I DON’T WANNA BE A MELANIN LEMMING ANYMORE: WHY I STILL LOVE DRAKE ( a reevaluation of beef in 13 parts) by Brontez Purnell

I as a Black American, literally never get to enjoy or have ANY fucking thing. Every time my Black ass looks up I’m being asked to boycott yet ANOTHER muthafuckin’ thing and this piece is politically attached to larger macro concerns of how even the most mundane of pleasures is politicized (but never in a way that serves me or rewards me) and then is negated and taken from me with no reasonable replacement - I’ve given up crack, Target, high sugar foods, even punk rock, all in order to be a “better” Black person, and now I’m drawing the line at Drake, you can’t take Drake from me. I don’t care, “Basic Black bitch” is my rising sing, his melodies are FUCKIN’ butter and you niggas are gonna let me have THIS ONE THING. Furthermore, Jewish boys are neurotic, horny, and fun in bed. Cappin’ for a problematic light skint nigga is admittedly garbage, but to be honest the foundation of this whole fucking feud is garbage and I can muthafuckin’ prove it you… LETS JUST GO OVER THE FACTS.

1.) KENDRICK IS “NOT LIKE US” EITHER, IF YOU REALLY THINK ABOUT IT…

Why is a Black millionaire asking me to help him jump a light skint bitch? Yall niggas always dragging EVERYONE into yo drama, and I like really can’t EVEN, anymore. UGH. Both of y’all rich niggas need to be posting my “go fund me” link for putting me though this bullshit. I feel deeply manipulated by all of this; Kendrick know what the fuck he doing with that perfect lil chocolate ass body in them tight ass bell bottoms- PLAYING WITH MY GODDAMN EMOTIONS!

Since the rest of y’all niggas ain’t really thought about this let me do the HIGHLY laborious task of bringing an actual economic analysis into question. Yes, intersectional conversation in a graveyard, and perilous at best but I do beg the question, who exactly is the ACTUAL underdog when two niggas who are millionaires are fighting? The only real losers in this scenario can be the viewing audience.

In a country that elected Trump, there’s a thread here where we can talk about how turning a Canadian R+B singer into the enemy all Blackness is absurd to the point of being quaint- which brining me to point #2…

2. JUMPING A LIGHT SKINT GIRL IS NEVER A “WIN”

Think back to high school, and that all too common scenario in which the meanest dark skint girl you knew beat the fuck outta the prettiest light skint cheerleader- and how in the long run there was never any clear victors. Like, sure it was fun at the time, watching Tasha splatter Sandra’s blood all over the lockers, but then came that day, years later, after high school was long over, when sitting at one’s kitchen table, and recalling the fight and yr all like “wait, that was HORRIBLE! Tasha didn’t have to do Sandra like that! Damn, that was FUCKED UP” – and this is prophecy! Drake is a goofy friendly nigga. He’s like a non-sentient sea creature, no brains, all vibes- AND WE LOVE HER FOR THAT- ITS OK FOR HER TO BE THAT. Like, something about his downfall feels like such low hanging fruit in the first place, doing the dougie of Drakes grave is NOT the Black power moment you think it is and shame on yall niggas for not clocking that shit in the first place.

3. DA FUCK IS SERENA CRIP WALKING FOR?!

The only thing whiter than Drake is a white person and Serena’s husband is a WHOLE ASS WHITE MAN! A total “Cody”!!!! She a Black millionaire up in her mansion getting beat by that ‘nilla stick! What is she gone do when her children turn out as bi-racial, confused and angry as Drake! But wait, like, is Drake even angry? Either way, when it boils down to it the levels of hypocrisy in the roast of this light skint himbo is APPAULING, it all stinks!

4. THE LEVELS…

Not to make this gay or whatever but the most confusing part of this feud for me is I can’t tell who I wanna fuck more? Like, they’re both basically irresistible. But ew, Drake is so light skint and annoying, he would probably wanna do some whack shit, like have me eat his bootyhole while we’re rolling on molly. I can only imagine his sensual bi-racial fuck slit smelling like Comme De Garcon cologne, or maybe even patchouli soap? I dunno. On the flip slide, Imma thick nigga and Kendrick is dark skint, subsequently he’d wanna hit it doggy style, from the side of the bed but I’d probably have to buy his lil ass a step stool so he could reach my pussy. OMG.

