In the first episode of 'Billboard Unfiltered,' Billboard staffers Damien Scott, Carl Lamarre and Trevor Anderson discuss the Drake and Kendrick Lamar feud that has taken the hip-hop world by storm, J. Cole's exit from the drama, Tommy Richman's debut on the Hot 100 and more!
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00:00hey hey what's going on guys welcome to a fresh episode of billboard unfiltered
00:07guys we have a jam-packed episode as we're gonna dive into arguably one of the greatest
00:15hip-hop battles we have seen of all time drake versus kendrick lamar guys i mean i have not
00:22seen anything like this it's definitely the busiest battle ever yeah just the drop drop
00:27drop drop drop i mean crazy they got over time yeah drop drop drop drop and that's what that's
00:34what niggas did they they got us working overtime i'm curious to get your takeaway from the battle
00:39i mean obviously we have not seen anything like this seven disses in a week double digits in a
00:45month that's crazy um what are some of your biggest takeaways from this battle i'll start
00:49with you dave my biggest takeaway is that these are two of our best hit makers working today
00:57i think people already knew drake was a hit maker he's our genre's premier hit maker i think people
01:06underestimated how good of a hit maker kendrick was just because kendrick doesn't drop that
01:10often and when he does drop you never know where you're going to get with kendrick he can be going
01:14in a different more personal direction where he's not really focused on the charts or he can make an
01:19album like damn where it's he's much more accessible i think this showed that these two guys
01:27i would say are the best we got it just proves that because no one can make that many songs
01:34that quickly that everyone's like man these are great yeah and i heard push-ups in cars
01:40i heard i'm seeing videos of people playing uh not like us in clubs like and these songs all
01:47came out in a week or over the course of a week or so so i'm just blown away by the talent of
01:55these guys it's it's pretty remarkable trevor yeah i mean i don't want to overstate this but
02:01especially like the fact that it is drake and kendrick who represent sort of two different
02:05factions of what people think of what hip-hop should be like drake obviously like damien was
02:09saying has the numbers as the acclaim has you know the streaming stats like he has helped make hip-hop
02:14that number one genre that it's been for the past five six years where there's no question that you
02:18know pop rock country everything is trying to catch up to hip-hop kendrick of course on the
02:22other hand is you know it i mean it's like the prince mike jack thing like kendrick has always
02:26been everyone's sort of favorite lyricist this is the guy who's got the pulitzer who's breaking
02:30through in those kind of ways so they're both two giants but in two different ways and the fact that
02:36you know i don't want to overstate that it's like a battle for the soul or the direction of like
02:39where hip-hop's gonna go but the fact that you almost kind of never thought we'd have like these
02:44two heavyweights in the same ring direct shots like you know bar for bar track for track it's
02:50something i think people maybe never thought was gonna happen yeah can i be honest i i'm
02:55fucking hurt i'm fucking devastated i purposely didn't wear an ovo hoodie i was gonna come in
03:02there sold him i was gonna come to rap this jersey today um i thought you're talking to the
03:06to the team and i was like what's about to happen i i i think for me my biggest takeaway and you
03:13know cash won't say this publicly i'm proud of drake because kendrick is one of one i think
03:19he's in the one percentile when it comes to wittiness lyricism and creativity and i think
03:26he's shown that with these four disses and i think for me i was able to appreciate the easter
03:32eggs and the different types of layers i ran to genius so many times and i was blown away each
03:39time finding a new easter egg finding a new lyric but i will say this because the court of public
03:46opinion had already decided who won because as a culture cats ain't drake let's just keep it
03:54so let's say you're in a hip-hop because he i'm proud because he showed up okay he always shows
04:04up no no he showed up in the sense that he didn't get washed i'm not gonna say but we got drink is
04:08the only one out of the out of those two who has actually been through the battle process absolutely
04:15but look at the cats he faced he loves battle rapping he does until he knows what he's up
04:20against i think and you know those are all practice fights like of course with the exception
04:25of pusha t okay and we saw what happened with that i think going into this culturally speaking
04:32from a hip-hop standing cats did not want to see drake win from jump because he does not represent
04:38hip-hop i don't know if that's true bro he's one of the biggest stars in the world
