Personal Reflection on The Pop Out and Drake and Kendrick Beef

Wow.

First of all, hello for the first time since February. I haven’t really felt inspired to write anything on here since then. Life has felt like the “same old story” I’ve been telling myself for years. I’m burntout, I’m tired, I want to cry, workplaces are toxic and I feel like I’m just writing about the same thing over and over again. I felt like I had nothing new to share until now.

If you’ve been following this blog for years you know I’m hella traumatized by my previous life as a struggling artist in Los Angeles. I have family in LA and I have travelled from LA to my hometown in Oakland my whole life consistently for years. But I have hated Los Angeles. Los Angeles took my great grandmother from me. Los Angeles took my virginity. Los Angeles assaulted me for years and made me feel small. Los Angeles was the birthplace of my eating disorder. Los Angeles was the home of fake friends. Los Angeles was where I learned that I was all alone and could only depend on myself. I hated that place. All of my feelings and hatred were wrapped up in my own experiences with family, the industry, and bad relationships and experiences. I spent the worst years of my life in LA.

I never wanted to go back after 2015. Nine years later I came back for this concert.

In 2014 I discovered Kendrick Lamar. I was beaten down by life, and was struggling to make it as an artist. To Pimp A Butterfly came out that year. I remember where I was when I heard King Kunta for the first time. I was at a house party in Compton with some black artist friends. We were all chilling and having a good time. Then the bass came in. If you know the song you know. Once you hear “I got a bone to pick” something reaches down into your soul ancestrally and you become the ad libs for the song in that moment. You become the response to Kendrick’s call to being a black person taking no loses. He calls out ghostwriting, he calls out the cheapening of the industry. It just feels real. Everything from before in my life felt kind of confusing and fake. I had already gotten assaulted for the first time by an RA (resident assistant) in the dorms at my conservatory, had an abusive relationship I couldn’t escape from, and was living in artist cult like commune. All the while I was auditioning and acting on stage and in small student films trying to make it. I was dead inside. But that bass. That felt healing. There was finally a soundtrack to my life. Remembering listening to the song These Walls after a traumatic assault I had with a partner at the time. I remember listening to U and actually screaming in my car as Kendrick Lamar talked about screaming in a hotel room. I would always skip I though. That song was one where he would proclaim “I love myself” and in 2014 I wasn’t ready to hear that.

I dove into other Kendrick Lamar music. Backseat Freestyle hit my soul and reminded me to have fun. It reminded me I was a writer before anything else. Swimming Pools became an anthem to my own alcoholism and I heard the nuance with every shot I poured in order to mask the pain. I listened to Section. 80 and saw my family, my own emotions mirrored. Ab Souls Outro spoke to the cacophony of emotion I was feeling at the time. I looked into Black Hippy and saw myself. This was music that representing who I was and how I felt. In my acting space I was one of five black people. This music was healing. This wasn’t playing at the club.

Drake was.

Drake was the soundtrack to my numbing. Everytime at the club I would hear “cause your a good girl and you know it.” And I would feel tingles through my spine. I would feel like I was being chosen. Drake at this time was already in heavy rotation. He had been for me since 2011. Drake was the soundtrack to a fantasy for me. He was the hope that one day I would find a light skinned man or white man who would whisk me off my feet and save me from my self. He would come in and put the Beatles on and we would look up at the stars and get lost together. Drake was my night in shining armor. So it was interesting that I dated two men at that time who resembled Aubrey Graham a lot. Both of these men assaulted me. Both of these men were toxic as hell. One was way older than me and an alcoholic and the other was my age but deeply controlling and though he was black and Jewish he was deeply anti black and would always talk weirdly about how he finally got a dark skinned girl and how hard it was to find an educated one. Yikes.

