they are accusing the other of doing because if they did, the authorities would have been called by now.

Drake in "Family Matters" alleged that Kendrick has put his hands on his wife, Dave Free fathered one of Whitney's children, Kendrick doesn't care for black women, etc.

Kendrick said in "Meet the Grahams" that Drake has hypersexualized black women, he is a deadbeat father, he is a sex trafficker only comparable to Harvey Weinstein and Diddy, he is a pervert, and he is a substance abuser.

Drake brings up Whitney being allegedly abused, but he has sex traffickers in his circle. An example is Baka, a member of his inner circle, who got shouted out ("I'll declare it a holiday as soon as Baka get back on the road") for sexual abuse crimes after forcing a 22 year old in prostitution and went to jail. Upon his release in 2017, he was signed onto OVO sound. Why bring up a woman's trauma when you are aligning yourself with someone who has also traumatized women?

Kendrick brings up the hypersexualization of black women but has also had women scantily clad in his "Loyalty" music video. Kendrick brings up Drake's substance abuse as if he has not also abused substances. Kendrick brings up being a deadbeat father as if he did not hop on a track that blew this beef up with Future, who is notorious for fathering a bunch of children and practically being a deadbeat. He also discusses Drake's perversion as if Kodak Black, who faced charges of sexual assault, was not featured on Mr. Morale, which Kendrick himself slated as his "therapy album."

I feel like all of these moral flaw arguments are incredibly disingenuous because none of this would have been brought up had they not beefed with each other in the first place.

It feels a little icky? Like yes we should protect women, children, and people in general, but that conversation doesn't get to start because you guys are fighting. If anything, it should have started awhile ago.

maxitascasizeyspiceblog

These takes are absolutely throwing me

"The authorities would be called???"

NIGGA DO YOU LIVE IN AMERICA????

The reason why it's really hard to get predators and abusers out of marginalized communities is because of that very marginalization.

You can't bring people to justice if justice was never made for you or victims like you. A lot of Mr. Morale is coping with that as a reality and he doesn't do it well and should be held accountable for it but it is the perfect throughline of lack of accountability that leads to misogynior and black femmacide.

Part of me knows why he wants to give those men a chance because of the color of their skin the world never gave them a chance, but it is also acknowledging the color of their victim's skin and how much less of a chance they had.

Mr.Morale fucks up big time in a lot of ways but to go from Eazy Duz It callin folks fag (derogatory) like EVERY OTHER LINE to no have a different tiny nigga from Compton profess (while deadnaming mind you 🤬) love and admiration for the queer members of his own family is a big step

Fuck is that why he named it that shit? Man I take it all back! Fuck that negrodamous ass corny palm tree nigga

xosimone

The main point of what I was saying is the fact that both Drake and Kendrick are using incredibly dark and criminal allegations for a diss track, and if these things were important enough to be “gotcha moments” for a record, they should have been enough to be reported. I’m not understanding why you are making that an incredibly negative thing to say. I am understanding that this is the United States, but two things can be true at once.

We can both acknowledge that the American justice system needs serious reformation especially regarding crimes again women, and we can acknowledge that it is also really gross to use women’s trauma as a *gotcha* in lieu of alerting the authorities. If we are not capable of acknowledging both of these valid discussions then there is something seriously wrong there.

The issue at hand, for me at least, is that we have a culture of very clearly seeing crimes being committed or very clearly see people getting harmed and we turn their pain and trauma into content— especially to be seen as a morally upstanding person. You do not witness nor hear about someone causing harm on someone else and then go, “Yeah it’s time to make a song/post, and this be the first time this has ever come out of your mouth. You do not reveal the skeletons of someone’s closet that involve actual victims because you’re beefing with them— that is incredibly weird; it doesn’t make you the good, moral one either. If anything it makes you a bystander.

And quite honestly it is a little weird to not go to the authorities as a witness either. With legal conversations of assault, having witness reports is incredibly important. I would 100% understand why victims would not alert authorities— that is a very traumatizing conversation to have especially when the burden of proof being an incredibly difficult thing to navigate. But let’s not get confused— Drake is not a victim in the allegation that Kendrick beat Whitney. Drake would either be a witness or know a witness if it were factual. If Drake knew that this was incredibly heinous, why was his first course of action be “yeah this is great in a diss,” other than hoping it would shut down Kendrick Lamar? That is using someone else’s trauma as content, and that is really messed up. Aside from that, Drake didn’t put it out because he suddenly cares about women. There is someone in Drake’s camp who was in jail for forcing a woman into prostitution, and Drake was shouting him out while he was serving time for the aforementioned crime. Kendrick Lamar was not a victim of Drake being allegedly predatory to young women nor was he a victim of those children who Drake allegedly abandoned. Obviously, abandoning kids isn’t necessarily a crime and merely a terrible thing to do, but being predatory to minors is. At what point was Kendrick going to take it there? He alluded in his diss that everything was friendly and he had no intention to take it this far, but did as a result of Drake talking about his family. So that begs the question of, “how long did he know of Drake’s behavior before saying something in his diss?” Also, if he knew this information and Drake didn’t bring Kendrick’s family into it, was he going to stay silent and let Drake continue? Why is it that Kendrick used the incredibly serious crimes Drake is accused of for content rather than take it to the authorities if it is serious enough to turn into two diss records, and then by extension making himself this beacon of morals. Especially considering that Kodak Black, who was convicted for sexual assault, was on his latest album? Especially after he threatened to take his music off streaming platforms when Spotify opted to deplatform R. Kelly, who is now in jail for the sexual abuse he did to women and teenagers. Are we to automatically assume that his mind changed fully and he is absolutely against things like sexual assault and he is simply not being a whistleblower to the industry because he hates Drake?

