Metro Boomin played a role in the biggest beef of the year between Drake and Kendrick Lamar, but hasn’t talked too much about it since it all came to an end this past May. Now he’s finally opening up about where he stands in the epic rap battle.
Metro Boomin’s “Diplomatic” Role in the Drake and Kendrick Lamar Feud
On Monday (Sept. 23), Forbes’ Under 30 Summit honored Metro Boomin at an event in Cincinnati. The St. Louis-bred producer sat down for an interview with Forbes’ Matt Craig, who asked Metro Boomin about his “diplomatic” role in rap beefs like Drake and Kendrick Lamar.
“I feel like the competition is great for the game, you know?” Metro said. “Hip-hop has always been of a more of a competitive genre. Even if just keeping it on music and it’s like, not serious how everybody tries to make it, you know what I’m sayin’… ’Cause also with hip-hop, there’s a lot of ego involved… You’re supposed to feel like you’re the best. Everybody from the highest to the lowest guy, you’re supposed to at least feel like you’re the best.”
Metro takes issue with stan culture when it comes to beef, and how the fans make the energy “weird.” “So when two of the top dogs in the game, and, you know, you both feel like you’re the best, it’s like, OK, now we gotta have a showdown. We saw it with Jay-Z and Nas before. But I just I feel like more today it’s more like stan culture, it makes it kind of weird. ’Cause like back in the day, Jay-Z and Nas went at it, but I was a fan of both of them and, you know, most people were. It was like, OK, it’s OK. It’s not like, OK, I hate this side, I hate this side. It’s like the internet just makes it a little too wild now. But I feel like, you know, it’s good for the game.”
Regarding his own role in the battle between Drake and Kendrick Lamar, the producer isn’t taking anything further than entertaining the masses. “As far as me being diplomatic, I mean, it’s just entertainment at the end of the day,” he shared. “I have love and respect for all my collaborators. I just want to see everyone do the best and continue to help push this forward. ’Cause we’re all here, you know, to deposit in and uplift this genre and push it forward, you know? This is our era, so it’s really our responsibility to keep pushing it forward for the next one and so forth.”
Metro Boomin’s part in Drizzy and K-Dot’s feud served as the producer for “Like That,” a song Metro and Future dropped featuring Kendrick. The polarizing track was released in March and caused the commotion that started the rap battle in the first place. K-Dot called out Drake and J. Cole on the song, and it was on from there. After that, Metro and Drake had their own subliminal disses back-and-forth before names were blatantly called. Drake dished out disses in the form of bars and memes while Metro went off on X, formerly known as Twitter, and produced a disstrumental aptly titled “BBL Drizzy”—the name Rick Ross dubbed Drake in their separate beef—and offered to give a winner $10,000 for the best lyrics over the beat.
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