04:44from a mainstream standpoint i'm talking about hip-hop because i i told you i told trevor this
04:50he has the hardest act in the world in terms of trying to balance being a pop star
04:54and then trying to be a hip-hop star he has to churn out these hot 100 hits so people could
05:00still go to the show to the concert all of that get the streams but he still has to maintain some
05:05type of lyricism to be respected by the mcs especially after the whole ghostwriting
05:10allegations came about after that came out cats were already quick to say oh fuck him they already
05:17have to do any of that he has to be a pop star he doesn't have to be a pop star but but that's
05:21the route he chose yeah that's what he wants to do but he also wants to still be respected in
05:25hip-hop this is what happens but he's the only one really teetering both sides and i think that's
05:31why kendrick lowkey is like my dude pick a side but i say that to say but i say that to say knowing
05:39the odds he was up against and how he delivered quality records i think family matters is a
05:45fucking heater amazing song amazing the last third of it to me was the best part of it that
05:50probably should have been the whole song i think that was like one of the best songs drake's made
05:55in a long time period but that was like i wish that was the whole thing that's there i still
06:00like i still hum them out the the flow in my head when i walk cadence is great yeah but i think
06:05kendrick just came with a kill shot when it was not like us that's when i packed it in for drake
06:10i said bro i don't want to hear nothing no more you did a great job i'm proud of you you got
06:14brownie points for me i'm proud of you but you don't think heart part six did anything though
06:18you know part six what i hate that about that record he was on the defense instead of i like
06:24drake playing offense the shit ton of allegations you got and he had no you know and i respect him
06:29for you know going again what you think but but drake obviously thrives when he's on the offense
06:34dishing out sure shit yeah he didn't do that on the heart part six a lot of people thought that
06:38was him throwing the towel to me that sounded like the case too and that shit i went to like
06:42sounded like blueprint too like it sounded like a blueprint i love blueprint too by the way it's a
06:47track it's a great song yeah i love it i took it out and i think that was the case and i kind of
06:53want to pose you guys this as well where do you go from here if you're drake i think you just keep
06:59making hit records yeah i mean i guess to your point about the public opinion thing once people
07:04have already set up that kendrick is one in their mind and there's not a thing drake can do i mean
07:09drake would have to come with some i think people are talking like you know it's got to be
07:13it's got to be you know deity level like you got to have some kind of dirt that's going to turn the
07:18whole tide of it if you don't have that i don't know what you do maybe maybe you take a break
07:22and one thing i do hate is people are going to think that you know that that kendrick sort of
07:26killed drake and that drake will never recover i know we've talked about some of the albums
07:31starting to trickle down in first week performance the hits aren't coming as
07:34quite crazy as they used to in the 2010s drake has still got a long way to go before he's you
07:39know completely washed but i i mean i i don't know i mean i guess you like maybe that's what
07:44you got to do is just go back to what you do best that's what you know i mean you gave it your best
07:48shot and and i'll be fair there are people out there who do think that drake is doing better
07:52than kendrick i know people some people are saying you know kendrick's sort of repeating
07:55the same things two three times like in across the different songs there's nothing new like
07:59so it's not that it's all you know 100 kendrick but it does sound as if kendrick recorded all of
08:07his stuff in like one batch and was just holding them to see like what would happen if drake did
08:13this or if someone did that whereas it feels like drake was actively recording as this went right i
08:20mean like referencing the tracks like you know very much like listening and responding i think
08:24the thing that helped kendrick was he did the drake thing he made a song that people
08:31could want to hear saying regardless of its content yeah they just want to hear that song
08:37out like people are out there saying ovi ho because it just it's just a fun thing to say
08:4569 got a minor is freaky ass nigga like that's a that's these are all like things that no one
08:52really thought that kendrick not could do but had the willingness to do like they didn't think that
08:58he would make a song like that at all especially after mr morale yeah but yeah i thought he was
09:04to go from meet the grams which is like a horror movie yeah you know in audio form it's like slow
09:11and creeping it's like very very very it's like surgical methodical like it's your turn and it's
