A 15-second clip of Kendrick Lamar’s verse during the BET Hip Hop Awards Cypher surfaced this week (October 3). In the clip, Lamar appears diss both Drake and Papoose.
“Nothing’s been the same since they dropped ‘Control’ / And tucked a sensitive rapper back in his pajama clothes,” says Kendrick Lamar in the verse. “Ha-ha, jokes on you / High-five, I’m bullet proof / Your shits will never penetrate / Pin the tail on the donkey, boy, you’ve been a fake.”
While there’s been no confirmation whether the first portion of the clip was actually intended for Drake, the clip’s second half was in fact directed towards Papoose, according to the Brooklyn, New York rapper.
“I thought it was comical,” Papoose said in an exclusive conversation with HipHopDX, sharing his reaction to Kendrick Lamar’s BET Cypher verse. The Nacirema Dream emcee also confirmed that he plans to respond to on wax.
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“I’m dropping [a song] real soon, so people gonna see how I feel about that,” he said. “It’s called ‘That’s My Word.” I want everybody to look forward to that and see what I think about that little comical situation.”
Lyrical tension between Papoose and Kendrick Lamar first began following the release of Kendrick’s verse on Big Sean’s “Control.” Papoose was offended that Kendrick referred to himself as the “King of New York,” even though Kendrick recited a line from Kurupt’s verse on Terrace Martin’s “Get Bizy,” which also features Lamar and Bad Lucc. Papoose then followed with his own track aimed at Lamar.
Papoose’s “Control” response opens with “Kendrick, good looking on that Summer Jam move. But you ain’t the king of shit,” in reference to Kendrick Lamar bringing him out during the 2013 Hot97 Summer Jam concert in The Meadowlands, New Jersey.
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Papoose explained why he reacted so strongly towards Kendrick even after the two shared the Summer Jam stage.
“People were saying things like, ‘Papoose shouldn’t have went at him,’” he said. “But he’s disrespecting my city.”
“Kendrick took a couple shots at Drake also here and there,” he continued. “Drake took him on tour. I don’t hear nobody saying, ‘Oh, Drake took him on tour. Why’s he dissing him?’ I performed on Summer Jam in the past and got a bigger reaction than a lot of them got this year when I did do it years ago. That’s neither here nor there. What I’m saying is, the fact that he brought me out on the Summer Jam stage, does that make him the King of New York? If me and you are cool, then we should show each other some kind of respect. Me being from New York City and for you to say you’re the King Of New York and you’re not even from New York, there’s no way in God’s green Earth I’m going to be quiet about that. I’m gonna respond.
“To be honest with you, if you go back to any of my latest shit, even my mixtape was titled ‘King Of New York,’” Papoose continued. “If you go back to my ‘Versace’ freestyle, which got a lot of plays recently—or when I did ‘Dreams & Nightmares’—any of my recent music you hear me saying ‘King Of New York.’ It’s kind of ironic that this guy comes out of nowhere and says he’s the King of New York. And even bigger than that, you’re not even from New York. So to answer your question, the fact that he brought me out on the Summer Jam stage doesn’t give you the right to disrespect my city.”
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When asked whether he was aware that Lamar’s “King Of New York” reference was actually a Kurupt quote, Papoose said that although he did not know on first listen, the line’s origin is not important because in his view, Kendrick was “still being disrespectful.”
“He chose to put that in his verse.” said the Narcirema Dream emcee.
“Everyone can make excuses for him like, ‘Oh, he was just being creative,’ or ‘He didn’t mean no harm,’ he said. “Stop making excuses for this guy. He said it out of his mouth. As a grown man, you’re held accountable for anything you say out your mouth. If I turn around today and say, ‘Fuck this one’ or ‘Fuck that one’ or ‘I’m the King of [Los Angeles],’ I gotta be held accountable for that. I don’t want nobody to make excuses for me and say, ‘Oh, he only meant this’ or ‘It’s a metaphor’ or ‘It was a Kurupt line.’ Regardless of what I chose to say at that particular time, he’s held accountable for what he says as an artist.”
“This is Hip Hop, Papoose concluded. “He just said it out of nowhere. So let him deal with the backlash. This is Hip Hop.”
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Along with “That’s My Word,” Papoose also plans to release a mixtape in the coming weeks entitled, “Blackballed.”
