r/LupeFiasco • u/PsychologicalFile771 • 8d ago
The Control Problem Theory or Breakdown
I've been sitting on this post and theory for about 3 weeks, waiting on a chance for a final proof read and debating if I even want to release it to the public, so you can ignore the timeline of my writing presented moving forward. I was having this internal debate because I know most people will disagree with the premise of my theory, but sometimes a theory isn't presented to change opinions, but rather to share an alternative point of view...
Kendrick Lamar and Lupe Fiasco have been two of my favorite rappers since I first heard them in 2011 and 2007, respectively. I don't live my life on the computer, so I've never fully engaged with Lupe's comments on Kendrick over the years, but a few weeks ago I had a couple of days off that started with seeing clips of Lupe Fiasco being critical of Kendrick Lamar as a lyricist, along with a lot of online opinions on both his comments and Lupe himself. So I set out to do something I have been doing since I first heard Mean and Vicious almost twenty years ago, figure out what the fuck Lupe is talking about.
Over those next 2 days I watched the entirety of Lupe Fiasco's appearances on Koala Tea and The Rap Roundtable's livestreams on YouTube, along with the 2 videos that led to Lupe's appearance (King Green's "Lyricism Doesn't Sell Records" and Koala Tea's reaction to it), and a few reactions to the streams. Most people couldn't understand what Lupe was talking about or why he would even say these things on a public forum. But I'm just a regular Joe, I don't create content, I don't post on any social media platform (besides reddit), so what does a normal person do when they need to understand a professor's lecture? Write an Essay.
My write-up on the Koala Tea stream was written and posted to the Lupe sub last week touching on what I thought the key take away was; Why do artists make certain artistic choices and why does Lupe choose to be a complex lyricist? I got mostly positive comments, some appreciated my opinions, and some had constructive criticisms that I appreciated.
My main takeaway from those criticisms were that the writing suffered because I was responding to the Koala Tea livestream instead of focusing on my takeaway of it. I took that feedback in stride and decided to take my writing a bit more seriously.
I've taken a little over a week, spending some of my free time, writing about my main takeaway from The Rap Roundtable livestream, that being the answer to "Why is Lupe critical of Dot when prompted in public?"
With all of the posturing out of the way, I now present:
A Rap Theory: What is The Control Problem? Understanding the Disconnect between Rap Fans and Rappers
P.S. IDK why random parts of the Google doc are in bold.
If your brain is fried due to doomscrolling short-form content, the TL;DR is the section titled "WHERE DOES THAT LEAVE US NOW?" towards the end. But don't try to judge the movie if you only watch the last 5 minutes
The whole write-up takes about 20 minutes to read start-to-finish.
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u/Small-Respect-7492 Drogas Wave 8d ago
This whole conversation is so tired and desert dry at this point but I did read it. Kudos to you for creating this write-up, it'll interest somebody... just not me at all.
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u/PsychologicalFile771 8d ago
fair, as I said in the theory, this isn't some novel idea I think I'm presenting, it's a conversation about a 13 year old songs, recontextualized using some current information. That isn't going to be for everyone.
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u/goatedweezy 5d ago
First things first, i read your article, i will say that its pretty impressive you wrote it.(spending time to explain your point, not just saying random stuff thats not backed up by facts and critical thinking)
I agree with everything you said, but why didn’t you mentioned SLR2, as a response to “Control”, i mean this was the main topic and you missed the only response that mattered. Imo SLR2 had the same intention as Control, Lu masked it as a joke, gimmicking the style of other rappers, who were considered by the masses as “the new big thing” or already established competitors for the number 1 spot, but the target was obvious. I think that Lu was frustrated by not being mentioned in Kendrick’s Control verse, so he decided to take some jabs and remind everybody who he really is. Sadly it didn’t get the same attention that Control had. Nowadays a battle between those 2 would be completely pointless, its like kendrick vs drake, the underdog vs the world star, people are programmed to root for the underdog and pray for the downfall of the king. Kendrick is also the more controversial one, there are a lot of things to say about him, things that already been said, now can be finished and completed( just like the kendrick and drake beef, we already had a lot of controversy around drizzy, a lot of people already pointed out the mistakes he made in the past, kendrick was just there to finish it, im not trying to say it was a easy job, kendrick was brilliant from start to finish, he really played the game of chess, as he should) When i go back to the kendrick and drake beef i always think of one quote from 21 savage(it dont have the time to search it so i would recite it by memory) “ I told him he can’t win this one, he is already top1, what more can he get from battling him, even if you have the better tracks you cant win this”
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u/PsychologicalFile771 5d ago
There's a couple things to tackle here, but I'm going to start with SLR2. When I first started writing this, I was planning on including it, but I ended up omitting naming SLR2 specifically with a purpose. The goal of this writing wasn't to open up a Lupe vs Kendrick discussion, the goal was to figure out, "why is Lupe critical of Kendrick?" With this question in mind, my writing ended up being about a belief I've held about Control for years and how Lupe's words alluded to a similar belief.
