Fans React to Kendrick Lamar’s Explosive Drake Diss ‘6:16 in LA’: ‘This Rider Music’
Kendrick Lamar surprised the rap world by hurling another bomb in Drake’s direction with “6:16 in LA” arriving on Friday (May 3).
The Al Green-sampling Drake diss track has yet to hit streaming services and is currently only available on Kendrick Lamar’s Instagram, but that didn’t stop fans from going ballistic Friday morning heading into the weekend.
K. Dot accuses Drake of having traitors inside the OVO camp leaking information to the opposition while name-dropping 6 God affiliates like Akademiks and Zack Bia.
“Have you ever thought that OVO was working for me?/ Fake bully, I hate bullies/ You must be a terrible person/ Everyone inside your team is whispering that you deserve it/ Can’t Toosie Slide up out of this one, it’s just gon’ resurface,” Lamar raps.
Fans, critics and more flooded social media with opinions of Kendrick’s surprise attack, with “6:16” arriving just three days after the scathing “Euphoria,” which served as the Compton legend’s response to Drake’s “Push Ups” diss.
“Kendrick don’t give two sh–s about you needing a club banger… This rider music. Underground rap fan heat,” Hot 97 host Ebro Darden wrote.
Another person saluted Akademiks being name-dropped on tracks by both sides in the war. “Akademiks being mentioned by both Drake and Kendrick Lamar in diss records is legendary. He’s apart of HipHop history, even if you love him or hate him, thats objectively a win for independent media,” they wrote.
While Spotify’s Carl Chery added: “Every now and then I hear people say Kendrick is too high brow and his lyrics are too hard to understand. I heard it a few times in the context of this battle. This is rap. You guys just have a low rap IQ.”
Some fans were left with their jaws on the floor after finding out that Taylor Swift’s frequent collaborator Jack Antonoff was a co-producer on “6:16 in LA.” (Drake poked at Lamar for working with Swift on “Push Ups.”) “So this track literally is Taylor Made Okay Kendrick I see you,” one Drake fan said on X.
The debate about who’s winning the Drake-Kendrick war is sure to rage on well into the weekend as fans await the 6 God’s next move — which better be his best move — in the battle.
Find more of the reactions to “6:16 in LA” below.
Michael Saponara
Billboard
