Al Green Reacts to Kendrick Lamar Sampling Him on ‘6:16 in LA’ Drake Diss
Kendrick Lamar went back-to-back with the release of “6:16 in LA” taking aim at Drake once again on Friday (May 3).
Produced by Sounwave and Jack Antonoff, fans quickly picked up that the eviscerating diss track sampled Al Green’s “What a Wonderful Thing Love Is.”
The Willie Mitchell-produced song originally landed on Green’s I’m Still in Love With You Album, which was released in October 1972 and peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard 200.
The soul singer took advantage of the spotlight by tweeting out the YouTube link to his sampled track. “What a Wonderful Thing Love Is,” he simply wrote to X on Friday.
Plenty of fans flooded Al Green’s replies urging the “Let’s Stay Together” artist to clear the sample so “6:16 in LA” could properly land on streaming services. It’s still unclear if he cleared the sample for further commercial use.
Kendrick isn’t the only rapper to sample “What A Wonderful Thing Love Is,” as Kanye West previously used it on “Out the Game,” which landed on Consequence’s Take ‘Em to the Cleaners mixtape om 2004.
There’s even a deeper Drake connection to “What a Wonderful Thing Love Is.” As pointed out by Complex, the original 1972 track’s credits find Mabon “Teenie” Hodges playing the guitar, who is a relative of Drake’s.
Kendrick Lamar continues to be well-calculated while throwing punches in Drake’s direction as he’s now dropped a pair of nuclear bombs on the 6 God. Three days after his scathing “Euphoria” diss, Kendrick unleashed the “6:16 in LA” track firing away at Drake and accusing him of having a leak in the OVO camp.
“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,” he raps.
Following the release of “Push Ups” and the “Taylor Made” freestyle, Drake has now received a two-pack combination of disses courtesy of K. Dot. The ball’s now in Drizzy’s court with the rap world awaiting his rebuttal in what will be a pivotal moment in the boiling feud.
Listen to “6:16 in LA” below.
Michael Saponara
Billboard