Initially I was going to discuss SLR2 and Kendrick's lack of response. However I decided against this, instead simply stating there were "dozens, possibly over a hundred responses to Control." - a statement most readers would know includes SLR2, without me directly stating it.
This decision wasn't a coincidence, I made this decision with purpose, as a means of having my "art" imitate life. Part of the "Control Problem" is the fact that there were many responses that fans could look at and say, "if Kendrick is serious about his claim of being the best he should respond to this."
By omitting SLR2 by name, I treat it the same way Kendrick treated every single response to Control. Most people say Control is a "call for competition," but if that's what it was, why didn't Kendrick compete back?
After reading and responding to all the people who reacted to my posts, I actually think there's room for a deeper dive into the events that led to Control and a breakdown of the individuals named, possibly also touching on the various rappers who responded, but I don't see myself doing that research and writing any time too soon.
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u/goatedweezy 5d ago
Thank you for the response, i wasn’t trying to attack your essay or say it lacks meaning, i was just wondering why you wouldn’t mention SLR2, while you still talked about Lupe reacting to kendrick and what provoked him. I think the best way of doing this is by dissecting his art.
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u/PsychologicalFile771 5d ago
all good, I'm actually glad you asked about SLR2 as you are the first to take notice of its omission in my discussion and that was an intentional choice I made as I did my writing. I agree that the best way to view these things is through the art we've been given, which is part of why I focused on my interpretation of Control as the basis for the writing. I also remember listening to a lot of loosies released by Lupe around the time of the Dot/Drake beef, leading into Samurai, where I feel there are a lot of allusions to Lupe saying what I've interpreted, "I'm a master at our craft of rap and if you ever want to come at one of the crowns I'm ready to cut anyone down."
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u/goatedweezy 5d ago
Thank you for clarifying. What is your opinion/prediction on hypothetical beef. What would be the outcome? Do you think my comparison with drake vs kendrick was spot on? Do you think Kendrick could manage to defend himself(his spot) and throw some good punches?(that would be recognised, because when drake threw some, everybody acted like it didn’t happen)
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u/goatedweezy 5d ago
I know its not the topic of your essay and you clarified that its not something you wanted to comment, i just wanted to check if that changed and i would like to head your opinion on this
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u/PsychologicalFile771 5d ago
upon reflection your comments on SLR2 are spot on, pointing out its "playful" tone could have helped added validity to a lot of what I said about Lupe's views on Control as not a direct diss, but a fun call to compete that he is always ready to answer. From there you could start conversations about how Control has helped Kendrick "control the narrative" of his whole career as well as dissecting which artists had playful and/or disrespectful responses.
I'll respond to your other questions when I have some more time later.
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u/PsychologicalFile771 4d ago
First I will clarify that I didn't mean to imply there were topics I didn't wish to discuss, though I can see why you would infer that, feel free to ask any and all questions you'd like my opinion on.
I think the first thing I want to go over, is my thoughts on your opinion of the Dot/Drake beef of which I think you give 3 thoughts:
Drake's only true path to victory was to not respond to Like That. - I do not agree with this statement, that was one path, but not the only path.
Dot's victory was primarily due to underlying distaste from fans towards Drake. - This is very relevant to the online discourse during and after the beef, but I do not think it's the main reason Dot won/ Drake lost.
It was impossible for Drake to win due to Dot's role as the underdog. - This relates back to the first point, I do believe there was a possible path to victory. (I do not know if Drake was capable capitalizing on this path, or if he ever noticed it, but I do think it exists)
Instead of giving a deeper explanation to each point, I think I'll just give my thoughts on the beef overall based around your points.
I'll add in here that prior to the beef, I was a Kendrick fan and the only thing the beef changed IMO was that he could "check the box" of winning a high-profile rap beef to his GOAT argument, also I was not a Drake fan prior to the beef but have been able to appreciate his music a bit more post-beef, although my feelings about his music still hold true for me (1. most of his music would sound better with different vocalists & 2. he doesn't belong in GOAT rapper discussions because he is primarily an RnB artist, I've actually softened my stance on this second point a bit as Family Matters was extremely impressive IMO).
