Best Bars of 2024. Plus: Drake vs. Kendrick Retrospective
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Welcome everyone to dissect I'm your host Kulkushna. Today's episode is part one of our special two-part year-end series discussing the music releases of 2024. Next week's episode will be our traditional favorite music of the year show where me and Camden Ostrander award our favorite releases and songs of the year

But because 2024 was such a big year for hip hop, I thought it was worth doing an episode specifically focused on our favorite hip hop moments of 2024. So joining me for this episode today are Toray, King Green, and James Francis. Toray is a legendary journalist, King Green is a rapper, and together they host one of my favorite new podcasts called Rap Latte.

James Francis is also a rapper and producer who I discovered through social media, where he does hip-hop analysis and lyric breakdowns. Together, the four of us revisit the Drake and Kendrick Lamar battle, awarding our favorite songs and moments from the beef. Then we take turns nominating and dissecting our favorite rap lyrics of 2024, before the three of them share their favorite hip-hop song and album of the year. It was an incredible conversation. I hope you enjoy.

All right, Tore King Green and James Francis are with me. Thanks guys for joining the show. We're going to start today's conversation all about hip hop in 2024, reflecting a little bit about the year in general, specifically in regards to hip hop. And I was kind of reflecting back on 2023 a bit and remembering on this very show, our annual year end show, we started the conversation off with

And I don't know if you guys remember, because it was kind of happening globally as well, this idea that perhaps hip-hop was in a state of decline, losing some of its prominence. There was a lack of chart-topping in 2023 with hip-hop, and we were kind of trying to speculate on whether that was in a slump, or is this a sign, an indicator of a more kind of global shift?

I think as it stands now at the same time in 2024, reflecting on the year in hip hop, the conversation feels much different. And I think we can thank a handful or more than a handful of great hip hop releases from great hip hop artists, some of which we'll talk about later in this episode.

But also we had one of the biggest hip hop battles, one of the biggest hip hop events, certainly in my lifetime. And I think it's safe to say historically it's going to go down as one of the biggest, if not the biggest. So I wanted to start there and kind of, you know, we've had a couple of months of distance from the heat of the battle.

And so I wanted to kind of reflect on the battle kind of holistically, reflect on the year holistically and where we might kind of historically view this battle. I wanted to start with you, Torre, specifically on where or anything you want to say about the year in general, but also with your perspective on past battles. I'm thinking Tupac Big, I'm thinking Jay Nas, where you see historically Drake and Kendrick.

might go down within that lineage, as well as kind of your just general thoughts on the battle as it stands now in December of 2024? I mean, this was unquestionably the greatest battle we ever had in hip hop. It went faster. It went deeper as far as the number of songs, as far as the conversation between each other.

you know, it pulled more out of Kendrick than we had seen before. I mean, like, you know, extraordinary career. And then he goes and does things that are unbelievable and moves our perception of his technical ability, his hip hop ability forward quite a lot. Yeah. You know, it, and, and this, the speed with which that,

Friday,

to the end of Saturday happened will never be forgotten by everybody who is living in this culture. How it was 6:16 Friday morning, right? Then it was euphoria late Friday. Then Family Matters, right, on Saturday. And then Not Like Us right after. - Yeah, it was euphoria on the Tuesday, 6:16 on Friday.

And then yeah, Family Matters, Meet the Grams, and then Heart Part 6 on Sunday. So that stretch. That was like, we were already like heaving tired and that was like, you should never have said anything. But I mean, I remember the texts and the excitement and the energy of like,

Kendrick dropped. Like, you've got to be kidding. He just dropped like this morning. He just dropped yesterday. Like again. Oh my God. Drake. Oh, had a whole video. Kendrick stepped on his whole video. And you know, the, the, the text, the excitement, the calling around, I'm calling people who I normally call during the day, but now they're midnight friends. There's a breaking news event going on. I could call and be like, yo, did you, oh my God, this live, this first, I, you know, uh,

It was an extraordinary moment. You know, just thinking back to Jay and Nas, you know,

Jay put out one record and then I think it was six months later came ether and super ugly was the next day, but super ugly is not even considered a real full part of the battle. Like people don't talk about it. They consider it just a two song battle. I mean, that took a long time, but six months, these are days. Super ugly is the original heart part six.

It was part of the battle. We just said, super ugly, the hot record. We can talk about that later. But no, it was, and to see Kendrick take such a deep position, you are not hip hop. You are not an American. You do not understand this culture.

And really dissect him on a deep level like that. It was not just, I fucked your bitch. It's not just, you're getting screwed by your manager. You are not one of us. You are not American. You're not a rapper. You're not hip hop. You're not real. Like,

Oh my God. This is, this is, it's so deep. Yeah. Green. What about you? I'm just going to say, I mean, he's saying everyone's sentiments of how we felt about that week. Like that was hip hop Christmas and Kwanzaa. Like it was, it was, it's like, we got a gift. We got a gift every day. And we're all,

It built community. And that's the difference between 23 and 24. Our community got raised up. All of us were able to talk to each other and and pontificate and just really get into it. And that's what I look back at this year as it's like, wow, the community got built again. Like we could talk about our friends in the lunchroom, but we're doing it on platforms. People people making money off of it.

You know what I'm saying? It's like something was dying and now we're building community around all these things. And the battle was the battle, but it made us all, it made people who are casual listeners want to know about lyrics and listen to lyrics and talk about lyrics. I'm like, and it's funny because maybe a month before that, I was like,

constant on TikTok, making TikToks about lyrics. And then I made one about Lil Wayne's lyrics, and that shit blew up to a million views. And I was like, y'all care about listening to them? Because in my brain, I just geek out about lyrics. I'm a rapper. So it's like, I'm just going to geek out about this stuff. And I was like, oh, people care. And then the battle happened. It's like, no, people really care now. And I feel like since that investment people have had in it, they're just...

We're hungry. So we're hungry for Tyler's new album. We're hungry when a new rapper who's called calls himself a lyricist or has something to say, we want to hear it now. And I feel like it's been like that the entire year. And for me, it's just been, I haven't felt like this is probably like 2015, 16, 17 about like rap, you know? Yeah.

Yeah, James, I'm interested. You're the youngest among us. I think I'd be interested to hear your perspective on experiencing the battle. And specifically, I think you guys both touched on it. Social media and YouTube and the reactions in this community, that felt very new. I think back to Drake Meek Mill. I think back to Drake Pusha T. The internet was definitely a thing by then.

But not in the way it is even now. And I think that played a huge part in, in the magnitude of the battle. Not only are these, you know, Drake Meek Mill, Drake Pusha T, you know, that's, that's somewhat of a heavyweight, but this, this was different, but

And the amount of songs, the speed with which that we got them all felt very new. And so did the amount of conversation and reaction around the songs themselves. So James, I'm definitely interested.

Again, as the youngest one here, your experience with it. Yeah, I feel like it's been super unique for me this year because I started taking content seriously this year. So I've seen in real time, through my content as well, a real shift in people's focus in terms of caring about lyrics. I feel like it took three or four months before I actually started talking about bars and breaking down stuff.

um and then that just happened to coincide with the beef and i was like oh people actually care um i also circled around like a couple of months ago back to all of the meek stuff all of the pusher stuff and i was just like this was not the same conversation like it was if you were already in the

Even that beef with Push and Drake, it was still very much a hip-hop beef. It wasn't as global. So yeah, I just feel feeling people's sentiments shift. And also like the discussion around stuff like Chromacopia, where like people are talking about bars in a way they wouldn't have asked. Yeah, that's a good point. You didn't notice Cole on social, especially on TikTok. TikTok is such a great platform.

temperature check for what's going on. Through the weekend, there were tons of TikToks, of videos from Black creators talking about Kendrick and Drake.

And then on Monday and Tuesday, Wednesday, you started to see white creators come in and talk about it. And clearly people who do not talk about hip hop. So you start to see the growth. It's becoming pop. People who don't care about hip hop are like, yo, there's a battle going on and it's exciting and it's like interesting. And it's like pulling people into the story of hip hop.

Yeah, I was going to say, like, this was my mom asked me about this battle. She was like so, so far removed. You know, she had some some curiosity about it. That's the level that it got to, which, you know, that's that's a first in my lifetime for sure. So I want to get into categories around specifically around the beef. We have three categories. We're going to go through our favorite or best song that came from the beef.

Our favorite line that came from the beef and also the most quotable line from the beef. So we'll start with our

I don't know if you guys want to do best or favorite song. Is there any actually let me start here Is there any conversation around what the best song is it or is it clearly not like us and end of conversation? There's a difference in my mind there's a difference between trying to attribute best and favorite Yeah, like do you mean best or favorite if we are to? if we were to highlight

nominate just one song historically as the best song that came from this battle then it's not like us yeah i agree no no wait oh my favorite is my my favorite is euphoria definitely see if you said favorite we were dancing to not like us as a nation and all that but the best song oh my god euphoria is not like us

Yeah. Make your case. We talked about this yesterday and you said all the rappers will say euphoria. So I don't know why you're switched up now in front of. Oh, no, no. I never said I said the best. All the rappers and all like the lyricists and the deep dive guys. I didn't.

I didn't say that I'm one of them, though. Even though I am one of them, I don't think that way. I think about song as songwriting. I don't think the lyricist people are going to say euphoria because they're like, oh, look at how everything in euphoria came true because it's like prophetic. And now you could dissect it and all the things that you dissected and that all four of us dissected.

were actually real. It came to account, right? Yeah. But not like us as a song. I think the best song, I'm a songwriter before anything. It's like, that's the best song. Like that's the best diss song ever made. Yeah. It's hard to argue. It's hard to. It is. You just told. It's the best diss song in this battle. And you know that.

