if I was already of the opinion that Kendrick was going down that road it would have reinforced that opinion. I would be pretty mad at Kanye for that same line in the same beef.
but I think there is a perfectly plausible reading where that’s not what he’s going for and I’m choosing that one
[note: I can't see the OP]
I don't know if 5% stuff is always a red flag, Wu-Tang is full of 5% stuff but AFAIK they have never had any issues with antisemitism
I mean, the Five Percent Nation "philosophy" isn't far from anti-Semitism, I'm not sure that the reference to it here encompasses all of that, just shorthand for figuring out references. But I could be wrong!
yeah I guess my thought is that there's some fucked up shit in there, but also some people have steered clear of that, so an isolated reference to 5% doesn't set off warning signs unless there's more context I missed!
like some Black Hebrew Israelites are cool and some are Very Much Not
I had to go look up what it even was and it's amazing how many layers of culture there are that you can just keep peeling back and peeling back. I had no idea any of this existed!
I'm not sure i can see the reading where it isn't, it's an answer to the lines Drake wrote - "always rappin like you bouta get the slaves freed" in reference to lamar, which was itself in response to the allegations that Drake is too Canadian to make the n-word not a slur in his usage
the angle of attack has fairly consistently been "you're insecure about being black enough and end up acting racist because you're too Canadian. please stop using random attempted Jamaican accents and saying the n-word"
i guess I'm just not sure where Judaism enters into it in the verse in question, seems mostly to be comparing past south us exploitation of slaves with drake featuring artists to borrow street cred, sell records, and feel like he's part of African American culture.
which doesn't mean there isn't something, but i also took the 5% adjacent stuff right after to be a reference to the Drake track "6 God" and the Takeshi6ix9ine conviction so i might not be making the same connections