I would hear Drake in the club telling me to hold on and that we were going home. Where was home? I didn’t have one at the time. My family was scattered. My parents were navigating being unhoused. I was navigating being away from Oakland the only place I knew. I felt so much pain and Drake felt like a comforting blindfold. I would listen to Drake and blast his music in the car driving to Santa Monica beach to find someone to talk to. Someone who would buy me a drink and a house I could stay over with a view. Someone who would take care of me. Someone who would be there for me. I craved love but I kept finding emptiness. I even did a one woman show where I used a character who was actually Drake who would give me Gin and Tonic in order to see how far I would go with him. I was 19 at the time.

In 2015 I returned home. To no home. I lived partially in my car and partially in my aunts apartment which was a homeless shelter basically. She let everyone stay in her apartment. This was beautiful but also stressful. People were on drugs in there. People were struggling with severe mental illness. (There is also a story here I could tell about how Kanye West was the sound track of this time in my life but I digress). Untitled Unmastered was the soundtrack of this time. My fantasies were changing. Untitled 06 started getting under my skin. This was the type of person that I wanted to be with (not a Cee Lo Green haha) but the man who was a Gemini who’s duality was conflicting. Who saw me for who I was. A white man on a date asked me if I heard the new Kendrick Lamar. I told him yes. I asked him why he liked it. He said it sounded real. I asked him why he liked me. He said I was real. I was a collectors item. I took the nitrous gas he gave me that night and went under to forget my pain. I came up from that experience confused. That statement ringing in my ear. I’m real. What made me real? Trauma? My PTSD? Being unhoused? My lack of clarity in life due to the fact that the art that raised me betrayed me and didn’t protect me from men I thought I loved and from cruel industry folks who took advantage of my naive nature? I remember the moment I blocked that dudes number. It was after thinking about that conversation.

In 2017 I started dating the love of my life. I met him in 2015 but during that time I was still hiding behind my pain. In 2017 I was stripped bare. In 2017 I had no music in my soul. 2017 was also the year the Pulitzer Prize Winning Album DAMN came out. I listened to this album with my now husband over FaceTime. DNA came on. It reminded me of the feeling I got when I heard King Kunta for the first time. I felt seen. I listened to the song LUST. Images flashed through my mind. I threw up. I realized that I had been subjected to those lyrics. I began to hyperventilate and overshare everything with my boyfriend at the time who I am now married to. It was a lot. That song still makes me sick. Hearing Kendrick from that perspective. Hearing the darkness alerted me to the darkness all around me. Around this time I also went back to other songs I missed. I listened to the song I again. This time it hit. This time I was able to proclaim something within myself that I still don’t understand. This time I was able to listen to the Tupac interview portion of To Pimp a Butterfly and I cried. I cried listening to DAMN forwards and backwards. I felt connected to something powerful.

2022. Mr.Morale and the Big Steppers came out. I was in a home living with my parents and my boyfriend. I had stopped with toxic relationships and had started a relationship with toxic workplaces. Count Me Out was the soundtrack to me quitting my toxic job at the time. Father Time had me weeping on the floor of my room. This was my deepest wound. Kendrick was speaking to something no one else had. I grew up with my father. The dichotomy of the pain of growing up with a cruel father and how that affects you is one I hadn’t really heard from yet. Sampha’s haunting refrain felt like church bells toiling in my soul. I journaled so much to that album. N95 was a moment where (I still am physically masking!) I stopped wearing the mask of my neurodivergent tendencies, and when I realized we all are ugly as fuck and that’s okay.

2024. Studying to be a therapist. The music has kind of left me again. Unspeakable racism has occurred in the institution I attend. I am feeling jaded and hopeless. I am listening to Drake a lot and smoking a lot. I am feeling apathetic and hateful. There is genocide going on and no one cares. The world is on fire. Everyday feels like a monotonous march towards death. I lose a black woman mentor. I feel abandoned. I can’t do my work. I don’t want to do my work. What the fuck is the point. There is no point. Only being I like right now is my dog. I can’t write. All I want to do is watch YouTube reaction videos, and numb out. I’m studying to be a therapist! And I just want to be numb. I am doing therapy with children to gain hours and I just want to be numb. I am practicing active listening with my face but my soul is tired. I haven’t processed any of that deep trauma. I have addressed it but processing feels too daunting. I can afford door dash but not a therapist.