It's the best song. It's the best diss song ever made. And I'm standing on that till... It's not the best song in this battle. Look, I read through Euphoria last night in preparation for this. And it's just so devastating. And I'm not saying Not Like Us is not great. Not Like Us is amazing. And I listened to that song a million times this year.

But my God, what he's doing in euphoria. I mean, just at this, the final line, uh, when he's, when he, just when he's the way when we don't want to hear you say nigga no more. And I'll go into that more later, but that, that's, that's incredible. What he's talking about.

this is where we get, you know, I hate the way that you walk, the way that you talk, the way that you dress, the fairy tale stories. I mean, there's, you know, the line about violence that you don't want to talk more about. There's so much in euphoria. And I'm not just talking about the prediction, which is amazing, but there's so, there's so much in euphoria that it's just extraordinary writing. I think, I think that there's, it's, it's, uh,

And it's the same concepts in Not Like Us, where the density that exists in Euphoria, I think it's taste level. I think there's this different taste. And for me, structured as a song, when I think about a song, I think about I want to listen to this a whole bunch of times from a mass level versus...

the defining lines, because let me say this in the next question that Cole's going to ask us about the best line. I think my best, the best lines are from euphoria. Yeah. Yeah. The best lyrical lines are from euphoria. The most quotable lines are from not like us. I don't think that listenability being able to listen to it over and over and over is a necessary thing. It is a great thing when you can make a song like that, like a bop, not like us.

But my God, the best diss song is Meet the Grams. That aims to your soul. We all started listening to it. It had to turn it off in the first verse. Like, oh, my God, this is too much. This is too hard. Like, this is I am going to take your soul like pedophile is nothing compared to like, hey, I want to talk to your son about what a shitty man you are. I want to talk about your mom. I want to talk to your dad.

Oh, my God. I 100% agree with you. That's open heart surgery. I 100% agree with you because look at what you said. And I'm so much about dissecting. This is the Dissect podcast. You said this is the best diss song. And I would agree with you that Meet the Grams is the best diss song. This question says the best song from the beef. The best song from the beef is not like us. The best diss song.

is meet the grams and my favorite lyrics come from Euphoria. Hey, man, that's how I dissect it. Yeah. The best favorite thing is just semantics at this point, obviously. I think so we're all in it. Do we all agree that

Okay, everyone with Tori thinks "Not Like Us" is the best song, but is all of our favorite song "Euphoria"? Because that's my... Yeah, my favorite is definitely "Euphoria". How come? I said that on Tori's podcast. Okay. For what reason specifically? For what reason specifically? I feel like... Oh, there's so many reasons. Yeah, I feel like it's the best summary of the dissection of Drake's character in the beef. Like,

"Meet the Grimms," he tears them apart and it's a bit brutal. But I feel like Euphoria is like, it strikes the balance between "Not Like Us" and "Meet the Grimms." Yeah. Yeah, what I love about it, particularly where it came in the beef, was that, you know, it was first, Kendrick's first response, you know, aside from "Like That" as the kind of the kicker of this whole thing,

but that was just a single verse. What I love about euphoria is obviously the strategy Tori talked about the kind of premonition of it all. And just that opening, uh, slower melodic part all came to fruition. He told Drake exactly what he was going to do, what Drake himself was going to do. And Drake still did it, which in retrospect is just fucking crazy. But what I love about euphoria is there's no hook.

It is six, seven minutes of just straight rapping. Yeah. And this is a rap battle. And this is Kendrick in his opening gesture saying, let's rap. Like, fuck the dirt. If you're going to take it to the, if you want to get dirty, I'll get dirty. I'm prepared for that. He says that directly.

But if you want to keep it above the belt and just rap, here I am. Here's six, seven minutes of just rapping. I'm giving you several cadences, different flows, different voices, showing you a whole bouquet of my skills. I want you to match it. Or if you're going to go dirty, I'm prepared for that too. But I just love that his opening statement was one about rap. Yeah.

I mean, maybe we're all sort of using the word favorite and best differently, or maybe they land on us differently because...

To me, favorite is heart and best is in your head, right? And if Not Like Cuss comes on, my heart will leap even to this day, right? And I will want to dance to that record. If Euphoria comes on, I want to sit and think and pontificate and listen to these lyrics come through me

um so i mean to me not like us is my favorite out of this and euphoria is the best because it is the best written song and i think we're saying the opposite things but maybe we're just defining best and favorite in different ways because i think beside that we're saying a lot of the same things yeah i think so does anyone want to give any shine to any of the drake's songs

To be fair, push-ups-- Tore is making a face right now. Yeah, I feel push-ups was Drake's most concise effort. I think "Family Matters," that second verse,

Impressive, but he should have just focused on Kendrick. Push-ups was the greatest display and like the Metro line, like at the point, push-ups essentially changed the narrative. It was brief, but it did change the narrative. I think push-ups is the most solid track that Drake put out and Family Matters, I don't know why you're talking about other people. It's just me and you. You start punching other guys in the ring that's outside the ring. It's weird. Yeah, I agree.

Okay, so let's move on to the next category. Favorite line from the beef. I'll start. I have two. One is... I'm cheating here because I just had to mention this one more time. This is my most enjoyable line out of the whole beef, and it comes from The Heart Part 6. It's when... It is when Drake says...

You mentioned an A minor, but you guys got a B sharp and tell fans who was it. You thought you left D flat, D major. So the music theorist in me just fucking could not get over this line. I was so happy when I heard this because essentially Drake is trying to flip the A minor line from Not Like Us. Yeah. And he says, you got a B sharp. So in music theory...

B sharp is kind of not a thing. It's just C, right? There's some technical cases you can make, but him trying to be clever and flip it with something that doesn't exist essentially was just, I was petty and I was so giddy when I heard this, I was just in heaven. So that's the most enjoyable moment of the B for me, I think as a, someone that's- I love Drake haters. Drake haters are like my favorite people on the planet. Like Trey Cole are amazing. Yeah.

I, okay. I'm not a hater, but I just, you know, before the battle, I was just not that into Drake. I like some of his songs. I've just never been interested in his music since like nothing was the same. Oh yeah. Nothing was the same was the last album that I listened to in full and still listen to the stuff that came after that. Not a big fan. So I was rooting for Kendrick and that line gave me so much joy, but I, okay. So my favorite line, and it's obviously so hard to choose, but,

I think it has to be, you're not a colleague, you're a fucking colonizer. And just from, in terms of singling out like one line, and obviously this has a lot to do with everything that comes before this line in that third verse of Not Like Us, but to whittle down his angle in this beef scene,

to articulate it in such a concise but vicious way and the masterful setup, a verse-long setup that had to have been written, mind you, either the night Family Matters drops or the next day because this is in direct conversation or response with...

Drake saying you're rapping like you're always trying to get the slaves free and that's the setup of this entire third verse I'm not like us and he goes through obviously all these Atlanta artists and he's just jab jab jab jab all setting up this final punchline of you not a colleague you fucking colonizer you get the alliteration with colleague colonize just every technical merit you want to give it it's there not to mention the message of it and

Everything about that line for me is just so brilliant. So when I was going through the many lines I wanted to nominate, that's the one I kind of landed on at this moment. But Green, let's go to you and your favorite line from the beef. That verse in that line is in there and I can't get that entire verse out of my mind.

But the one but I had to pick something from Euphoria and it was I even hate when you say the word nigga, but that's just me, I guess, because I fell out on the floor laughing when I heard that for the first time. And that was the only time in the entire beef where I was just on. I was dying. That was hilarious.

it's like the whole hate thing got me I was just like this dude did some 10 things I hate about you and said I even hate when you say the word nigga I guess like his ability to play with his voice is just next level there's no I said that to Tori the other day like he is the best ever at being able to create character in rap ever

So I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go with that. But your, but the, your pick is in that entire verse actually to me is a pick. Yeah. That moment though is like, to your point, the way that he just switches cadence, all of it. Cause he's like vicious up until then. And then on a dime, he's just like, that's just me. I guess some shit's just cringe worthy. Um,

It didn't even have to be deep like that. Yeah. Brilliant moment. Tori, what about you? There's a line that, I mean, you know, there's a million lines in Euphoria that we could all do and a million lines that a lot of people have talked about. And there's one line that really resonates for me that I feel like I haven't really heard people really underline.

tell them run to America. They imitate heritage. They can't imitate this violence. And part of what he's doing is saying, you cannot be as violent as me, but he's also saying, you cannot imitate the violence that I have received that me and my people and like me have received, which creates our ability to be violent people. And it sort of points out

OK, Drake, you can see the quote unquote heritage, the culture part of America that's on the surface, but you can't see the violent roots that shape America. It's an extraordinarily violent place in the country. What we do in terms of foreign policy, school shootings, all these sort of things. So the violence of America, you know, and what somebody in Compton would deal with from police, from other gangs, from his own family,

family members, his own gang friends. He's saying violence is a critical part of America and you don't understand what's in the heart, this critical part of America. I find that really deep. Yeah. Very well stated. Yeah. And that is not a line I've heard anyone talk about in detail. So very nice. James, what you got?

Yeah, I've been debating because we've got best line and best quotable. I was going to put best quotable as the Atlanta line,

And the best line from, well, I was ping pong between two. I was going to do the Hellcat line from Euphoria. Just because there's just so much there of like, everybody want to be demon till they get chipped by a throwaway. And the other I was thinking of was the Have You Ever, which he's still...

