TDE president Terrence “Punch” Henderson has come to Kendrick Lamar‘s defense following J. Cole‘s new diss track.
The Dreamville boss released his surprise new mixtape Might Delete Later on Friday (April 5), and unleashed a barrage of bars aimed at Kendrick on the closing track “7 Minute Drill.”
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Among them were shots at the Compton rapper’s decorated catalog, most notably To Pimp a Butterfly which Cole suggested was snooze-worthy.
“Your first shit was classic, your last shit was tragic/ Your second shit put n-ggas to sleep, but they gassed it/ Your third shit was massive and that was your prime/ I was trailin’ right behind and I just now hit mine,” he rapped.
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Punch, whose TDE label Kendrick was previously signed to, took to X following the song’s release to defend the critically acclaimed album from Cole’s criticism.
“SMH. I thought to pimp a butterfly was pretty good,” he wrote.
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Punch also called out his former signee’s “haters” in the music industry: “The current rap climate got me realizing a lot of you music industry ppl are Kdot haters. lol you telling me you n-ggas been secretly hating ALL this time!”
He later clarified: “‘music industry ppl’, I’m definitely NOT referring to the rappers involved here. I’m talking about the folks that work in music. You n-ggas.”
Elsewhere on “7 Minute Drill,” J. Cole channeled JAY-Z‘s “Takeover” Nas diss and took more shots at his Kendrick Lamar.
“He averagin’ one hard verse like every 30 months or somethin’/ If he wasn’t dissin’, then we wouldn’t be discussin’ him,” he rapped, later adding: “Four albums in 12 years, n-gga, I can divide/ Shit, if this is what you want, I’m indulgin’ in violence.”
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The North Carolina native did, however, express reluctance to diss his friend-turned-foe, comparing their sparring match to the scene in New Jack City where Wesley Snipes’ character Nino Brown tearfully kills his own brother.
“Lord, don’t make me have to smoke this n-gga ’cause I fuck with him/ But push come to shove, on this mic, I will humble him/ I’m Nino with this thing, this that ‘New Jack City’ meme/ Yeah, I’m aimin’ at Gee Money, cryin’ tears before I bust at him,” he spit.
“7 Minute Drill” came in response to Kendrick’s scathing guest verse on Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That,” on which he took aim at Cole and, most notably, Drake.
Referencing the pair’s hit single “First Person Shooter,” he rapped: “Fuck sneak dissin’, first-person shooter, I hope they came with three switches … Motherfuck the big three, n-gga, it’s just big me.”
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Kendrick has yet to respond to Cole’s diss track.