5. EW, DON’T BE A MELENIN LEMMING…

Basically, I said it in the intro but the mass media always wants me to be a melanin lemming- and we can’t trust ALL dark skint propaganda- media is weaponizing both whiteness and blackness and levels so unprecedented it might even be out trolling itself. I DON’T WANNA MELANIN LEMMING ANYMORE, that is to say, these niggas karma ain’t clean; chakras ashy and auras be muddy as fuck too. I essentially like Drake because Drake represents fun : because of his breezy nature he is too often framed in apoliticality- I needn’t tell you this , but the personal is ALWAYS political- and I don’t have to abandon Hot Line Bling just cause Kendrick said so. I love Kendrick but that nigga is NOT FUN, or he’s not fun in the way Drake is fun. Kendrick isn’t gonna give us two decades of candy-coated ear worms like Drake did, and in being asked to abandon Drake, I’m also being asked to abandon the radical possibilities in the pleasure of pop music, and I don’t like that. Furthermore, I don’t appreciate my Blackness coming into question if I even question the fact that I don’t feel like doing this. I have jumped off enough bridges with you goddamn hoteps and I’m a lil sick of yall niggas always telling the rest of us to get into formation about EVERYTHING. EW, LIKE STOP. Every time a Kendrick song comes on I feel that there’s this notion that hangs in the air that I’m supposed to like, put on my Wakanda outfit and go fight a cop, and even though I’m de facto Team Dark Skin for life, but I don’t feel like being a conscious Black person today. I WANNA LISTEN TO DRAKE ON MY DAY OFF, LIKE DAMN, CUT ME A BREAK; some days I just wanna listen to some light skin music and disassociate- why yall fucking with me?!

6. THE LEVELS ( PART 2)

Too many non-Blacks have input in this beef and something about that feels gross too- like they are betting on a boxing match or something. I’m not necessarily on a “our culture” soap box, but then again maybe I should step on it for a second. At the end of the day I have this horrible feeling that some white dude in a corporate office made more money off this feud than the niggas involved- I mean, this is America- but where exactly do we track who gets involved in a family feud? I mean, the Drake-as-culture-vulture theory stands, but I mean, no matter how you cut it, Drake DOES represent diaspora- and Blues lineage- how is that being tracked here? I mean in short, he’s AS BLACK as say Barack, perhaps even Blacker than Kamala if we REALLY wanna be reckless and messy about it. Furthermore, we sit there and protest Donald Trump and Drake in one sitting, but also sits the troubling fact that if Kamala had been there, we still would have needed a “Free Gaza” sign- OMG THE LEVELS- maybe we can’t have it all? Which brings me to point #7.

7. FRIENDLY NIGGAS VS. UNFRIENDLY NIGGAS

West Coast niggas are deeply unfriendly, it’s just the vibe. Like as migration patterns go, the West Coast consists largely of Louisiana blacks and Texas Blacks i.e. A LOT of “Paper Bag Society” niggas (definitionally UNFRIENDLY NIGGAS- THE MOST UNFRIENDLY YOU CAN GET OMG). Being from Alabama I am from that part of the Black matrix where if you walk by another Black man and don’t say hi- YOU ARE STARTING SOME SHIT (i.e. FRIENDLY NIGGAS) - but when I moved to Oakland at 20 I learned the hard way that if you walk past another Black person and say hi- YOU ARE STARTING SOME SHIT (i.e. UNFRIENDLY NIGGAS) - I’ve never “liked” that, but I get it. Historically (spiritually?) Black people left the South and wanted to do away with ALL parts of that culture; came to cities on the Coast where they were isolated to ghettos and the hatred (inner and outer) magnified- there is something to be pulled from the fact that Drake (like myself) is descended from Southern Bluesmen; he is a convincing crooner whose music gives us beautiful melodies- Kendrick, a child of West Coast radicality gives us Battle Rap- how this to things that almost have zero relationality to each other are even battling in the first place is beyond me, but I digress. The ultimate problem I have with this notion of “Kendrick snatching Drake’s crown” is in order to do that, he would also have to offer us something similar. I don’t understand in this whole equation how his brand of West Coast Battle rap is supposed to merge with top 40? Can it even do that? I’m just commenting on style here, I mean Kendrick music is great when making Molotov’s for a protest, but what happens when we just wanna fuck, or vibe on the dance floor? There’s something to be said for Drakes approach to the sensual, of which I don’t ever quite catch that vibe from Kenz- and in the long run- at the end of the revolution we are gonna need both I think.