Playing out on GNX even. Right. Which one did you ultimately land on? I feel like the Have You Ever, just because it's the ultimate like, here's my calling card. And it's such a hip hop cultural cachet. And I feel like that's... He set the precedent of the battle being that on Euphoria. Because after that...

then for drake it's like okay i've got a because now on family matters drake's being like oh what do you mean i do this this and this it's like okay but you just allowed him to set the precedent for the way that the battle yeah right i agree with that and that's the the um what you have you ever goes into exactly what tory said too which it sets the entire precedence of the whole thing where

This is how I am. And I had to come through this. And this is just who I am. That's who you're trying to be. And why are you trying to be that? You don't need to do that. I liked when you were yourself. I like when you sing your little songs. I like Drake with the melodies. Yeah, exactly. Why did you go this way? And I love when people give credit and where credit's due in a battle. Like when Jay-Z says for them, it says like,

you got a one hot album every 10 year average. There's no way you can say Illmatic isn't a classic album. So giving that credit makes everything else seem valid. And I think that's the most beautiful thing about those bars that Kendrick had. Yeah. Okay. Very well said. Let's move on to the most quotable line from the beef. This is one of the, I think the aspects of the battle that was just so enjoyable and made it so culturally rich in terms of like,

People like you and me or everyone here being one to look very closely at lyrics more than probably your average listener. But these quotable lines that came from it ended up permeating culture or social media. You know, you got little kids screaming a minor. Like it's like, it's just insane. The amount of them that we got, I have like, I actually wrote down all the, I don't know if we want me to read these, but,

I wrote down, it looks like 15 legitimately quotable lyrics from the beef on either side, mostly Kendrick, but Drake has some, some good ones too. Most of them come from pushups.

Yeah. But that was, I think one of the reasons why this, uh, I don't think without as many quotables that we got, it doesn't become the type of conversation that we got in terms of just the magnitude of it, because we had these quotable lines, everyone understood to latch onto to center the conversation around. So I'm interested in terms of just the memorability of a line, which one sticks out for all you guys the most. In your 15, uh,

Do you include the line where he says, you don't want to work with me no more. Okay. I don't actually. Cause that one, I didn't pick up on that, but that is one that I noticed a high volume of women on Tik TOK.

yes, made videos around and almost no men did, but so many women did that. I was like something in that is speaking to women. And I'm not sure what in women's experience that like resident, but they were clear, like that is the line that jumps out. Yeah. Okay. Tori, do you want to start with your, your quotable? I don't, I don't think greed steps on it. Uh, we don't want to hear you say nigga no more. I mean, like, look,

The English language is like a keyboard for MCs and nigga is a central key. It's probably in the middle of the keyboard. It's the most important. Spacebar. Spacebar. Spacebar's crazy. In a compelling way. In a compelling way.

In an interesting way, in an authentic way, in a real way. And it's not one way, but like, you know, it's got a flow. It's got a hit. You got like, you have to be able to do that. Just like a basketball player. If you can't dribble, you can't never get, you can never get on the floor. And, and,

For Kendrick to be taking that note away from him is so real and insidious. And so many people misunderstood Kendrick's assault as a biological racial assault. They're like, well, he does have a black father and his uncle was in this soul music group. It's not about biracialism. It's not about him being mixed.

It's about you clearly are cosplaying. You don't really understand our culture. And maybe that's because you grew up in another country in a white Jewish neighborhood. But like, I'm not even getting into that. I'm just saying what I can see and what I can feel when you talk. We, again, I'm what the culture feeling. We don't want to hear you say it. He didn't tell him to not say it because then Drake could defy him and he wins. But like,

I'm just telling you, we don't want to hear you say that. And the way he kind of sings it, kind of like an advertising jingle, like really gets it, we don't want to hear you. It makes it into like a lullaby. And like, I mean, I definitely heard people saying that like that absent-minded when you're just walking around the house or whatever. We don't want to hear you say that. Do you guys think he, I was always wondering, do you think he was intentionally interpolating that Kanye line from Get Him High or something?

we don't want to hear that weak shit no more? Or is that just me that heard that connection? I didn't catch it. All right, Green, you had one that was similar or was that your same one or?

Your free quote. I think about the word best, you know, the semantics of all of it. And to me, it's the, a minor thing because we all know we're like waiting for the super bowl to see if the entire crowd sings a minor. And like, that's what, what's like what it is. But then when I think about so many quotables, like, is it the brains? Just no reason, no reason that just comes to mind. No one says the word brains. I'm like, is it the brains? Why did you say it like that? And then, um,

there's just there's just too many and like the the nigga line sticks to me the most because it's just funny and and i love how people uh took it he said it's not that deep and people took it that deep and started analyzing his racial background like any of that makes any sense in a battle and it was just it was beautiful that people actually questioned it right james what do you got

Yeah, it's got to be A minor. It's got to be A minor. But the other thing I was thinking about was the, let me see you push a T, just because... Yeah, the vocal inflection on it. It's so funny. And also, just the thought, it's such a meta bar in terms of like, just thinking of like people who aren't in hip hop, who have no context of that, like,

that sticking to them and then being like wait a minute what i mean with push a t and then them being like oh yeah to me i think it's just emblematic of the whole thing of just like or the point of euphoria that like you should be out of here and it's already self-evident and all these references i'm tying in are like functioning in the same way like it's just great writing

Yeah, I think so. For me, I think out of all, it has to be the A minor. It has to be just going to be a minor. If I'm trying to be objective, like the, you had kids screaming that you had, and then the, the, the visual layer now that we now associated with him, skip walking across the, uh, the hopscotch, um, and the way that the camera zooms out all everything, like to me, you know, that's such, that was already such an iconic, uh,

line from the song to then have the pressure of like what are you going to visually do to accentuate this line and then them nailing it in a way that we would never expect but we all kind of understand the adolescent theme of the hot you know it's just like brilliant brilliant like everything about that video absolutely brilliant but let me just like shout out a couple more that we didn't mention cool let me give drake some credit because he had a few um

uh how the fuck you big step in with that with a size seven why he had a few i mean arguably metro shut your whole ass up and make some drums like was one of the one of the bigger ones was but of course it ricochets back and hits him in the eye yeah but for him it had him it had a moment um

And also this one, which is legitimately funny. Kendrick just opened his mouth. Someone go hand him a Grammy right now. That's hilarious. The way he sung it was really funny. Um, but we didn't even talk about, uh, fuck the big three. It's just big me. We, uh,

Beecher asked, hide the Bible of God watching. Baca got a weird case. Why is he around? Certified lover, why is he certified pedophile? Like that whole end of the first verse is awful. Yeah, that wop, wop, wop. That wop, wop, wop is huge. The onomatopoeia is there. It's so awesome. Right around there, I believe it's the end of the second verse of Not Like Us, the city is a must-read.

City is back up. We are we outside to end on. We outside. I mean, we could do a whole episode on the deep beating of we outside or I'm outside in hip hop. And yeah,

I always envision somebody standing in front of a project building. Somebody's out to get them. I'm like, I'm not hiding. I am right here outside. If you want to get me, you can come get me. I'm not scared of anything. And that's a really powerful moment for Kendrick. Yeah. I think also to state the obvious, they're not like us.

itself is a huge quote yeah yeah yeah i'm not even thinking about that yeah right the whole song is quite yeah that's the that's the whole best song thing with me it's like yeah so something that's gonna live in our brains probably for the eternity of our lives of all lives yeah let me here's the thing with that right you listen to meet the grabs like once and you can still hear it you listen to not like us a thousand times

Meet the Grabs is seared on your sonic soul. After one listen, it's so painful and powerful. I agree with that. You know, the funny thing about that, my personal story of hearing that song was that I was putting my kids to bed because it was like late, you know, when that came out. At the West Coast, it was like, I think like 9, 9 p.m. But I couldn't wait to hear the song. So I was laying in bed with my youngest daughter waiting for her to go to sleep.

So I put my headphones on and listened to that song with my daughter laying right there next to me. Just like...

so it's a twisted twisted experience uh we're talking we're talking about that on the show we're talking about how it's basically jigsaw from saw kidnapping a family and talking to them while they're all kidnapped the song's crazy like it's really psychopathic and it's so beautifully written yeah i was seeing everyone's wrapped and i saw a few people with meet the grams on their top five songs i was like oh my god psychos i mean like look we have always held that

that the best first line in a battle, right? Fuck your bitch in the clique you claim, right? It's such a great, direct, right in the face. This motherfucker said, dear Adonis, and we all freaked out because we knew like, oh my God, like, where is this going to go? You're talking directly. That is the most powerful start to a battle song ever.

Just those two words said it that way, not yelling, but like calm and, and evil and menacing. And like, Oh God. One thing I've been wondering about to go back to not like us. So clearly like some of that was written post family matters, specifically the third verse, but how much do you guys think?

had that in the clip kind of ready i was almost thinking like did he have this even before he called out drake on unlike that knowing he would have this juggernaut of a hit song waiting like in his ammunition like essentially a kill card you know what i mean like a kill shot ready to go or do you think he he wrote it in that time frame between push-ups and euphoria where it seemed like he was starting to

stockpiling like 10 songs up to 10 songs. I don't know. Have you guys thought about that at all? Yeah, he had it. He had meet the grams already because he had an entire angle, an entire plan and he laid it out in euphoria. So he had these beats and already within that time period though, you know, cause there was like a two week time period where, where Drake's like telling him to pay, drop, drop, drop. He's like, I am.