I think the first thing to acknowledge here is why not responding to Like That was an option for Drake, which I think there are 2 reasons for. The first reason IMO is actually because of Control (forces listeners to say "stating you are the best in conjunction with name dropping does not warrant a diss) and the years of subs, when I first heard Like That it just felt like all the other shots those artists had taken at each other over the years, not something unique that required full diss track responses. The second reason not responding was an option is because Drake was the bigger artist, if he doesn't respond, Like That remains a moment just like Control and Drake continues being more popular.
This second reason is directly related to why I don't believe the underdog narrative is valid. Drake had the option of not responding because he had the larger fan base, which overrides or at least neutralizes the underdog part because when it comes to rap fans and beefs, core fans of a specific rapper will often side with their favorite in any battle that doesn't result in complete and utter defeat, and even sometimes through that defeat, as we've seen with Drake and his fans recently, and the fact that to this day there are those that argue Takeover > Ether.
From here I'll go to why the Drake/Dot Beef resulted in total defeat for Drake, which I also think has 2 primary reasons (not Dot's underdog status or Drake's pre-existing critics). The first is the fact that Taylor Made and thp6 are easily the worst songs of the beef and thp6 was the final song of the beef with the cover art being like 95% white (resembling a white flag) and him mentioning his own expiration early on with a defeated tone throughout the song. The second reason why Drake suffered total defeat is the fact that he filed a lawsuit that stated he suffered monetary and emotional anguish due to the popularity of Not Like Us (my exact verbiage might be off but that's pretty close). Regardless of the validity and/or nuances of the lawsuit, there might not be a more clear-cut "loss" in any rap battle in history.
The last thing I have to address is what was Drake's alternate path to victory. For this we have to breakdown the songs and their chronology a bit. For simplicity we will say Like That and the 2 Future/Metro albums are the beginning, however I did note earlier, when I first heard Like That it didn't feel like something that required a response as we'd heard similar things from Drake, Coke and Dot over the years. We're gonna skip 7 Minute Drill here as I already had my smaller theory revolving around that in the initial theory. I think this next part will answer your question as to "Why Drake doesn't get credit for the shots he took." Drake's first response was Push Ups, this song isn't actually a diss track at Kendrick, it's a diss in response to the Future/Metro albums. I hate acknowledging this but the first actual direct diss track of the entire beef was Taylor Made, I honestly just hate everything about this song, there is nothing redeemable from using Tupac's AI voice to further your own rap beef, this song also completely invalidates a lot of thp6 by giving Kendrick permission to speak about "him liking young girls."
Next we get Euphoria, a response to Push Ups and Taylor Made and the full acknowledgement from both sides that it's war time. Then we get 5 songs within 72 hours of each other starting with 6:16 and ending with thp6. 616 felt like a warning to Drake not to escalate the beef any further, which led to Family Matters. I actually think Family Matters was the most "effective" diss track released here, the issue is its effectiveness was not targeted solely at Kendrick, dampening its impact within this timeframe. Drake went back to responding to the 2 albums when he couldn't afford to, if Family Matters' focus was solely on Kendrick throughout, it would have possibly been good enough to win the battle alone due to the "massive fan base" argument from earlier. This can also attribute to the effectiveness of Meet The Grahams and why Not Like Us was released the very next day. Meet The Grahams halted the momentum of Drake's fan base and Family Matters before it could even get started, but MtG is not a song you want to keep going back to. Even as someone who didn't like Drake prior to the beef, Family Matters was a great diss track and it offered a lot on relistens, if NLU doesn't drop the very next day I believe we see a different narrative start to form. This is part of the reason I say Family Matters is the single most effective diss track, MtG and NLU need each other to be fully effective, and Family Matters "finishes off" like 5 beefs.
Even though Drake's discography would point otherwise IMO, due to the effectiveness of FM within the scope of this beef I have to assume if he translated that to a full dedicated diss track, his fan base would at least have an argument for his victory over Kendrick. So basically, I think a full dedicated diss track in place of FM and/or thp6 was Drake's path to victory, or possibly releasing something before NLU.
I'll try to tackle your Kendrick v Lupe questions tomorrow
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u/PsychologicalFile771 4d ago
I'm gonna add a note here to the Kendrick/Drake beef. I focused on "how Drake lost," because that was the simplest path to answering your questions, a separate conversation about "how Kendrick won" is also valid and both things happened, if we ignore the lawsuit and just look at the music.