8. THE PROBLEM WITH DISS TRACKS ULTIMATELY

Who wins a battle is not always necessarily who wins a war. Wars are about an arc of time, and ultimately time decides who a victor is. Jay-Z outlasted Nas, Remy read Nicki to filth only to watch her own life unravel in parts, Tupac and Biggie both lost, etc. The part of this that kinda makes me sad is that Kendrick really could have left us with “We Gon Be Alright” and would have died the King- there is something jarring that his legacy will now be attached to fighting with Drake and I’m not afraid to say that feels so cheap and like, déclassé to me; furthermore, this also puts Drake in the position of still being THE ENTIRE SUBJECT OF THE INTERACTION; that is, Drake sits at the CENTER of this beef. The song was popular because it was ABOUT DRAKE…do you understand what I’m saying? Would anything he did have had this level of impact had it not had Drakes name attracted to it? That’s the messy part to me- it’s like how when guys call another guy a “Cuck” to diss him WHEN IN ACTUALITY the “Cuck” is the ENTIRE center of the interaction. Without him, the center simply won’t hold, and in a weird way, this is still an elevation of sorts. I’m dubious of how easily others refuse to track that part.

9. THE SUPER BOWL SHOW.

IN KENDRICKS DEFENSE PROBABLY THE BEST HALF TIME SHOW OF A LIFETIME. (But, also, ew, fuck sports *hurls vomit*)

10. CERTIFIED PEDERAST?

Drake doesn’t actually diddle kids, like, he just doesn’t but what’s so funny to me is the whole of hip hop even pretending they care. Let’s just be honest, Hip Hop, definitionally, upholds criminality, both in a very not so direct way , i.e. in terms of the Black body ALWAYS being painted as “criminal”- no matter how innocent it actually is, and also in a very literal way. I can even celebrate some of that (but No Diddy, etc.) – but girl, come the fuck on. Yall niggas been tearing the club up for damn near five decades, screaming the lyrics to all types of rapists, wife beaters, murderers, drug dealers, crack slingers, pimps, hos, and everything else, BUT INNCOUOUS ASS DRAKE IS WHERE WE DRAW THE LINE ALL OF A GODDAMN SUDDEN?! Yall niggas betta unbitch thyselves, LIKE, SPARE ME THE BULLSHIT

11. TRUE CONFESSIONS

I love the like 12 times I have gotten into arguments in the clubs with other niggas about this subject but after the third drink everyone is like “yeah, he do got some bops tho” and honestly what’s more niggerish than having bops? Probably nothing honestly…

12. BUT LETS REVIST THE SUPER BOWL

Ah, yes, the oh so tried and true “Protest Performance” Beyoncé did it, Pharrell did it, Kendrick (and this view point has made me recently unpopular in certain circles) DID IT BEST- but to what effect does it still hold meaning? Protesting Donald Trump and Drake in one sitting seems a bit aimless to me ? There’s no escape velocity out of Black pain, unfortunately, and I just have this fatigued feeling of watching the Broadway dramatization of it into infinity. The cold part is if Kamala had been sitting there we still would have needed that “Free Sudan and Gaza” protester and dear god, maybe we CAN’T have it all? Furthermore since we are ON the subject- if the protest is about dubious approximation to Blackness, in a sense, Drake still probably out Blacks Kamala and Barack combined (in terms of his approximation to being descended from US chattel slave ancestry- Drakes dad is from Memphis at least, Kamz Daddy is Jamaican and Barack’s is Eastern Africa, like “they not like us” either, I say respectfully, BUT all us niggas voted for her, even tho on the war front we KNOW they get goofy- maybe this is a little too off subject but Black patriotism (or whatever it’s called) should be tracked here, we back some pretty crazy war mongering light skints, but then drag Drake for some half singing some R+B songs- something is like NOT RIGHT in the larger convo here. Let me think about it a better articulate it one day.

13. LASTLY…IN KENDRICK DEFENSE THO.

There is nothing more irritating that some lippy lite bright trying you tho- OMG IVE BEEN THERE. I don fucked so many tragic ass mulatto- omg! I recall this one bitch, EW SHE WAS THE WORST- I took her to her first Black barber shop and she like started crying. I later saw her wearing like weave box braids (the 2C delusions of it all!) and I was like “not this bitch PRETENDING to have nappy hair *hurls vomit* and all I could think was “ew, bitch, if I was your black father I would’ve abandoned your light skint punk ass too! GROSS!” so I say all that to say, maybe I do side with Kendrick after all? I don’t know…