I'm going to drop like 10 because I'm thinking about what you're going to do after I drop this. So obviously he had meet the grams ready already and he augmented things and change things. And same thing with not like us. That's last verse. He's replying to,

what he said, and he probably had it earlier in the week. I think it was just completely laid out. I mean, as far as we know from the few folks who have spoken from the sessions, there was the session where Kendrick did 10 songs in one session. I assume that's one day, but it could be over two days. And then he added a little bit to later parts of the songs

like later in the battle so where it appears that he's replying in some way that is a an addition a punch in later and i think you can hear it sounds a little bit different right green like like some of the late late lines and some of the songs that were like is that a reference yeah they sound different sonically like yeah you can tell the recorded after yeah difference and some of the punch-ins too like you could tell he's punching in certain things and certain things

Yeah, the Family Matters ball was definitely punched in. You can hear it's punched in. But it's so crisp, the way he does it. And we're so used to him changing voices. So when he creates this character and it's a punch in, it feels so natural because of how it's delivered.

But you could tell. All right. Well, let's close the chapter on Drake and Kendrick for now. We're going to move on to our more kind of holistic conversation about the year in hip hop and specifically highlight some of our favorite lyrics and dissect our favorite lyrics. We're going to take a quick ad break and we'll come back with that. All right. We are back. It is time to dissect our favorite lyrics.

lyrics of 2024. I asked all of you guys to prep three of your favorite lyrics and be ready to dissect them. I can start first with my first kind of nomination. I'm going in reverse order. I love all these lyrics I'm about to nominate, but I think I have a favorite and I'll leave that for last. But my first shout out is going to be

From Absol's Crazier with J.I.D. So this song is just absolutely incredible. It's one of my favorite rap songs of the year.

It is the classic case of two MCs kind of competing on the same track, just kind of elevating each other, knowing and respecting each other as lyricists. And, and so that inspires them to kind of bring their best work as well, because both of these verses are crazy. Um,

And I did a video on one of my other favorite lines from this song, the Justin Herbert flip, which I thought was really clever. But maybe my favorite lines from this song are these from from Absol's verse. So he says, bag full of blue strips like dirty diapers. You ain't the shit. If I had a genie, my only wish would be you and a genie. So what?

I don't know. I'm, am I the only one Tori you have kids? Uh, 17 and 15. Okay. So I have two, I have two daughters. This is, this is like, I think I like these lines because it speaks to me as a parent. So let's break it down a little bit. Bag full of blue strips, like dirty diapers. Uh, so he's talking about a bag full of high dollar bills, bag full of money, blue strips being the anti-counterfeit blue stripe that's inserted into high monetary bills.

But also dirty diapers, if you have changed diapers before, there is a yellow, thin yellow line that runs down the center of the diaper and it turns blue when it's dirty or wet. So he's making that correlation, which then sets up you ain't the shit. Obviously, dirty diapers, shitty diapers, clever there. I usually actually don't like shit like toilet bars, but this is a rare case where it's like really, really clever and thought out.

Because then he says, if I had a genie, my only wish would be you and a genie. So it's kind of a weird, confusing bar. Obviously, he's talking about like genie in a bottle and wishes. But if you're a parent, you know, there's a thing called a diaper genie, which is specifically a trash can.

meant for diapers so he's saying my only wish would be you and a genie meaning you the piece of shit in a literal diaper uh trash can which is all that the consistency the conciseness of just those three bars clever wordplay i could have plucked out essentially any any line from this song and dissected it but that was one i thought was just

really clever. So that's my first nomination. Torrey, you want to start with your first? Sure. I'll give you my first. Let me call up so I can read it. And

Since you guys are only talking about male MCs. For now, I got, for now. Bring some diversity. It's this conversation. Patriarchal conversation. I'm kidding. Dochi's first verse is,

on Nissan Altima is fucking ridiculous. She freaky cunnilingus Dalai Lama doji cooler than a fan, but she hotter than a sauna.

Take a trip out of Japan and I tsunami her vagina. Why did I or Betty Hana? Fine, whatever. And then she goes, I'm the new hip hop Madonna. She says that twice. I'm the trap race Jones. I love. And then she's going to follow us with a third, um,

I'm like Carrie Bradshaw, Sex and the City, with a back brace on. I've been carrying you bitches now for way too long. So three times she relates herself to a dominant alpha woman who was shaping and directing culture, who is highly influential, um,

This is funny. The vagina tsunami is hysterical. And the way that she spits this is so quick and rapid and the flow and the breath control and the mouth control. This is an extraordinary verse. And, you know, I mean, this is the year that we all were like,

Okay, so here's another person who's one of the top MCs in the game. I'm told there'll be a new album first quarter, second quarter. So like super excited about that. Beautiful. I'm glad Dochi got highlighted. I might be coming back to her shortly. Green, you want to go next?

Uh, yeah, I'm going with, there's lines from pie and there's just two couplets that are extended metaphors. J Cole's pie with a daylight. So it's like,

I like where bricks get karate chopped to maximize the dojo comprende. I wonder will my friends make it past the pearly gates so we could kick it, but based on what their sensei, probably not. I can't. Extended metaphors for me, since as a writer, they're hard.

They're hard. They're just hard to do. And that's what the Ab-Soul one is too. So it's like when you're taking that and then having double or triple meetings with this extended metaphor, it's like, what are you doing, J. Cole? What are you doing, Ab-Soul? It's like that Ab-Soul line was crazy. And yeah, in that verse, there's another one where he talks about, since birth, the kid knew his worth, never wallowed in sorrow. The game is dispersed in these verses. Bring a ghillie potential, a millie from Pencils.

But before that, he says to test my ability with this thrilling agenda, but it's hard to meet my match or my rap saying really that tender. It's like the money versus the writing bars throughout the whole thing. It's just crazy. And it just puts my brain in a paradox loop. And I'm like, I can't deal with why are you doing this on this verse? It's like crazy. But yeah, so I just I'm going with pie. I love that verse, except for say for a few lines.

There's a few lines that are questionable. And that's the thing with J. Cole. I was going to say, that's not an isolated incident for him. Yeah, that was my favorite song on that project, for sure. And Daylight killed his verse as well. James, what do you got? Yeah, I'm looking at my list now. One of my picks was...

A Rhapsody song. It's Marlena from Please Don't Cry. But yeah, she's got a bar on... There was two bars on this project, but...

Yeah, one of her bars is single solo, but I ain't ringless. I drive the Audi like Tyrese, my soul attached to me like a Siamese. So like she's a Tyrese bar from, what's the film? From Fast and Furious. So she's saying like, I'm single, but I'm not ringless because I've got an Audi. And that was another bar. What was the other bar? She had a bar from Asteroids.

which was like industry plants. I eat them, but like Dr. Sabie, um, yeah, just a load, a load of clever balls and that whole project. Yeah. I'm glad that got highlighted. That's a great album that came out early in the year. So I feel like it, all the early releases kind of fall victim to people, um,

forgetting about him a little bit. And especially at the, this last quarter we've had the tsunami of releases. Um, so I'm glad that you gave that some love. Okay. So I'll go with my second nomination, which comes from Lupe Fiasco's cake off of samurai. One of my favorite hip hop albums of the year. Yeah.

So talk about extended metaphors. Strap up, because this one is very extended. He says, authoring in August, wordplay is December. That means my pen is in cinders, and my delivery shivers like Siberian areas. This all rhymes. I'm not saying it in the way, the inflection that he makes all these words rhyme, because what I love about Cake is...

Both verses are just masterful in their alliteration and density of, of, of rhyming. So I'm going to read a couple more lines, but here's, he's setting up this hot, cold dichotomy saying authoring in August. So August hot weather, uh,

Wordplay is December, obviously cold. And then he says, my pen is in cinders, cinders being the remnants of ashes or flames or what have you. And then delivery shivers like Siberian areas, of course, Siberia being cold. But then that delivery is setting up the next extended metaphor, which is going to be based on both a literal ship and a shipping like a UPS, like shipping mail.

So he says shippers slip on the slickest icicles drip from the tip of my scriptures. Like fucking holy shit. If you ship this whole loop album, it's insane. So that, so that line plays off.

Both the cold and this now emphasizing this delivery motif saying shippers slip on the slickest icicles that, and I just love tip of my scriptures is just beautiful. And then he says, if you a ship on a trip, don't hit the tip of my glacier. So again, literal ship, but now he's setting up a Titanic reference, which he pays off on the next line. He says, swim with the fish and flippers. I finished my pictures.

So swim with the fishes, he's referencing, you know, which essentially murder, I'm going to be killing you. And then I finished my pictures.

referencing the end of Titanic with the ship sinking, obviously tying back to this swim with the fish, but also paying off on ship. Don't hit my glacier from the line before classic Lupe stuff. But again, I could have plucked any line from this, this album essentially, but specifically this song and it, the whole fucking verses are exactly this, like literally just density, super dense, uh,

and meaning pivoting from motif to motif and court, like somehow stitching them all together at the end, just masterful stuff. What we expect from Lupe, uh, obviously one of the best, I would probably call him the best lyricist, uh, in my lifetime for sure. Um, just lyricist, but Toray, what's your second nomination? Um, I searched far and wide and, um,

kissed a lot of frogs to get to this one. And it's a piece of Eminem from Fuel. And a lot of people really zoned in on the whole R-A-P-E-R diddy thing. And that was clever. This later in that verse, he kind of goes nuts, which is kind of sick, kind of a cousin of what you're talking about with the Lupe verse where he goes, you know, and in a way it's like,

It's just Eminem doing Eminem things. And this is who he has been training to be since he was a teenager. I once talked to him about how Proof, they would have a game. Proof would call him in the middle of the night and they would start to immediately talk in rap. But you couldn't just rap

the last word. You had to wrap like the whole sentence wrapped with whatever the other person said. So they've been doing drills to build up these pathways in their mind to see the world, to see the language in this way. He says, got the most content on...

on the continent and constant compliments give me confidence to cross of common sense. I'm a cross of common sense and incompetence. That is Eminem. Common sense times incompetence.