09:17your turn it's like my heart is like you're opening every door like yeah to go from that to
09:23a dj mustard basically like a summer bop is crazy that's a crazy like when when kendrick
09:30called himself bipolar like i think he was being honest because in order to go from that to that
09:37that's pretty nuts man like i don't think kendrick especially like one session drake was probably
09:42like bro what the fuck is this yeah i mean he admitted the hard part is like yeah i would i
09:46would bump if he didn't triple down on the bullshit because it's it's a thumper oh yeah
09:50yeah it is like um i would say drizzy man orbs i would drop one more album
09:59um because i think he has proven everything that he needed to in this sport of music and hip-hop
10:06and i would drop one more album because again it goes back to the court of public opinion y'all
10:11don't fuck with me you guys don't appreciate me so what i'm gonna do is i'm gonna drop one more
10:15album it's gonna be classic drake it's gonna be hits it's gonna be rapping and then i'm gonna
10:22just bow out because what's gonna happen is you guys are gonna miss the fuck out of me because
10:26guess what's gonna happen after this battle we're going back to a space of hip-hop which i told you
10:30both we don't know what the fuck is gonna happen in the future in terms of who's gonna hold it down
10:36next wait so you wait wait so i'm gonna so i want y'all to miss my way so you i want y'all to miss
10:40so you're saying drake should drop one album yep and then as punishment for us not supporting you
10:47i'm gonna go away and y'all gonna be clamoring at the gates in toronto because you know what
10:52like absence makes the heart grow fonder that's that's true you're gonna miss the fuck out of me
10:57when there's no more hits when there's no more bops and you're gonna be like oh shit where all
11:03the bops go we're not gonna be playing not like us in in six months that's not that's not gonna be
11:09the bop that's gonna hold us on forever so you know what just missed me a little bit i think
11:14you're overstating how much people don't like drake i think people love drake bro why is he
11:19getting washed like this on social media because kendrick dropped really good music is it is it
11:24crazy to believe that people are like oh wow kendrick you really did a good job he had to do
11:29was show up so if cass already did not fuck with drake all kendrick had to do was show up true i
11:36just want to put a point but in november come back in november and you will be playing not like
11:41us talking about not like us but you just said it like we played it in six months come back in
11:45november i've been playing additional drake records you think it's gonna have a back-to-back feel
11:49i think it's gonna run this whole summer i agree but back-to-back is probably are you gonna put
11:54not like us at the top five i'll put back-to-back up there at the top five this record i mean let's
11:59see i would let's see how i still think you're overstating i think i still think you're overstating
12:04how much people don't like when when drake dropped family matters people were like this is it and then
12:1230 minutes later look how they all that's only because kendrick came back like this i think
12:16you're missing the point where it is actually did something good listen drake they don't love us man
12:21just because you don't love us it doesn't mean you're not good at basketball but the fans wouldn't
12:26leave us just like just like that easy look at miami they leave before the game ends every game
12:30damn miami right try to do that okay okay do that is he fans just tuned out i mean look at
12:38mb in philly he's like where where are all the fans at but i'm just saying like there is like
12:43yeah like drake lost this battle okay fair but i think the the real conversation that
12:51i don't think we have the proper media environment to have is the conversation that kendrick was
12:57trying to have right about him not being fully culturally a part of this thing that's a
13:04conversation that no one that everyone just kind of like jumped over because no one wanted to have
13:09that conversation i think everything else drake is fine he's not going to uh no one's not going
13:16to listen to a drake song no one's not gonna like yeah go to a drake concert i think mainstream he's
13:21good from a hip-hop standing i think he's gonna go down well that's that's the conversation that
13:26kendrick's trying to have that right we're like i don't know if we are prepared to have this
13:29conversation yet and until that conversation is like honestly had in the public which
13:36we're probably never going to do uh he'll be fine one person who is not hurting at all
13:45to me in this whole feud j cole who exited out of this battle very early on after dropping seven
13:52minute drill then a week after pulled it off of streaming said you know especially i didn't feel
13:57good about it looking back at that decision was it a smooth smart play on his part to sit out