I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt slightly and say that people grow up and understand that nefarious acts are disgusting and they should do all they can to end crimes such as domestic violence, sexual assault, pedophilia, and statutory rape especially in the industry. However, it is not lost on me, nor it should be lost on anyone to acknowledge that people will be very aware of the crimes their peers and inner circle do and will only decide to speak on it as a form of revenge because they did something to slide them and then position themselves as morally superior. And that isn’t a good thing to do to anyone. Especially to the victims who now become the center of these conversations because of the content created about their trauma.

Regardless of how we feel about Drake and Kendrick Lamar, it does not take away from the importance of these conversations. It does not take away from the fact that if they waited until it was time to expose the other they remained a bystander during the pain inflicted on someone else (if all allegations are true), and that is something that needs to be reformed because collectively this is something we make okay.

It is not, nor has it ever been okay to be witnesses or hear about the crimes someone else has committed and choose to say nothing about it until you are angry at them. Wrong is wrong and has a right to be reported upon hearing about it, and if we continue to accept behavior like this we are making the healing process harder for those who are victims of these things and that is not fair to them.

I do not care what you have to say about my take on the discourse, but that does not take away from the fact that the aforementioned action is wrong.

I love a good rap beef.

I love a good diss track.

If rappers want to go bar for bar about ghostwriting and lack of lyricism and getting plastic surgery and acting like it was gym gains, sure.

But I do raise a brow when rappers start discussing morals when also looking at their track record and the company they keep. Once you start taking a look at that, you do wonder what their point was in bringing this up— advocacy or revenge? Protection or a gotcha?

And you especially think of that when you think about the magnitude of these traumas on the alleged victims who now have their trauma put on display— and with the way that the internet works, within hours there will be thousands of people analyzing every public appearance these victims have and trying to speculate and create a timeline to pry into trauma that they weren’t privy to in the first place, and that is really intrusive.

We have already seen this happen with the young actress online that people are saying is Drake’s daughter allegedly. Within hours a child’s Instagram account was put online with her pictures on display and there isn’t confirmation if that little girl is even Drake’s child. And yet because of the content being created and the breadcrumbs in a song, we are publicizing a child’s information who can be a random kid for all we know. And abandoning an 11 year old and being a bad dad isn’t s crime, other things that were mentioned are. And it is just important to be mindful of the implications of these things at the very least.

You can boo me and call me boring or whatever else you’d like, but I am pointing out a lot of realities that still have room to exist.

maxitascasizeyspiceblog

Also KENDRICK LAMAR IS AN INSPIRATIONAL BLACK MAN FROM COMPTON IF HE BEAT HIS WIFE AN LA PIG WOULD BE SQUEALING ON FOX NEWS AS WE SPEAK BE SERIOUS That shit woulda come up during the Black Panther recordings

xosimone

I've already elaborated on the ethical considerations behind incorporating allegations into a diss track, suggesting that such a tactic might serve to amplify the accusations and pressure authorities into action. While my critique encompassed Kendrick Lamar, it was not exclusive to him; rather, it pertained to the broader dynamics of discourse surrounding this particular rap beef because it has taken an incredibly unique turn. This rap feud transcends the typical exchanges of braggadocio or critiques of lyrical prowess (i.e. sleeping with the other’s partner, body-shaming, bad lyricism, etc). It has evolved into a discussion that delves deeply into the psychological and potentially criminal aspects of the involved parties. If individuals are willing to engage in such discourse, then it stands to reason that examining the complexities of this feud is a natural progression. In Kendrick's case, his intellectual depth suggests that delving into these deeper conversations, however challenging, is unlikely to shake his world. Kendrick’s introspective nature and intellectual capacity make him more than equipped to navigate the complexities of this evolving discourse moving forward if these nuances have hit his radar.

I posed a broader question to both artists (and to us as witnesses) regarding whether these discussions would have surfaced without the backdrop of a feud, a question that holds merit; the current conversation extends to all, urging us to consider the implications of when and why we choose to disclose others' transgressions.

It seems you're primarily defending Kendrick Lamar, which is understandable if he's one of your favorite artists. However, the scope of this conversation transcends the contents of his and even Drake's discographies. It delves into the complex realm of disclosing crimes, requiring a layered approach and some deeper critical thinking. This discourse sheds light on how our discussions around exposing individuals can impact the victims involved— especially if we have been sitting on this information for awhile. The current rap beef serves as a timely and relevant example due to how much attention is on it.

#kendrick #kendrick lamar #oklamar #kdot #drake #drizzy #family matters #like that #6 16 in la #meet the grahams #the heart part 6 #6 god #not like us #ovosound #ovo #ovo sound