Rakim Says Drake And Kendrick Lamar Battle Was Good For Hip Hop

In an interview in Billboard published on Friday (July 26), writer Angel Diaz asked the God MC Rakim if he’d been paying attention to the all-consuming feud. Diaz characterized it as Drizzy representing the “mainstream” to many fans, while K.Dot “represents the genre in a more traditional sense. This framing brought out a thoughtful answer from Ra. “I think that [the battle] was important, because these brothers are at the top of the game, and revered hip-hop,” he replied. “You know, a lot of people in that position won’t accept no challenge, because they got too much to lose. So, it was dope that these brothers put the mainstream success down and said, ‘Yeah, let’s do it.’ “The battle put a lot of things in perspective — because it showed the difference between real hip-hop and mainstream hip-hop,” the legend continued. “Younger artists now know that there’s a difference. A lot of them didn’t even understand that. “They just listened to the majority, not knowing that a lot of people don’t categorize what they were hearing as real hip-hop. The battle was very needed for the genre. I tip my hat to them brothers. 

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