14:05this entire battle i wish the order of events were different and that he never got into it
14:14but if he felt the way he felt i wish he just never got into it but looking at how the battle
14:23went over the past two weeks it's extremely personal cole said he has no problem with with
14:31these with with kendrick i assume he has no problem with drake just went on tour with him
14:36if he's the only one that's going to be like i'm a better rapper than you
14:41then yeah this is not the battle for that because this moved far from that long time ago if the only
14:48recompense for him was like i'm just gonna prove to everybody that i'm a better rapper than these
14:52guys which is what people thought this was going to be then yeah good good job good job jimmy
14:59this is probably a smart move true yeah you kind of got to agree that it probably would have been
15:06just too messy with so many supporting characters we've already seen a lot of supportive characters
15:09in this where there is obviously cole is probably the biggest one but we've seen ross come through
15:13we've seen yay come through we've seen weekend out here there's a lot of like so there's a lot of
15:18cats who you know tried to sort of get in and they maybe had you know the minute for a second
15:22there but i think ultimately it's like you're like i'm a tennis dude so like to put an example like
15:26that like you know when it's federer nadal like that's who you want like you if somebody else
15:30comes along and knocks somebody out you know it's like good for them i'm glad they did it wow you
15:34took out federer crazy but like everybody knows at the start like that's who they really want to see
15:39like at the end it's the same thing as like drake and kendrick are the two main characters of this
15:44and you know if we had to sort of talk about okay someone else put this other track out and then they
15:49respond to this it's like no we want like this shot that shot this shot that shot and we want to just
15:54a and b i think if the big three were beefing in any capacity it would be insane even if even if
16:01it was like for some reason cole and drake versus kendrick it would be the craziest beef ever but
16:09then you know people would be like oh i tag team i don't know it's unfair it would just be nuts to
16:13see it just feels very like do you guys think drake feels any kind of way knowing that cole
16:18fell back because he said on a couple of the records you know i can't get with cole
16:23stepping away from the battle like do you wonder if their relationship might
16:26take a hit i mean i don't know what their relationship is in the first place but yeah i
16:33would the drake lines to me came off more so like cole opted out of this but i'm not right well yeah
16:40like if that's his thing like that's but that's his thing that's not how i feel about this i just
16:45don't know if we'll ever see first person shooter performed again and that's well i guess if you if
16:50you got the footage you know if you was in the arena consider yourself part of history i think
16:54i think cole made a made a smart move i tried over the weekend playing ready 24 with cameron it was
17:03just a struggle for me for a while to replay that might delete later tape because it was so good
17:07but then when he withdrew himself from the battle i was like oh fuck you bro like everything you
17:12were talking about like i'm the best y'all can't fuck with me you lost all the brownie points
17:19because as an mc you're supposed to take on any challenge and what when he withdrew i was like
17:24okay i can't your credibility is shot to me but now seeing how personal things have gotten i don't
17:31want to see kendrick talking about cole playing in rwanda averaging two points no you know i didn't
17:37want but i'm just saying i don't know or didn't know but you have to believe that jermaine being
17:47friends with them knew the type of vitriol that was going to come out because of how they felt
17:53about one another and he probably thought to himself and i don't have any inside information
17:58on this i don't i don't know anything but i would just imagine that he looked or looked around looked
18:04at these guys and was like yeah i'm this is not i just wanted to rap bro yeah i just want to i just
18:10want to prove that i'm the nicest yeah yeah i don't really want to talk about your families and
18:17your all your crew members and what you're what you may or may not be doing behind closed doors
18:25i'm good on that but i what i worry about is i hear you where things might get hypocritical for me
18:32is if because kanye stepped in at a point yeah and he threw which was ridiculous let's be honest
18:38absolutely and he threw shots at cole which and cole if cole comes back and chooses to respond to
18:43kanye i wouldn't if i were him like leave like kanye looks crazy bro i i mean this shit is
18:50already the shit is already messy enough as it actually got buried i know and maybe that's what
18:55it is too i mean you know obviously the pressure sometimes makes you have to respond like i mean
