Deen is still hoping for Gibbs’ response.
Here’s the latest batch of Kendrick responses. I don’t know why I volunteered to do this. That was dumb. But I’m a man of my word, so here we go again:
Astro: I’ll be honest, I don’t know this nigga. But he came with it. I’m impressed. Statik Selektah laced the kid too. Funny and engaging wordplay with direct responses to Kendrick’s shots. Plus he kept it brief, unlike the next fella.
Cassidy: Now Cass does this battle shit in his sleep and he’s very good at it, but my issue with this decent effort is that he just drones on and on and on and I’m actually relieved when he gets around to shutting the fuck up.
Ransom: Nice and intense flow with generic battle raps. Threats upon threats upon threats. This is actually fun to listen to but Ransom spends too much time placing himself above the fray when he really needed to be going at Kendrick a bit more.
JR Writer: the erstwhile Dipset affiliate goes directly at Kendrick’s neck and get’s pretty personal by invoking Kendrick’s battle loss to Charles Hamilton back in the day (I don’t know shit about that), but he gets points for noting that Kendrick named “everybody but the spitters.” But that ain’t Kendrick’s fault, that’s Clear Channel’s fault.
Grafh: Okay, I gotta admit – the ‘Control’ fatigue is setting in. This is the first time I’ve ever clicked on anything labeled ‘Grafh’, even though I’ve been a Nah Right regular since about 2008. I think. All I can remember from this is a clever line about drowning Kendrick in a pool fulla liquor and several references to bodying stuff. I’m cooked y’all.
Mysonne: Nothing spectacular here, but he asks Game to tell his boy to show some respect and he makes a funny reference to Kendrick riding around in his mom’s van. I might actually be tempted to listen to more of Mysonne’s music. I imagine it’ll be workman-like, but something oughta result from this exercise. But that leaves me wondering if I’ll have to put up with constant reminders that he did a bid in prison on every song. Maybe it’s best not to find out.
The Mad Rapper: D-Dot probably gets the last laugh here. He basically shits on all the cats that have dropped “Control” freestyles or responses in the most hilarious manner possible. He’s probably the worst rapper involved in this entire charade (maybe not, since Medium Sean and B.o.B. are still alive), but his effort is easily the most hilarious by default. He subverts the entire concept and in the process ends up making the most hilarious effort.
This definitely feels like a good point to cut this shit off. I overestimated my tolerance for this stupid shit. But I’m still grateful to Kendrick, and to a lesser extent, Sean the rapper, for letting this verse see the light of day. Oh and left unsaid so far is that as an actual song, ‘Control’ kinda sucks. If Kendrick didn’t do what he did with his verse, it would be an utterly forgettable smorgasbord of words over a tepid beat.
But yeah, thanks again Kendrick. Keep on rapping good n’shit…