I'm cognizant that conflict's a consequence of accomplishment and comp is no competition. So there he's making reference to him being a battle rapper, right? The conflict is a consequence of accomplishment. He's a winner. I've conquered and conked him into unconsciousness.

No conscience. I conjure this King Kong or just that's where he kills me. King Kong or just rhyming with unconsciousness. Call me Kazakaz. Call me Kamikaze. I'm concocted this and just, you know, just to zone in on that sound over and over. But this is not meaningless. This these these lines actually make sense to tell a little story about him and who he is. It's an extraordinary bit. And the way he spits it is

far superior to the way that i said it that's beautiful uh green what you got yeah i love that i love that part i i so i'm most of the time i'm thinking about things from a technical aspect so i thought about the eminem i thought about um the uh lupe album but then i've thought about difficulty for a rapper too in complex writing in the sense of the third verse are not like us

To make a hit song and give out a history lesson is the most incredible task. Once upon a time, all of us were sent chains. Homies still double down, calling us some slaves. Atlanta was the Mecca building railroads and trains. Bear with me for a second. Let me put y'all on game. Like it didn't fall flat. It didn't feel like you were preachy. Everyone understood it.

Or if they don't understand it, they still were able to ride with the song and feel like, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, you ran to Atlanta. And he talked about settlers coming to Atlanta and talked about the history of Atlanta in a snapshot. That was insane for me as far as what the...

That whole, you know, once upon a time, all of us was in change. Homies still doubled down, calling us some slaves. Atlanta was the Mecca, building railroads and trains. Like, what are we talking? Like, I just couldn't deal with how great. Once that verse came on, I'm like listening to him, like the audacity of you to want to do this after doing this.

verses of just quotables. It's I'm gonna give you a history lesson with quotables in there with quotables in it. And for me, it was like the content was more amazing than the technicians abilities because there were so many technical feats like this year as professional

per usual. I mean, everybody dropped, everybody dropped. So it's like, there was amazing reps all year. Yeah. That way that he holds the audience's hand throughout that verse. Cause that, that concept easily falls flat with a line that misses or doesn't carry the narrative that he's building. Like any momentum shift or loss of momentum. I think it all falls apart. So the intricacy with which he weaved that all together is,

Again, to go back to my similar point of having this punchline in your back pocket and trying to work towards it to where that punchline is going to hit in the way that it does. It's just so mad. Talks about just authorship of penmanship of someone's mind being able to do that.

It's one of the, yeah. It's the focus on being, or the, and the skillset of not being able to have a throwaway and not for it to go over somebody's head. Cause when you're educating, and this happens so many times when I try to write rhymes, cause I, I'll write a rhyme about like, and it'll be like educational, but it's like, it's like, it's going over someone's head. People read at a fifth grade reading level. It's like, why are you using those big words? Anybody could understand that.

The seller was using town folk to make them richer. Fast forward, 2024, you got the same agenda. We can get that. Or once upon a time, just that statement. We all know that a story is going to be told by somebody who,

Who is a storyteller? I can't deal with that. Creed, the whole analogy there of white people went into Atlanta, took black stuff and made money out of it. And now you're doing that. Like that blew me away. I mean, you know, yeah, it's a history lesson. And I'm like, okay, now I'm in history class. But I'm like, I love this history class. Love it. It's hysterical. Oh, it was. And I think that's harder to do than,

than a lot of technician stuff. - Yeah, equally, yeah. And in a hit song to your point. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Crazy. All right, James, what do you got for your second?

For my second, I was, well, I was going to do the, I was going to do crazy as well, but for Justin Herbert part, but also you've already covered it. So I'm going to switch it out for, I'm going to switch it out for plate of collard greens and that last chunk of Coles Versailles on plate of collard greens, the deep down I hated Halloween with all that I have seen. Who needs another way to cause a scream? Yeah.

um, dangerous as the king of pop, how well they spin your block, no moves minimal, smooth criminals, the whole gang doing an insane amount of lean, uh, the saint prescribed for, cause there's no doc for pain in the heart, but there's just so much, so much there, um, Halloween, um,

Michael Jackson. The whole thing is a Michael Jackson flip. But yeah, Halloween is the thrill music video. No Way to Cause a Scream. King of Pop. Spin Your Block is like from the...

Things lighting up in the... I can't even remember which music. I think it's the Thriller music video. Yeah, Thriller video. And then No Moves Minimal, Smooth Criminals.

The whole gang doing the same amounts of lean like the Michael Jackson lean. And then prescribed for because there's no there's no dock for pain. The harboring is such a it's like a triple because also dock and harbor as well. Just so there's so much there. But yeah, insane. Same writing from Jake over. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I can't argue with that. That was one that definitely caught my attention on the first listen. Um, I definitely, the lean part was really clever at that. Um, cause that's such an iconic visual to, to literally lean into that. It's pretty clever. Um,

Beautiful verse. Beautiful verse. Okay, so... Go ahead. You say you don't like shit bars, and I usually don't like MJ-like bars. Okay, right, yeah. And that's what's beautiful about rap. It's like someone will find a new way to talk about it and make you interested in it. Because I think that MJ, that whole sequence was amazing. I was like...

This usually would be corny for me. But that lean bar, just like you said. It's so clever. All right. So my final nomination, which might, I guess, would technically be my number one. This was really hard. And I gave you guys two nominations of Lyrical Miracle stuff. But I think the most memorable line was,

And the most cathartic line for me of the year is off of Doji's Boom Bap, where she says, it's everything, I'm everything. The way, I mean, it's just two words, I'm everything. And I talked about this with her on the interview that we did together. But where it's placed in the album, where it's placed in the song, the album is so much about her.

Kind of convincing herself of her own greatness and shutting out outside opinions, trying to embrace who she is as an artist, someone that raps, someone that sings, someone that dances, that has this whole bouquet of talent that she's not trying to box in. And she feels like there's pressures from the outside kind of trying to influence her artistic output.

And the way that she bottles all that up and it's on the album, but it's also on the song where she's kind of mimicking rap, but also like paying homage to rap at the same time. And it kind of represents this relationship that she has with the expectations of rap and then to just blurt out.

Kind of like, it feels like we're discovering it with her in real time. The way that she performs, it's everything. I'm everything. It's like, this was the epiphany and we got to witness her expressing that epiphany in real time because the way she screams, I'm everything. It just totally goes off the rails in terms of like,

It's like, doesn't really rhyme with anything. It's off beat and she's just kind of yelling it, but it's also that in itself is expressing exactly who she is because she is everything and she's not in a box and she's not on beat and that's fine. That's like, that's why she's great is because she's not, she's an anomaly. She's, she's doing something different. And so everything about that line and, and just how succinct it is, the way that,

I described it to her as I felt like it was like kind of like her thesis statement, yet it's only two words, you know? And so for someone to like, we could talk about extended metaphors, we could talk about entendres and everything like that. But I think the important part about lyricism, about everything is just how it hits you emotionally. And there's different ways to go about

evoking different emotions in the listener. And this one this year, I felt like more than probably any moment in any album was kind of like the one that every time I hear it, I feel it.

I feel it for her. I feel it inside myself somewhere. And then seeing her perform it live and seeing the whole audience scream it, uh, it was just kind of encapsulates everything about what I love about her, the year that she's had the way that she, I mean, we're coming off the heels. We're recording this the day of the day after her performance on Colbert show, which was absolutely incredible. And again, showed you why she's like the artist of the future.

I had to go with Boom Bap, I'm Everything as maybe my lyric of the year. Torre, what you got? Same as you as far as the last one is just more direct.

I mean, the first verse of Meet the Grams is just this direct kick-axe to the brain. I'm sorry that that man is your father. Let me be honest.

It takes a man to be a man. Your dad is not responsive. Honest and responsive don't really rhyme, but it does. I look at him and wish your grandpa would have wore a condom. Now we're playing the dozens. I'm sorry you got to grow up and stand behind him. Life is hard. The challenge is always going to beat us home. Like, wow, you cannot escape the problem at home. I'm going to jump ahead a little bit because this makes me laugh. It's so serious on the record, but when you read it on paper, it's

Let me be your mentor. Since your daddy don't teach you shit, right? Because he's a good kid who needs good leadership. What's the first piece of advice that he gives the kid? Never let a man piss on your legs, son.

That's not the first piece of advice I'm giving. But as Drake's son, you do need that because you need to learn to stand up for yourself and be a man, you know, because either you die right there or you shoot him in the head. But like, there's no other option. But like, just, this is just an extraordinary direct to the frontal cortex, like,

just I'm killing you. I don't even know. None of us got through that without stopping and putting our face in our hands and going, what happened? Where are we? What's going on? It's Saturday night in my life.