19:00with these kendrick tracks clearly they're so massive so disgust so you know about to be like
19:06certified you chart hit streaming hit kind of things you you can't not let that go like that
19:11is so on everybody's mind that maybe with the yay thing okay you know yay did something
19:16who you know yay yay is taking shots at a lot of different people for a lot of different reasons
19:20right now there is no there's no reason to feel he's personally targeted like atlanta rap music
19:26yeah like at what point are we supposed to take any of this seriously uh poor kanye i mean the
19:32list is yeah the list is long i would that's not personal clearly dray kendrick that's you know
19:36that's that's very much at you right i think you made the right decision man again i'm pretty sure
19:42he would have wished it went differently we all wish it went differently but sitting here on
19:50may 7th something like that and then yeah this it definitely feels like he made the right decision
20:00cole could have got himself probably a couple free top 10 hits though
20:05you know all these songs seem to be you know i can't wait to see what happens next week i mean
20:09that's also kind of crazy too i thought people would be you know i kind of thought there'd be
20:12maybe one that that jumps off and then a couple kind of fall by the wayside but it's like every
20:17song is you know huge on huge on spotify huge on apple very much talked about i mean i didn't
20:23realize you know at first they were on youtube i didn't think they were going to be
20:26sort of on this commercial wave and now you know i mean in a year we already had his we had like
20:31that like people like the fact that we can have all these disc records certified as like you know
20:36number one number two hits like that that's just gonna be crazy absolutely like when you look in
20:41the archives and you know 5 10 15 years it's like wow that's crazy that's that's crazy
20:47yo hip-hop what was going on in hip-hop at 24.
20:53well let's step away from beef and get into the hot 100 we got some really big dope debuts and
21:00entries starting with tommy richmond and shabuzy uh trevor if you want to break down a little bit
21:06what happened this week on the hot 100 with those two guys let's let's get into it yeah
21:10how 100 is it's one of those things like a couple weeks ago we would have never thought
21:14what tom who was tommy richmond yeah what shabuzy was just on the feature on beyonce and now you
21:20know we got these two breakout hits tommy richmond of course coming in number two on the hot 100 his
21:24first time ever on the chart with the song million dollar baby so that song is the top streaming song
21:29in a week 38 million streams um obviously you know when you debut that high of course people
21:34are already gonna be looking at is this a number one in the next couple weeks is this you know a
21:38song of the summer but it's just like see if this beef wasn't happening it would have went higher
21:45well i mean it's hard to go higher than number two but i think people were like you think people
21:50sort of distracted the audience that would go up for it was very distracted now people can stream
21:56two songs at the same day you know i'm gonna let him post it on his uh instagram it was apple music
22:03of course and he was sandwiched i think at number two and i think under that was family matters
22:11and i want to say maybe euphoria and then not like us was number one so he's literally sandwiched
22:18yeah in between that i think if this beef wasn't happening it's like the taylor swift fans are
22:24taylor swift fans right like the fans i would listen to this song and make it go crazy are
22:30listening to not like us and deciphering lyrics and all this other stuff yeah yeah i mean i mean
22:37the fact that was able to do 38 million kind of you know out of the gate it's just also though
22:40i mean plenty of cats are showing up for this it's an amazing song and it goes to show tiktok
22:44in particular i know a lot of people have talked about this track being teased on tiktok you know
22:49it's made the rounds people kind of what is this like when's it coming out like let's go let's go
22:52let's go and that probably is like the most understated way that people are really making
22:57hits like like as a promotional effort i don't think people realize how big that can be like
23:02jack harlow's last two number ones first class uh loving on me same kind of cycle they were
23:07teased and put out there and then you know people just like yo what is this like this is fire where
23:12is this coming when is it coming what is coming and then you drop it and then it explodes like
23:16that is probably a way that honestly more people should look at that kind of strategy i know it's
23:21tough because how do you figure out the tiktok algorithm sometimes you can drop a preview i
23:26ain't gonna say no names and sometimes people go like we don't drop like this song so it's not
23:32gonna work for everybody but clearly when it works it works and i know a lot of cats are
