Kendrick Lamar, euphoria | Song Review 🎵

Grammy and Pulitzer Prize-winning rapper Kendrick Lamar obliterates Drake on his six-and-a-half-minute diss banger, “euphoria.”

“You’re not a rap artist, you a scam artist with the hopes of being accepted.” OUCH! Grammy and Pulitzer Prize-winning rapper Kendrick Lamar fires shots at…Drake…AGAIN on “euphoria”.  After first dissing the Canadian rapper/ R&B artist as a featured guest on the Future / Metro Boomin no. 1 hit, “Like That”, K-Dot responds to disses by Drizzy (“Push Ups” notably). “Euphoria,” which features a screenshot of the Merriam-Webster definition of the word, runs nearly six-and-a-half minutes long. The diss was produced by Cardo, Kyro, Sounwave, Johnny Juliano, and Yung Exclusive. It samples various songs including the Teddy Pendergrass classic, “You’re My Latest, My Greatest Inspiration”.  With three distinct ‘parts,’ marked by different beats (beat switches), Kendrick is NOT playing around with Drake.

The first beat and backdrop are cool, calm, and collected – euphoric.  Even so, Kendrick Lamar delivers the excerpted lyric – a bullet aimed towards Drake.  Case in point: “Tommy Hilfiger stood out, but FUBU never had been your collection / I make music that electrify ‘em, you make music that pacify ‘em.” Part two follows, and it’s more aggressive by a mile.  Not only does K-Dot dig in, but so does the brassy, banging instrumental. Kendrick’s flow is potent AF, led by moments like “It’s three GOATs left, and I seen two of them kissin’ and huggin’ on stage.” That would be Cole and Drake.  Furthermore, Kendrick criticizes Drake’s “sneak diss” ways and questions his blackness.  “How many more black features ‘til you finally feel that you’re black enough / I like Drake with the melodies, I don’t like Drake when he act tough.” Holy shit! One final beat switch follows along with the final verse.  Here, Lamar proclaims “I’m allergic to the lame shit, only you like bein’ famous.” There’s far more, with Kendrick continuing to take digs at his blackness (“I even hate when you say the word ‘nigga,’ but that’s just me, I guess / Some shit just cringeworthy, it ain’t even gotta be deep, I guess”).  There is plenty to unpack on “euphoria”. An essay could be penned decoding the lyrics and analyzing those Genius annotations.  But, the big takeaway is that Kendrick Lamar obliterates Drake.  “Push Ups” is more like NO UPS post “euphoria”. 

Kendrick Lamar // “euphoria” // Kendrick Lamar / Interscope // 4.30.24

[📷: Brent Faulkner/The Musical Hype; Kendrick Lamar / Interscope; Clker-Free-Vector-Images, Królestwo Nauki, OpenClipart-Vectors, Pete Linforth, Tumisu from Pixabay]