Yeah. I was like legitimately disturbed after that night for like the family matters video kind of disturbed me. Just seemed like I thought it was at first I did think it was like the real, real good kid, mad city van getting crushed. So I was like, Oh man, that kind of sucks. Like that's like iconic. But then I found out it's fake, which I mean, what a symbol for Drake's whole fucking position in this battle that you've got a fake minivan to do this WWF fucking like gimmick thing. But yeah,

In the moment, I was like, oh, shit, that kind of sucks. And then, oh, fuck, it's like, Kendrick, really? Did he really beat Whitney? You know what I mean? So it's like, the truth of it wasn't quite clear yet. And then Meet the Grams comes. And after Meet the Grams, I was genuinely disturbed that night. It was dark. And I woke up feeling kind of gross about the whole thing. And then, just to get back to Not Like Us once again, the way that he was able to just flip things

The mood and the color of the battle, just like snap of the finger, like, okay, it got dark, but let's have fun again. And just the temperature switch of that was just so brilliantly strategic to highlight that. But yeah, Toray, great pick, I think. My picks, I tried not to do ones from the battle, but obviously I think all the most memorable ones

lines historically are going to be from the battle so great pick um green what you got yeah i try to do three different picks to the one was like technician one was content and this one is delivery and it's doji well they all obviously have lyrical capabilities also but doji on tyler's verse

I think that's my favorite verse of the year. I don't even want to say a line because the entire verse is amazing. She's floating on this track. Where the swamp is, fly his bitch up in the room. I need a cockpit right there. You got to

uh, entendre right there. I need some PETA for this pussy. Like they want the croc print. I,

It just keeps going from all the way there. And the whole gay bar from where she says, I'm finna air these DL niggas out the closet. I let it in, let it out. I'm a bi bitch, but I need that pussy now. If he is gay, then I am gay and we are nouns. It's so well written. What are we doing? This is like, she's floating too on this entire, floating on a song called Balloon. And it says it was,

that's my favorite doji verse outside of uh spooky uh coochie and she's she's probably one of the few female rappers women rappers that when they talk about their pussy i'm all ears i'm just like this is the bars are always fresh when she's talking about her pussy i'm like this is that was hard yeah just she thinks outside the box that's why she's

as far as upcoming rapper. I even like the reference on, I know it's supposed to be lines, but I said it's the whole verse. I even like the reference from where she calls back to her Alligator Bites album on this verse where she's like, I'm out in New York, walk around bare-toed. I don't need a passport. I'm a swamp bitch.

Because she's just going back to like, this is where I'm from. And I'm like, I'm in New York walking around bare-toed. And I'm being me. I'm going to put my whole self out there. And I'm being me at all times. And she started off from the beginning to the end. And also the airing the DL guys out the closet being Denial is a River from...

Alligator bites. Right, right. Yeah. And you didn't even mention the most iconic line, which, okay, it's the queef line, right? So, which, okay, it's just iconic on its own, but I love the way that she gives you the entire verse stops, right? There's that pause between

her verse. And then when she comes back with the queef line, so just that pause to me is like, cause she could have just done the verse that you talked about and like, that's it. And we'd still be floored, but then to come back with the most iconic memorable line after that, just insane. Uh, that whole, the whole, like, I think it's four lines. Um, it's so cool. Like one of my favorite lines from that is where she said, air your whole block out with the floor.

yeah which is like a nod to his perfumes his fragrance which i thought was just so cool like so clever uh such a clever flip on airing it out um so beautiful pick i love that doji's got three nominations uh spray your whole block oh yeah yeah sorry sorry yeah playing off of it yeah playing off the airing out like beautiful it's great i consider that a bridge

Kinda, but yeah, it is probably like the second end part of the verse when I think about it. Is that technically the chorus? Because she's playing off of Tyler's air that out like a balloon. It's a flip of that, which I think might be the chorus. Does it have a chorus? It doesn't even matter, but it's just so iconic and catchy. Like that whole part. Yeah.

And to see her perform it at Flogna was another moment. You saw her live too in San Francisco, right? Was it? Yeah, I saw her in Oakland. I don't know if you guys got to go to her show, but it was absolutely phenomenal. Did she do that or was that before? She did. So that came out like right before her performance. So she closed, her encore was, she came back out and performed her verse on Balloon was phenomenal.

So cool. Cause it was so in the moment, I think, I think it was that it was the Friday after the Monday release. So it was super fresh. I think it was her first performance of it. So, um, and that's just a nut since we're here, like that's another part of it. Not that many people got to go to see her tour because she was playing vent. Like the venue I saw her in was like maybe 200 people at the max. It was super small, but

And the level of performance and effort that she gave was absolutely incredible. She had a great like stage set up aesthetically. Her outfits were great. Like it was like a theater level show in an intimate venue. And you can just tell like the connection she has with the audience is really special. Like she's going to, yeah, we've talked about it. She's going to be one of those ones. So James, what was your, is this going to be your lyric of the year?

Yeah, it was, I've been debating because I've been stuck between two GNX verses. So either like the last verse on TV Off, because there's so many like Super Bowl flips on that, or the last verse on Reincarnated, because that's just insane writing. Yeah.

For me, I think Reincarnated is probably taking that pick. Just the whole rewriting of Isaiah 14, the whole conversation with God on that song. And also, it's the first time really on that album we saw Kendrick be introspective

in a way, like in a tangible way, that was about the beef. Because like, Wacked Out Murals was still really for everyone else. Like Reincarnated, it was very much like, okay, where am I being hypocritical? Where do I actually stand in terms of like my...

my ethos. Because even Watch the Party Die, that was still for the culture. It wasn't really, "Where do I stand?" Right. Yeah, I had moments like the chorus where he's talking to God, you can tell.

He's shown kind of those moments of introspection throughout the BV. I'm thinking of like that portion on 616 where he's talking to God again. But yeah, I think I agree where reincarnated God reincarnated such conceptually brilliant song. Cause to your point, it is very introspective, but it's also like, I think it's a big commentary on like Drake as a symbol, which, you know, obviously Drake became this symbol for something larger. And the cleverness of reincarnate is not only that is,

kendrick i don't know if he really believes it or if it's more theoretical but obviously naming these uh black musicians that he felt like some kind of spiritual kinship or lived literally as past lives and then using that to reflect on how do i use my influence for ultimate good and am i doing that correctly but it's like he's

That is also the story of Drake, right? And Drake is one of those artists that Kendrick feels like is abusing his power. And, you know, what is it? The second, the first verse, the first example he gives is someone using his influence for his own gluttony and dies in gluttony, which is what from Kendrick's point of view is making the case that that is also Drake's story right now. And that he's not taking this microphone that he has seriously, right?

and not even really considering those things where it's kendrick i feel like he's battling with the imperfections and the errors that he's make but at least he's trying i think is kind of like the big point that yeah it's the whole work in progress thing and i feel like

I feel that difference is part of what lost Drake the battle, that just a complete lack of self-awareness. Because I think Kendrick... Because Kendrick gets a lot of slack still of the savior angle, even though he's let go of the moniker of it. But the thing I've always...

Well, we can have that conversation because I felt at some degree on GNX, he's also picked it back up again. But I also think Reincarnated is him being honest about it, which I think, which is what I think I appreciate about Kendrick. Because Kendrick is honest about like, for a hip hop artist, there's this side of me that's just ego and just wants to say that I'm the best. And there's this side of me that's like,

Wants to pick up the culture and that there are odds at some level and I think instead of Kendrick being like oh I'm a savior who's like inaccessible and I can never do any wrong He's like no, I'm a hypocrite who's trying to work out their differences. I prefer that personally. Yeah, is that something? Green I was gonna ask you because I think this is something that maybe you I mean if I'm recalling this wrong, let me know but like that

The superiority or that holier-than-thou, you could have that perception about Kendrick specifically with his battle with Drake. You could just kind of say this was a petty beef and this is all ego and him wanting to flaunt his ego and be crowned the undisputed champion, so to speak. Or, and or, it's Drake is a symbol of something larger that Kendrick sees as problematic in this culture that he beloved.

And maybe those two things actually can exist. Maybe they're both at the same time, right? Like those, it doesn't have to be either or, right? Maybe I'm too into the, maybe I'm too Kendrick-pilled, but I do believe that he is a deeply mission-based, righteous-based person. And some of the stuff we hear on 616, where he's saying,

I was minding my own business. I was living peacefully. I don't want to go to war, but then I have to. And like, this was about a mission to rid fakeness, anti-blackness, anti-African-American-ness. You know, a fake person is in our midst. We ain't gonna let that slide. But also I want to go back to, James said,

something to the effect of that's why Drake lost the battle. I don't feel like this is like sometimes two teams or two opponents like get into a sporting contest and like, you know, if you had done better with that, with your run game or whatever, you could have won. Yeah, no, I don't mean that. I don't mean that you could have won.

I don't think there's any way Drake could have won this at all. There's nothing that he could have done with the exception of Kendrick falling on his face and failing to release at all. There's not a technical ability in Drake to be able to be on the same level as a Kendrick. But even... There's a line that sticks with me from a man on the street thing that happened actually in England where they asked his brother about the battle.

And he said, Drake is talking to us and Kendrick is talking to Drake.

