Freddie Gibbs Takes Aim at Kendrick Lamar and BET on “Vice Lord Poetry”
Kendrick Lamar’s “top five” callout on Baby Keem’s “family ties” gets a fiery response from Freddie Gibbs.
Freddie Gibbs pulled no punches on a new rework of Drake’s “Champagne Poetry.”
Released over the weekend, the track, appropriately titled “Vice Lord Poetry,” serves as an impassioned response to both Kendrick Lamar’s reemergence on Baby Keem’s “family ties” and his general lack of mainstream support despite having been nominated for “Best Rap Album” at the Grammys earlier this year.
Kendrick gets targeted in the first few lines of the fiery Gibbs performance. “I was big rabbit before the birth of my son, the Earth ain’t big enough for both of us you gotta get done/They sayin’ they smoking top fives, but you ain’t burned up the one,” Gibbs blasts out of the gate, referring to Lamar’s call to arms on the second single from Keem’s new album the melodic blue. In his second verse, Gibbs pans out and takes aim at BET. “Fuck the industry, you get lost in it, BET treat a nigga like I ain’t dark-skinned/But I ain’t fuck with y’all since 106 & Park ended, cypher’s just a waste of time ’cause I walk the park with it,” the rapper jabs. Gibbs even uses the track to walk back some of his earlier hostility towards Rick Ross, apologizing for previously ridiculing the Miami rapper for being a correctional officer after college.
Regarding Lamar’s mention in the track, there’s not much to look into beyond Gibbs’ very openly competitive spirit. Just last year, the Gary rapper expressed his respect for Kendrick’s pen. “That’s my only competition,” Gibbs told Bootleg Kev. “No n***as scare me, but I look at him and I be like, ‘Yeah, he’s sharp,’ you know what I mean? I wanna just be sharp like that.”
Hear Freddie Gibbs light up Drake’s “Champagne Poetry” instrumental below.