Kendrick Lamar‘s lines about Hip Hop’s “Big 3” — presumably himself, J. Cole, and Drake — have caught the attention of Freddie Gibbs.
On Friday (March 22), Gibbs took to Twitter/X to weigh in on K. Dot’s attention-getting new verse on Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That.”
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On the track, Kendrick spits the now-famous line: “Muthafuck the Big 3, n-gga/ It’s just big me.” He follows that up with a comparison between Prince and Michael Jackson: “And your best work is a light pack/ N-gga, Prince outlived Mike Jack.”
Many listeners assumed the MJ/Prince comparison was a shot at Drake, who has compared himself to MJ in, among other places, the lyrics and video for his J. Cole collaboration “First Person Shooter” — a song Kendrick mentions by name in his “Like That” verse.
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Freddie Gibbs, who like Michael Jackson, is a native of Gary, Indiana, had his own take on K. Dot’s line — one that had nothing at all to do with disses, subliminal or direct.
“First of all Mike ain’t dead,” he said, in a message most respondents took as a joke.
Michael Jackson died in June 2009. Prince would pass a little less than seven years later in April 2016.
The talk of a Hip Hop “Big 3” has been a talking point for years, but it was heightened when J. Cole mentioned himself, Kendrick Lamar and Drake in that context on “First Person Shooter” in October last year, but took the crown by comparing himself to the late, great Muhammad Ali.
“Love when they argue the hardest MC/ Is it K-Dot? Is it Aubrey? Or me?/ We the Big 3 like we started a league, but right now, I feel like Muhammad Ali,” he raps on the track.
Meanwhile, the head of a different Big 3 — the basketball league — loves the renewed attention on the phrase.
Ice Cube caught wind of the shoutout to The Big 3 league, a 3-on-3 pro basketball league founded by the “No Vaseline” rapper, and took to Twitter in shortly after the release of “First Person Shooter” to thank J. Cole.
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“Shoutout to @JColeNC for mentioning @thebig3 on his new song with @Drake called ‘First Person Shooter’. Thanks for the love,” he wrote.
