Kendrick Lamar may have assisted Playboi Carti on his new album MUSIC, but it's Lamar's previous effort that reached this sales metric first. GNX is reportedly the first hip-hop project to sell over 1 million album-equivalent units in the United States this year, which is unsurprising given its massive Super Bowl sales boost in February. We're not here to say whether or not all the botting claims against him are true. Rather, it's just impressive to see this sustained success in the face of them, although future developments could certainly paint it under a different light.
Of course, we're talking about the controversial defamation lawsuit against UMG on behalf of Kendrick Lamar's rival, Drake. He accused the label and distributor of illegally manipulating the sales of the "Not Like Us" diss track in order to spread supposedly defamatory content about the Toronto superstar. After various developments in this legal action, many OVO Stans assume the worst when it comes to K.Dot's commercial performance no matter what material they're talking about. Sadly for fans desperate for information, we doubt this will ever be clear.
Kanye West Kendrick Lamar Rant
In addition, Kendrick Lamar faces pushback from his former collaborators. One of many Twitter rants from Kanye West targeted Kendrick for ruining Carti's album, dismissed his claim to the hip-hop throne, and overall dragged him as a "pawn" of Lucien Grainge and UMG. Other fans didn't care as much about this as they did about the inherent hypocrisy in collaborating with the Atlanta creative after calling Drizzy "a f***ing deadbeat that should never say 'More Life.'" So anywhere you look, the love gets fake, and the hate gets realer. But the Compton lyricist seems defiantly comfortable with this position of power, for better or worse.
It's been a year since the Kendrick Lamar and Drake battle, and both of them should be celebrating their career achievements as of late rather than holding onto this saga. Fans will never let them let that go, but the veneer of both victory and defeat is starting to wash off of both. They continue to dominate the charts, but will the beef really amount to nothing more than a commercial and fandom-based face-off? We're not exactly watching the party die, whether that's a good or a bad thing.