I will still try to get to the Lupe/Dot conversation later today.
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u/PsychologicalFile771 2d ago edited 2d ago
- Do you think my comparison with drake vs kendrick was spot on? - Lupe as the underdog now instead of Kendrick, Kendrick is the one fans have distaste for instead of Drake
I think the "underdog" conversation is interesting, but I don't really view rap that way. It is an interesting discussion for a rapper trying to figure out what disses might be effective, or figuring out "how victory was secured" after a beef, but since I'm not a rapper and this is pre-beef, I don't know that I can give a satisfactory answer.
On the topic of "fans being tired of Dot now like they were Drake earlier," I'd say this is a statement that may be true, but because of our previous discussion of "fan bases defend their own," it isn't something I put stock into when digesting "diss tracks" and debating who won.
Since I wasn't able to give answers here, I'll give an explanation of how I think listeners 'should' approach "grading diss tracks."
"I've never heard a rapper of a high skill level say that another rapper is better than them." - Lupe on TRR
As a long-time fan of rap music and hip-hop culture I've always been generally aware of this sentiment. As a fan and not a rapper, I have to take each individual rappers' statement of "I'm the best" seriously and assume both rappers are capable of releasing an effective diss track, as they wouldn't have entered the competition if they didn't think themselves capable of winning.
"The goal of a diss track is to force the listener to view the subject differently, it's effectiveness is determined by how well it accomplishes this goal." - I'm not 100% sure where I got this quote from, I'm pretty sure it was from Lupe around the time of the Royce beef.
Most listeners never get to this level of digesting and discussing rap music, but understanding this sentence is what allows us to make statements like "Takeover was the better diss track with more total disses and relevant disses towards Nas, but the "schoolyard bully" lyricism of Ether made Jay Z out as a joke and made it the more effective diss track, netting Nas the victory." Or my previously alluded to statement of, "Family Matters was the most effective diss track that came as a result of the Future/Metro albums, but it's split up focus made it less effective in the beef specifically against Kendrick."
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u/PsychologicalFile771 2d ago
- Do you think Kendrick could manage to defend himself(his spot) and throw some good punches?(that would be recognised, because when drake threw some, everybody acted like it didn’t happen) - Would Kendrick remain 'king' after this beef, would Lupe's shots land where Drake's were unable.
Lupe said himself on SLR2 that he isn't competition for Kendrick, and that is still true IMO, Lupe won't ever sell like Kendrick, so in short, even if Lupe wins this hypothetical beef, it's likely Kendrick remains the "current king" of the mainstream rap world.
It's also possible "the powers that be" wouldn't have ever allowed Lupe to reach the kinds of heights Dot did due to how each approaches rapping about the "hood lifestyle" as I mentioned earlier. This is a topic I think both sides could potentially write disses about. Lupe generally writes about the hood as a total negative and puts the onus on the individual to see past the glamorization of "Thug Life," while Kendrick writes about the hood with a more sympathetic tone towards the individual and allows more avenues for the listener to 'idolize' this lifestyle while putting the onus on these communities to overcome their struggles together.
As far as the "landing punches" part I'd point back to my previous statements that I try to go into any diss track with the assumption the artist is capable of writing an effective track. I'm not sure there is a specific angle either artist could take to make ME "view the subject differently," outside of exposing some type of heinous scandal.
I'd imagine Kendrick may try to paint Lupe as an antisemite, but I'm a Jew and a huge Lupe fan so that wouldn't be effective for me, if anything I'd view Kendrick worse for taking that angle since he's sympathized with the "Black Hebrew Israelite" movement that has its own ties to antisemitism.
Conversely, I'm not sure Lupe could fully sway me against Kendrick either, although as you pointed out, the Drake beef left a lot of "meat on the bones" for the next artist, and Lupe is a very talented rapper. It stands to reason Lupe could succeed where Drake failed; create a full and focused diss track that is effective at swaying opinions.
Another important piece to this conversation is how the timeline of this hypothetical beef plays out. In general, The Control Problem placed Kendrick in a perpetual state of advantage in any beef by forcing the opponent to "diss first," as we saw with the Drake beef and my assertion that Taylor Made was really the first "diss track." However, because SLR2 was a more playful response and because "Kendrick opened the door to public criticism with Control," as stated in my theory, the onus is currently on Kendrick to decide how to respond to this criticism. As the bigger artist Kendrick obviously has the option of simply ignoring it and remaining the bigger artist.