And just that perspective difference where Drake is like, can you believe this short guy? He keeps dissing me. And Kendrick's like, you're a pedophile. You're a horrible person. You're not African-American. Stop saying nigga. Like, God damn. There's no way to win when your perspective is completely in the wrong direction. But I don't think there's a technical ability for Drake to be... Earlier, Jay-Z and Nas, those are two...

are two equally talented MCs. They were totally different places in their lives at that moment of the battle. This is, you know, varsity against the JV. So, like, it would be great to see, like, God forbid, Wayne versus Kendrick were actually able to happen. Then you'd see two serious MCs going at each other. You know, really haven't seen that in a real way in a minute. What do you think about that, Green? Because I...

I get what you're saying, but part of me doesn't want to disrespect Drake's artistry. Why not? Because I think a push-up... I thought you were on my side, Cole. Well, I'm just trying to be a good host here. But, you know, push-ups...

showed some promise and it's like a one, one song versus one song. I don't think it's like clearly going to be Kendrick game over. I think, I think the long, the extended kind of length of the battle is what really showed Drake's weakness and his lack of strategy and maybe Kendrick being superior intellectually. Um,

Because I don't, I mean, obviously I prefer Kendrick and I think he's the better artist, but in terms of like making songs, I don't know. What do you, what do you think about that, Green? Yeah, I think there's a lot of, when it comes to the battle, I want to talk about like my perspective going through it. It's like you were living in a world of just abundance of music. And then this bomb comes like that. And it's like,

this guy came out and said something and said he's there is no big three i'm enjoying first person shooter last week or the day before that song drops now i'm like oh it's happening and me and my friends all my rapper friends were like why ain't kendrick and drake ain't battle yet this for 10 years for 10 years we're having this this discussion and then it finally happens it's like superbowl it's okay but one push-ups dropped and we know kendrick we all feel like kendrick's a better writer push-ups drops

We're kind of worried. We're like, is there an angle here? Like, what are you what are you saying? Euphoria drops. We love it. But it was not what we thought Kendrick would do. I'm not I'm like, you didn't kill Drake. This didn't kill Drake. Euphoria did not kill Drake. Family Matters comes. I'm like, whoa.

They might. There's a video. It's just such a spectacle. They're like, they might. This might crumble like the house that hip hop built, which is Kendrick Lamar and what he represents, which and I'm going to go into the whole reincarnated thing, too. But what he represents, this this this mission statement of we want hip hop to be.

to survive it's like crumbling and then meet the grams meet the grams is what i was asking for and he gave me too much i said yo i want i want a burger someone gives me 17 burgers with bacon and cheese it was too much i was like i and that's the writer i knew right and i think about

When I think about Drake, I don't know. He collaborates, he writes. The guy has hits. It's undeniable. This guy makes great songs and has great... Yeah. Has produced great music.

So it's possible, however you've produced this music, you could have with the right angle. If you were a different human being, he could have won that battle if you were a different human being. And that's the problem. Yeah. Yes. No, no. How could I beat Kobe Bryant in one on one if I became a different human being? No, Kobe Bryant. Listen to what I'm saying is that.

You have, you're talking about being a good person or different human being versus this technical skill of creating and writing songs and the team you might have behind. I don't know, but when it comes to Drake now, so we know that he has the ability to write a song. It's now, it's the perspective and the cultural cache that's, that's was missing. Which is by the way, Kendrick's point, right? So it's like his point played out within the scope of the battle. And that's where I'm saying like the longterm of it.

1v1, one song versus one, that's in a vacuum. Drake's right there, I think. Also, do you know what I was thinking about the other day? Is that the whole angle of push-ups is about Kendrick's label split. Yeah.

Now, push-ups, when you scrutinize it, especially in retrospect, the angle he tried to take was just objectively bad. In the moment, it kind of worked and it was funny and it was lighthearted, but the dirt of it didn't stick in the way I think Drake thought it might. Because of the context. As you receive more context as the battle goes, it changes. But when we're just talking about...

Yeah, at the time.

You are a BDS. But let's talk about the reincarnated thing in my perspective of what Mr. Morale is saying. And I think from the beginning of Good Kid, Mad City, this is just his ethos of like, there's this duality of I'm a good kid in a mad city to pimp a butterfly.

We're being damned. I am always... I battle with myself and these ideas and the environment and the world that I'm in. And I think it's just what a beautiful... What art is. And he's just going to have that consistency. And Reincarnated is, like, to me, the end of To Pimp a Butterfly. It's just... It's just him saying... Because, you know, I remember I was conflicted, misusing your influence. It's like...

Okay, so he's talking to Tupac. Wait a minute. I am Tupac and I am these other artists. You are those other artists as well. And we have this battle. And I rewrote this story of a fallen angel. Like Lucifer is a fallen angel. We have this duality in all of us. So before you point a finger, you point a finger at me, there's three pointing back at you. That's what that reincarnated thing.

Is saying in the simplest. Yeah, that's I mean, that was one of the points I was going to bring up because one of the lines that I was going to nominate was every individual is only a version of you. How can they forgive when there's no forgiveness in your heart? And that's God talking to Kendrick slash Lucifer and the way that that extends the scope of the song beyond Kendrick, beyond Drake, beyond

black musician with an influence. Because the story of a fallen angel is a story of all people, right? Especially from a biblical perspective of original sin and of us working through. So that was the beautiful part of Reincarnated that I think is actually kind of getting overlooked is that

It's a little heady, but it's just like, yeah, we're all reflections of each other. We're all on this extended kind of evolutional humanitarian journey together. And we're only as good as the person next to us. We're only as good as the person we see in the mirror and how all these things connect, how Kendrick stories connect with our story. You know, it's like,

The way that he was able to express that subtly, but I think it's all in there. And it's also in the title reincarnated. It's also in the fact that he is reincarnated as Pac, but never says anything about Pac. It's like all these things, layers on layers on layers. And at the big, the biggest scale, when you zoom out the furthest, it's the story of humanity, which is fucking wild. Let me ask two questions. And this is for everybody. Um,

Because of that, and like the theme of that being throughout the entire album, it's also the theme of him as an artist, right? And that's what makes him like my favorite artist in hip hop kind of like ever because they have like a voice. This album, have you guys figured out where it sits within his catalog? Or are you guys still thinking?

Hold on. Before you answer that question, can I get Green to refine the question? Because you have shaped my thing on this by... And both of you have laid out like it's a mixtape. And you guys don't even call it an album on your TikToks. You just say it's a mixtape. So should we not...

view it differently than Mr. Morale, et cetera, because we concede it's not an album, it's a mixtape. Well, I think that-- Isn't that part of the question that we have about it at this moment, right? -Yeah. -Like-- I think that's what you're-- I feel like there's too much up in the air at the moment. Um, 'cause, yeah, I even-- 'Cause my-- My thesis statement for my review was like, "This mixtape is weird, but excellent." Um, which I got a lot of flack of people being like, "Oh, this is a mixtape." Um...

But yeah, I'm fine. Yeah, they disagreed. A lot of people, because a lot of people are like, oh, you're only calling it a mixtape because you're like, oh, it's not good enough to be an album. Which I'm just like, you don't understand how... Yeah, it's like, you just don't understand how mixtapes work. It's like, you know, Alligator Bites, it's a mixtape, right? It got nominated for a Grammy for an album. But yeah, I'm finding it so difficult to place it because it's also...

It's also non-conceptual. As in, it is conceptual, but it's non-conceptual in the way that Kendrick usually frames his albums. So I've found it so difficult because it's still beautifully sequenced. I would argue it's one of Kendrick's best sequenced albums. Interesting. But it's still the least conceptual. Better than anything else, though, to you? I think...

This is so difficult. I think for different reasons, it works on its own merit better than Mr. Morale does, which is a bit crazy to say, because it's non-conceptual, but it's sequenced perfectly. Like there's nothing that feels out of place. There's like five songs that are the West Coast sound. There's seven songs that are more of like services fans more.

he's still keeping the same narrative thread from the beef and still doing flips of like, have you ever done, have you ever had Caps and Crunch cereal with water instead of, have you ever, like...

conceptually and time-wise it's i think it succeeds more on its merit than mr morale did and even for for kendrick i mean the conceptual point is really the point where you really mark the difference and marked why it is a meaningful difference that it is that it is not conceptual and a snapshot ergo a mixtape rather than

a time capsule and an album, right? Like the contextuality is what makes it, what makes the difference meaningful. And the lack of that

element that James is talking about to me is everything. It defines the difference between a great album and a good album. And even if I don't love every song, if every song is working toward a point and reflects a vision that we're going to tell a story, that to me is more meaningful than, you know, 12 bank. I go back to Thriller versus Off the Wall.

Thriller is a collection. It's a great as his collection. There's not a meaningful thread that pulls it together off the wall as an album because it is sonically and lyrically in terms of the meaning of the story he's telling about a young man in the clubs trying to find love, trying to dance. That is a singular memoiristic story.

That's an album. And when Kendrick and others create Off the Walls, I am much more excited, even if I only actually love half the songs, than a great collection where the songs don't have any relationship to each other. Yeah, that's kind of where I am with it too. I would say generally speaking, it's hard for me to place what it is at this moment. I think conceptually...

Yeah, it's not giving us the classic Kendrick concept record, but you can also view 2024 as its own kind of concept or conceptual framework that you can't really view this album. I mean, the album works on its own, but the conceptual stuff we're looking for from Kendrick is actually all implied with what came before this album.

