Drake: ‘Kendrick Lamar Isn’t Murdering Me’

Drake said Kendrick Lamar isn’t “murdering” him in any way, shape, or form.

The 26-year-old Compton native “called out” a number of other rappers, saying he was “trying to raise the bar high” and make their fans “wanna hear not one more noun or verb” from them.

Several of the rappers named, and even some who weren’t, responded to the verse. Some defended Lamar while others recorded their own “diss” responses.

Drake, however, did not.

“[I] went about my day, went and got dinner and kept it moving,” the 26-year-old “Take Care” rapper told Billboard for their recent cover story.

“I didn’t really have anything to say about it,” he added. “It just sounded like an ambitious thought to me. That’s all it was. I know good and well that Kendrick’s not murdering me, at all, in any platform. So when that day presents itself, I guess we can revisit the topic.”

After two weeks of silence, Kendrick Lamar addressed the controversy surrounding the “Control” verse, specifically his “king of New York” line.

“Honestly I didn’t know there would be so much speculation behind it. I just wanted to rap. Anybody that knows me doing music, I wanna just rap,” Lamar said in an upcoming interview on Power 106 FM.

“I think that’s the case right there of maybe I just dumbed down my lyrics just a little bit,” he added. “The irony of that line is that the people who actually understood it and got it were the actual kings of New York, you know, me sitting down with them this past week, and them understanding, it’s not actually about being the king of whatever coast, it’s about leaving a mark as great as Biggie, as great as Pac.”

In a similar interview with Hot 97, Lamar said he felt the rappers who took the line out of context were the ones who “want to grab an opportunity off the hype of the record, rather than actually tuning in and listening and knowing how hungry I am.”

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