Then the beef comes. Kendrick versus Drake. It feels spiritual. It feels like if Drake wins I should just numb myself into a coma and life isn’t worth it. I know these stakes are extra high but that’s how I felt. I hear Kendrick’s Verse on Like That and I love it. It makes me feel kind of alive not a lot but it’s a callback to how I once felt. (Could also talk about how influential J Cole was on me in 2014 but that is a whole other essay and how his apology was dope and annoying at the same time) Push Ups felt alright. I felt kind of cool but was actually irritated while listening to it. I couldn’t articulate my irritation but in hindsight I could feel the hypocrisy. I started to ask myself “why do I even like Drake? Seriously. Why?”

Euphoria. That feeling came back. The whispers from Untitled Unmastered. I felt a reminder of what it felt like to have a musical heartbeat. I was reminded that before being an actor I was a musician as a child. I was paying deep attention to beats and choices being made. I was deep diving like an analyst. I was looking up definitions of words, double entendres, and who Joe Hale Osteen was. I felt mesmerized. I would tell friends at school that Kendrick NEEDS to win. My parasocial obsession was growing to an intense level.

Then I was in class. Not paying attention as I hadn’t been for months now. I got a notification. Family Matters came out. And honestly I felt sick. So many lines made me feel sick. Drake couldn’t win, my abusers couldn’t win. No.

Then 15 minutes later Meet the Grahams. I drove in my car and listened to that song with my husband. I threw up after it ended. I had not slept in three days. Writing papers for class, seeing intense clients with horrific stories, and relieving my trauma. Meet the Grahams was my breaking point. I wept in our car. I overshared more with my husband about being in Los Angeles. About how directors would tell me to date my older costars about how people in power would abuse it and abuse me. I cried. That night I decided I was wrapping everything up too close together. I signed up for therapy for the first time in three years.

The next day.

Mustard on the beat ho. That’s all this Cali Girl needed. I very calmly moments before walked out of class and found an empty classroom to listen to this song in. I danced and I could feel deep freedom. He said “you think the bay gonna let you disrespect Pac nigga?” I screaaaaamed. He mentioned us. I seriously felt seen. Again. There are few musicians I feel seen by (and I saw like 3 of them at the pop out).

My therapist told me I needed a vacation. I refused. I did activism at my school instead. Riding the high of Not Like Us. I got in huuuge trouble for it. I put myself on timeout. I told my therapist I need a vacation. She said “ya don’t say?”

My husband impulsively bought tickets to the Kendrick Lamar Pop Out. I was pissed. I need to work. I was metaphorically talking about vacation. Black women can’t go on vacation. We need to work. People need us. Movements need us. We can’t stop or else we will fade away. No one will sing about us. Except Kendrick. So I put my shit to the side and we drove to LA with our dog. We saw family. We stayed with family. Our dog finally had a backyard to play in which was amazing. And then there was The Pop Out.

I was feeling still weird leading up to it. I was feeling annoyed and mad and irritated. Why am I here. This city has caused me nothing but pain. I hate it here. It’s too hot. I forgot to shave my armpits. Everyone is gonna judge me. I’m getting flashbacks to my past life. I hate it here. I hate it.

Then we go inside. It feels like church. Seeing so many people. Specifically people of color. Specifically black people. Seeing family members who showed up. Kind of wishing I had floor seats. But not really because of anxiety.

First DJ Hed came out. That was hella exciting. I could give a play by play of how I felt per artist coming out but that is a lot! So I won’t. I’ll just explain how I felt during Tommy the Clown. Tommy the Clown is the godfather of Krumping and the creator of Clowning. A Cali style of dance which was huge for my community growing up. I had cousins who were apart of his crew and in the Bay we had folks who were krumping like crazy. Then in the Drake era of luxury calm rap that kind of died down. Our aggression was ugly. I felt embarrassed of being on a dance team that moved so aggressively. I wanted to be sexy. I wanted to be accepted by white people. So I quit. Seeing Tommy the Clown and those kids dancing made floodgates pour from my eyes. I felt so weird bawling watching children dance. I wanted desperately to go back to the days of dancing. I wanted desperately to move again not to be seen by white people, not to be famous or accepted but to be in community with my family.

