Everwet Inkwell : Kendrick Lamar's "Control" Verse and Its Best Responses

For those of you who don't already know. I love rap music and try to keep up with what's going with it. Recently Kendrick Lamar did a very controversial verse on a Big Sean song that wasn't released due to some licensing issues. The song still made it to the internet and Kendrick's verse stirred up a lot of controversy within the rap community. He basically called out all of the big artists in the game right now and challenged them. The stab was relatively friendly (it is rap music), but many rappers took offense to his bravado. He claimed to be the king of New York which is bit of a diss to rap god's like Jay-Z and Diddy. After the verse dropped several rappers released responses. Several of these responses samples the beat that Kendrick used in the "Control" verse, others sampled other beats, and others were actual songs that mentioned the controversy and dissed Kendrick. Ironically, only a couple of the rappers that Kendrick called out directly released responses. For some reason, other rappers released responses too. Regardless, the whole controversy generated some pretty good music. I'm a huge Kendrick fan, so I think he won, but there were some pretty good responses.

Here's Kendrick's "Control" verse:

Here's my favorite Control responses:

1. King Los

This verse is great rap and it humbly gives props to every rapper who Kendrick dissed, it's really interesting to see a rapper do that in the game today where there's a lot of tension amongst artists. I'm not saying rappers shouldn't battle, but humility is a good trait to have.

2. Cassidy

This one impressed me too. I haven't listened to Cassidy much but he's pretty fucking good. It's also pretty long and good all the way through. A lot of the responses were around 2 minutes. Cassidy's was almost 6 minutes long. Very solid.

3. Meek Mill

Meek Mill samples Dr. Dre for this beat and it's great. Everything that makes Meek Mill a great rapper is on this verse. His energy, his bravado, his tenacity, his flow... It's tight shit.

4. A$AP Rocky

This beat didn't sample the original control verse either, but it's also very good. It wasn't directly a Kendrick diss, but it's still a response and it (like the others) just goes to show that Kendrick isn't the only talented rapper int he game right now.

5. Papoose

I really liked this one too. It's very political and nostalgic. It was also very classic in its dissing methodology (very rap-battle esque). It was a little brash, but still very passionate.

6. Joe Budden

This rap was really respectful of what Kendrick was trying to do with his verse (inspire some competition). Bedden's verse is a good, solid rap, it got a little weird towards the end though, so I rated it farther down.

7. Eminem

Eminem is likely the most talented wordsmith alive right now and he's one of my favorite artists of all time. his verse was a little weird though (like a lot of his newer music also is). It was also kind of short...

8. Joell Ortiz