23:36talking about how do you break a new artist you know all the traditional ways aren't working
23:41that's the way to do it i mean listen for tommy this was his 36th record that he's released on
23:46streaming first one to really pop off yeah and i think an interesting fact that maybe our listeners
23:52or viewers don't actually know is tommy and shabuzy grew up in the same neighborhood i want
23:58to say like a block away from each other yeah some yeah some i probably should know somewhere
24:03virginia i don't know the actual town but i think shabuzy was even talking like there's some footage
24:08of them performing somewhere or at least you know they know each other like from way back yeah yeah
24:15that's right and then the new farm is somewhere down in virginia just plucking them up and this
24:19is a huge win for brent faiz as huge sign yeah it's a iso supremacy so shout out to brent faiz
24:24shout out to tommy shabuzy as you were saying man like a lot of cats don't even know he started off
24:30as a rapper and then just pivoted over the country and then he's just been having an amazing 2024
24:36obviously being on the beyonce album and this one right here but the nice thing is he's kind of kept
24:39both of those things like he didn't pivot to just like sort of singing country like he does he does
24:43the country rap you know sort of blending genre things so it's it's cool that he's taking that
24:48and putting his own spin on it obviously with you know beyonce cowboy carter a lot of people
24:52wondered you know could this lead to a renaissance it's like you can't use any word now and i haven't
24:58felt like a pundit is it a renaissance of you know black country accent is it just going to
25:02be limited to beyonce or is you know is everybody going to kind of get lifting tied from it and so
25:07far obviously shabuzy is the big breakout um the bar song tipsy is called it's number three this
25:12week on the hot 100 so obviously right there in the mix with tommy richmond taylor kendrick all
25:17them to be a future number one uh but the fact that this song is really and so quickly jumping
25:23on the heels of cowboy carter like you replace beyonce at number one on the country songs chart
25:27we've never had two black artists go back to back like that so you know so this is this is this is
25:33a historic time for that genre right and hopefully we can just you know see it continue i think
25:38that'll be kind of the big thing is this is it going to be a a one year story is it going to be
25:42a six month story but you know hopefully we can continue to see some more faces in the realm and
25:47i think you made a great point and i'll ask damian this like obviously you see the success of tommy
25:52you see the success of shabuzy should that give labels and a and r's optimism knowing that you
25:58could still break an artist in 2024 yeah i think it's it's you can break artists i i never understand
26:08the the argument that you you can no longer break an artist and that the avenues are gone
26:13to break artists people don't stop listening to music they want new music they want new hits
26:18those guys just have undeniable hits you know that that's not tommy's first song as you said
26:25it's his best song by far uh and and it's so it's not a surprise that that one is doing what it's
26:32doing um and shabuzy he's riding an amazing wave right now and i think that i hope there's more
26:39after him but even not even if there's not i think this is an amazing thing to happen just because
26:46when else would we be able to say what he just said we have like a black person replace another
26:50black person on the on the country charts a label should look at that and say like
26:55well shit let's get more creative yeah what else can we do and the fact in particular those two
27:00records are not traditional you know kind of like it's not like they're made out of the you know
27:05nashville system with the same you know with hit makers that we've known and come about like
27:10you know the audience is receptive to different different ways that these sounds can be you know
27:14updated adapted it's like being creative works it's so cool yeah yeah yeah it's so nuts i mean
27:20the next test i will say for them like everybody is going to be you know can they follow it up we
27:24see a lot of people come through with you know major hit records you know blow out the gate
27:28you know but you know is there a second one is there a third one how does the album do those
27:32kind of things i'm not trying to put those that kind of pressure but i know it's real i know those
27:35questions are out there people are gonna you know is this just is this a fad this is a one-off you
27:39know one hit wonder so hopefully that's not the case and we're seeing a couple you know new stars
27:44come through but i'll be interested to see yeah what absolutely yeah well guys that's a wrap for
27:50billboard unfiltered again where your host carlamar trevor anderson damian sky we'll see you next time