I grew up black as fuck. But I didn’t want to be black at all. I wanted to be “better” as I would say. Black men traumatized me as a child so I didn’t want to be around dark skinned people as my skin was dark. I wanted whiteness. Lightness. I worshiped it. Craved it. Drake was just black enough that my family wouldn’t be weirded out and white enough to meet my fantasy of being with an acceptable negro.

When I saw Tommy the Clown. I saw all of that which I was ashamed of. I saw my friends from church. My friends from elementary and middle and high school dancing together. I saw our school dance getting shut down on account of hoodrat shit. I wept and wondered where that girl went? Where did I go? I used to dance. I used to sing. I used to write poetry. I was in so many afterschool programs to pass the time and to keep me out of danger. And I found danger when I left home. Danger also still found me in other places. What happened to me? What happened to us?

Then almost like a Time Machine DJ Mustard was next. The soundtrack to my late teens and acting years. I didn’t have an auxiliary cord in my car at the time so all I had was the radio. On long drives every single song on Power 106 was a DJ Mustard song. I was taken aback by knowing every word to Toot it and Boot it. Feeling extra nostalgic with Rack City. Listening to old school YG as well was powerful. (Could also write a whole separate essay about me realizing I love Steve Lacy deeply upon seeing him in person and now I’m dedicating my life to seeing him live next but that’s another story)

Then Kendrick. He literally played a retrospective of my whole time with his music. From Black Hippy to Good Kid M.A.A.D City, to To Pimp a Butterfly, to this current space and time and beef.

In that room is where I realized this was never a beef at all. Drake was just the victim of his own circumstance. He just happened to be the face of our oppressors. He was the Pat Boone that made us palatable. (Pat Boone for those who are wondering is an artist from the 1950’s who would sing acceptable covers of Chuck Berry and other Black rock and roll artists music because white parents were not comfortable with Rock n Roll). When he played not like us 6 times in a row. It was 4 on stream. But two more when the stream ended. It reminded me of the Fred Hammond Gospel song In the Sanctuary. It’s a gospel song where if you’ve been in black church you know that song NEVER ends. It always picks back up at least four more times. As we screamed all the lyrics word for word to this song (that has only been out for a little over a month by the way) it felt like we were creating space for black artists. They Are Not Like Us is a declaration to the fact that we as black people are often imitated, can never be duplicated, and our artistry will never die. (Got some of that from the genie speech in Aladdin. What can I say I’m a Disney Gal) all of this rant is to say. I left that concert feeling alive. I don’t ever want to forget this feeling and let life bring me down so low I forget who I am again.

But I know as things surge and drop and as we ebb and flow, sometimes we do forget ourselves, but this is a moment in time where I get to remember who I am, and I feel honored that I get to do so.

All of this is to say that I want to hear your stories too. Not just with Kendrick’s music but what brings you joy? Where was it stolen from you? What do you want to do to bring it back? How will you bring it back? I don’t have answers to the last question. I am working on believing in myself and growing and changing rather than dwelling in hopelessness. So I hope that I can affirm myself back into caring for myself. I hope that others can use different eyes to see what this all means. This is deeper than rap. This is deeper than blackness. This is deeper than class. This is the human question of what primal force took away your song and what can you do to bring it back? Maybe it’s beefing, maybe it’s joining a dance team, who knows? I don’t. But I do know something hopeful is coming. As our world burns I hope we can find ways to extinguish small fires so we can see things clearer.

I want to write more and write again and believe in my writing. I guess I can start there. I’ll submit this unedited wild essay, unedited because if I give myself time to think about this, I will delete it in a heartbeat. I’m not strong enough right now to believe in my work fully, but here is my start. I hope this inspires you to start something new too. What music inspires you? What stories do you have?