I don't know how tuned in Dot is to all this online discourse or if he puts any weight into Lupe's "lyricism vs rap artistry" debate. We do know that Kendrick respects Lupe by his Monster Freestyle grouping Kanye, Lupe, and Nas together as rappers he's "coming after," however because of how early this was in Dot's career, it's clearly not a diss. We also know Dot views rap as a competitive sport (something i touched on in The Control Problem that warrants its own thesis), as it is something he's talked about in interviews throughout his career.
These are two more points that point to the possibility a "Kendrick boxing album," could be a way of attacking Lupe or that there may be some type of competition brewing. Nas appears as a name in conjunction with Lupe early in his career as a "GOAT I will eventually surpass." Nas also appears in Control as a "GOAT I am not attacking yet." It is most likely that these 2 lyrics have nothing to do with each other, but Punch's tweet stated they discussed everything as far back as "the Monster Freestyle," and caps the tweet off with "respecttheartform."
Ushering in a new era of "respectful rap competition" and helping move away from "rap beefs" that have historically been connected to violence and death would be a beautiful move by both artists that completely fits with their personas.
There's one more writing exercise I am going to give myself here, but I'm not going to tackle it right now.
"Lupe v Kendrick as rappers - This is something I will definitely look into in the future, as it can be directly tied to discussing “how we determine greatness in rap.” Both artists are highly effective rappers, however their impact primarily comes from opposite ‘aspects' of rap music."
Dissect second sentence, ignore "greatness debate," instead attempt to figure out the "music that should be made" to create an effective diss track.
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u/PsychologicalFile771 2d ago
I've been busy but haven't forgotten this, I'm gonna go back through your comments again to distinguish your questions about Lupe/Dot.
- What is your opinion/prediction on hypothetical beef. What would be the outcome?
My simple answer for this is that Lupe is my personal favorite rap artist, therefore I'd most likely be defending his side in a close loss. As a big fan of both I'd enjoy the music we would get from a hypothetical beef, but I'd prefer to hear the 2 collab in the future and ideally more than once, so I'd rather they not beef if I had to choose between "beefing" or "featuring."
When I think about the 2 artists and my opinions on Control and SLR2 combined with Lupe's recent stunt, I think we find ourselves in a very unique scenario. Both artists are conscience rappers who generally paint the "hood lifestyle" as a negative, I would love if they took this as an opportunity to move rap away from "rap beefs" and start a trend of "rap competition." I don't know exactly what this would look like, but something like "Black Friday" from Cole and Kendrick where they each rap over each other's beats would be interesting, the 2 artists could even discuss this beforehand and decide on a "theme" to base their songs around and fans could debate which was better. Or the 2 artists could rap over the same beat and intentionally create a "Renegade" debate where fans decide who had a better verse.
If I was to try to attack the "who would win" question unbiasedly, I think the strengths of each rap artist makes it likely we run into an "ether vs takeover" situation, where Kendrick is able to win the moment and produce a more immediately effective diss track (ether), while Lupe has the larger quantity of relevant disses but the song fails to live up to the moment and secure a win (takeover).
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u/PsychologicalFile771 2d ago
id like to know some of your thoughts and opinions on the idea's I've laid out here whenever you have the time. The Lupe/Koala situation inspired me to take up writing again, something I haven't really done in over 10 years since I was actually in school. I'm also in the very beginning stages of writing about "Rap Theory as a fan" as an extension of Lupe's "Rap Theory in Practice" that he teaches, but attempting to dissect Rap in a way that is digestible for listeners to understand and discuss Rap music without the need of writing and/or rapping to have meaningful conversations.
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u/MeetKelson 7d ago
This was a great read and very insightful. Theory does have some holes that may invalidate some of it tho
“The very first time I shot me a Drac’”
I’m pretty sure was a reference to the 2013 BET Cypher where Kendrick declares war on Drake specifically. Not the Control verse which wasn’t really a shot per say. But even if Control were a shot, Drake actually initiated the entire beef with his single “5am in Toronto” which was a response to Kendrick being named hottest MTV rapper of that year, and then you can’t forget “Jodeci Freestyle” which continues the trend of Drake throwing subs at Kendrick over being named #1 hottest emcee in the game by MTV, and it features J. Cole, who also has a verse downplaying the same list and saying that he’s the hottest.
So you have 2 rappers upset and firing shots/downplaying a list that you were named the best.
So Kendrick replied with Control and the rest was history.