But I think things could very much easily change and our perception of the album can change over the next couple months, depending on what he does, if he does drop something else or if he gives a deluxe version. I think once that question is answered, I think I'll have more confident thoughts about what this project is and where I place it. But yeah,

I would say personally, if I'm talking about just like my, like my favorite or my most enjoyed, like I really enjoy the album. I skip a lot of songs. A lot of times, just depending on what mood I'm in, which is a weird phenomenon for me with a Kendrick album, Kendrick album. Yeah. Cause usually if I'm putting on a Kendrick album, I'm listening from start to finish and I am not skipping the conceptual box for me. And that's why I respect Kendrick so much is because he creates albums like that. So yeah,

With that said, I don't put it above any of his past work. Good Kid, Butterfly, Damn, Morale, all are above this album for me, personally. That's not to say it's not a great album and I don't enjoy it, but it's just a different experience for me as a Kendrick fan and someone that is kind of studying him as an academic, I guess. So...

but it's a great album. I fucking love playing it in my car. I would say that, um, that some of the songs are just like so fun and it's really, it is fun. It is nice to have a Kendrick. It's not a, I wouldn't say it's a fun album, but it's nice to have an album that I can skip around. I can add songs to playlists, not feel guilty. Um, so that's, that's my thoughts on it so far, I guess. Um,

Okay. So let's move on to the last couple of categories. We don't have to spend like a ton of time on each of these, but, and I'm going to actually sit this, this cat, these categories out myself because next week I'm going to have my second part of this year end wrap up episode, which is talking about my favorite albums, my favorite songs of the year. So I'm curious, this is going to act kind of like a bridge into that episode. I'm curious to hear your guys's first, your favorite song of 2024 and,

And if you want to do best song, favorite song, I don't really care. Just whatever you want there. And then your favorite album of 2024. So Torre, you want to start with your favorite song and then favorite album?

Wait, I had best song and I'm now you're saying when you said favorite now that's a little bit different. Okay. Best song. It's fine. Well, I mean, you know, best song. I mean, I returned to, I returned to beat the grams in the sense of like,

you know, your dad or your grandpa has like the special whiskey or the special wine. We don't pull this out for just everybody. We don't, we don't, this, this is for a special, as I cannot listen to meet the grams 99% of the time, but every once in a while, it's like, Oh my God, that was a, that is a special achievement in hate. Yeah.

Right. And, and, and even just yesterday green, we had a great conversation on rap latte because there was like, there's no anger in that song. It is hate. It is calm, surgical hate. And in a world where like, we kind of like love hate and give some, some special props to people who can really, really hate on a, like a high level. Like that is,

an extraordinary thing um if you want favorite oh my god you know glow rilla just every time she opened her mouth she didn't say nothing and it was incredible she's a phone book artist she could read the phone book over a trap beat and i would be all into it right tgif

you know, what else she had? What was the joint she had with Meg and Cardi? That shit was hot. She had like four fire joints this year that just blew me away. So, I mean, just Glow had an incredible year, even though, as we've been talking about, Kendrick had

Maybe, maybe one of the very best years in hip hop history. And God forbid he releases an actual album between December 12th and 15th. Forget about it. All right. What about you, Green? Favorite song. So I'm going with what they talk about. They talk about nothing. What they talk about. They talk about nothing. Huh?

They don't know nothing. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, that's my bitch. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, that's my bitch. Hey, hey, hey, hey, with all that fake shit. Hey, hey, hey, hey, ain't the one to play with. Yo, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, that's my bitch. That probably is triple platinum in my house. My girl mad as fuck at me because I just be singing that for no reason. That is my fake hands down favorite song.

song of the year and surprise bitches is Chuck E. Cheese he's like FaceTime my opps I'm up the street it's so ignorant it's so beautiful it's one thing about this album that I love that isn't talked about enough

is the ability, like I've said, Kendrick, to create character and create these new moments. Everyone's creating hooks that we've heard before. They're triple time. It's melody driven. He's creating hooks that are memes. He understands the internet, never on the internet, but is using...

mean tactics for all of these records. What are they talking about? They talking about now? What are they talking? Is that even on the beat? Like where are we at? It's the most beautiful 2024 chorus ever. And we're going to yell it in these stadiums.

When he's playing with SZA. I just can't deal with how good he is at rapping right now in 2024 and the things that we take for granted, like his ability to change tone, voice, just meme records that have substance behind them. The most substance-filled guy is making meme records. Can we sit in that for a second? The guy that we sit here and think about

One line for five hours. Did this. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. That's my bitch. It's the... Peek-a-boo. Peek-a-boo. 80 pointers like a Kobe game. Peek-a-boo. Like, I don't know. I'm just popping my collar all day to that song and I can't...

You know the funniest thing about this? It's the last one where he's doing the back and forth and I'm just like, you're trying to make me believe that this isn't a meme chorus. Yeah. This is so... This song's hilarious. It's amazing. All right, James, what's your...

Favorite song of the year? Favorite song. If we're talking best song, it's Not Like Us. Favorite for me is Take Your Mask Off on Chromicopia. Okay, great. You ain't gotta hide from the truth. Tell your family why you such a recluse. Tell your spirit why you feeling it's a rap in the booth. Dog, how dare you try to ruin her marriage. Claim you never wore a mask and how you don't care. Because yeah, I think watching Tyler grow up in his albums...

I mean, it's been kind of emblematic of the story of 2024 in terms of your original point at the top of this conversation of the difference between 2023. The fact that Tyler grew up in his music this year, I think it's just emblematic of the whole conversation, especially that last verse of him critiquing himself. I was just like, yeah, hip hop is so far removed from...

how like down hip hop heads were about it last year yeah i think that might be my favorite song off of that album but i'm going to talk a lot about chroma copy in my next episode so i'm going to save my thoughts for that but beautiful pick uh you guys want to share your favorite album of the year

Let me do one first. Let me go first just because I don't know. I don't think these two are going to say it. My favorite album is Ka's album, Thief Next to Jesus. It is the most beautifully done.

I just feel it's a beautifully soulful album that I've heard in a long time. And coming from this neo-Boombap sound that has resurged within the 2020s, this is a great culmination of everything that has happened. This is a guy that I found out about years ago, but didn't dive into his record until probably this year. I started listening to all his albums. And then before he passes away...

He drops a masterpiece. Like this is a masterpiece thinking about like black people's space in religious space, black people's spirituality, his own spirituality. It feels like he's thinking about and contemplating his own death. And before he passes away and coming terms into peace with so many, uh,

things in life, his own religious perspective, his own fan perspective on family and community and culture. And the first, the second song beautiful is exactly what it is. It's one of the most beautiful things I've heard in rap music. And just like, uh, I love that album. I've listened to it. That was over and over before Chromacopia. And there's so many great albums this year. It's actually stupid. It's crazy. It's actually crazy.

Tori, what was your album of the year? So, again, I got to come back to the definition of an album. It is a cohesive statement that says something about what the artist thinks about sound or what the artist thinks about themselves and what they're going through in their lives. So,

In You Really Look At It Like That, GNX is not an album. Chromacopia is an album that has something to say about the way hip hop could sound. It has something to say about what Tyler is going through as a person who is 30 and trying to figure out, do I have children? What does that mean? What is that going to look like? What is my life at this point? Chromacopia. Chromacopia.

And perhaps one of the most dramatic moments in 2024 hip-hop outside of the battle

Tyler's mother telling him, actually, your father totally wanted to be part of your life. I blocked him. Sorry about that. After years of Tyler's father being the central villain in his music, come to find out we had it wrong. You had it wrong the whole time. And like, that's a really deep moment. And the way it's rolled out and presented is a really deep moment. And there's so much on this that's

ear candy with I killed you and uh sticky and you know thought I was dead and but there's so much here that's that's beautiful we on on rap latte last week we talked about there's very few musical creators in hip-hop who aren't just give me a beat let me rock over it

But people like Kanye, Travis, Tyler, was that the whole list, Green? There's more than that, right? Yeah, there's more than that. If you want to include Pharrell in there. For sure. But Pharrell's a producer, not really a writer, not really a rapper. These people that we're talking about

create dynamics within their music. The music will have movements. It will flow upward, downward. The song will stop. Different things will happen. And you're really interacting with the music in a way that other genres do more often, as opposed to hip hop, like I said, which is quite often, you get a beat and you rap over it, and that's the song. And that can be great.

But when you have an artist like Tyler who can bring different things out of the mix and make the song have shapes, that blows me away. So yeah, Chromacopia is an extraordinary moment for Tyler and for hip hop. Beautiful. I will be sharing my thoughts, which are very similar to you, next episode. But James, you want to end this category with your favorite album of the year? Yeah, I...

This, I mean, I said this before, but I struggled with this album pick because too many great albums this year. But I landed on Chromacopia as well. Yeah, I think it's just...

Yeah, it was just such a moment where I was like, the rollout was perfect. It was so well thought out. And then, yeah, just seeing Tyler invest in every song, the sequencing was beautiful. The only other album that I almost picked in front of this was Blue Lips. Because, yeah, just...

And just a great hip hop album. There's been other great hip hop albums, but yeah, it's Chromicopia for me. Beautiful. Okay. Great picks all around. I think that's going to wrap today's episode. Thanks to all three of you guys for joining. That was really fun.

I'm going to be joining the Rap Latte podcast after this. So if you want to hear that episode, I'm sure it will be out by the time that you're hearing this now. So go follow Rap Latte on YouTube, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts, and you'll hear Torre and Green. On that show, I'm going to have all your guys' links to social media in the episode description. So make sure you follow all three of these guys. They're doing great work.

And if you like Dissect's content, you'll 100% like their content as well. But thanks, guys. This was just really great. I'm going to have to have you guys on maybe next year to do the same thing. Thanks, man. It was fun. Thanks for having us.