All right, we need to talk about this Kendrick Lamar pop-out show performance

This was a recent one-off show Kendrick did over in California, and the whole thing was just a massive, gigantic celebratory victory lap after he pretty much unequivocally won the biggest rat beef of the century.

I'm sure all you guys are caught up on the news and the context of all that at this point. The only people who seem to be behind and clueless with all of it are Drake fans who are, for whatever reason, still convinced to this day that he won. And this performance here just adds to the ever-growing pile of evidence that that is, in fact, not the case.

Who is deleting evidence of these tracks having been released off their social media in the first place? It's not Kendrick, it's Drake. And who is out here performing multiple songs from this round of diss tracks live with pretty much every person in the crowd reciting them back at him word for word for word. It's Kendrick, it's not Drake. In fact, I highly doubt at this point that Drake would even dare to perform something live like The Heart Part 6, for example, when he does his next live performance, big massive stadium-sized live performance.

And if he in fact does, I doubt it will be well received and that most of his fans might not even remember the bars. But yeah, even with Kendrick not releasing any more tracks or adding to this beef with more material, more output, he is still twisting the knife and still making it hurt for Drake, not only through those who appeared and performed and were involved in some way, shape, or form over the course of Kendrick's set, over this whole multi-artist, multi-set performance as Tyler, The Creator who was there, who was an interesting appearance, considering that he and Drake were not always on bad terms. Relations between Drake and Tyler were pretty great at one point, but Tyler has very clearly chosen a side here. Members of Black Hippy were in attendance and performing as well, and I think that's important, considering the way Drake and Drake stands were framing things, and Kenrick separating off into his own label, pgLange, so on and so forth. There were questions as to whether or not there was still cohesion between him and members of TDE, Black Hippy.

There was an intro that was kicked off by E-40.

And speaking of old-school influential, massive, important legends, Dr. Dre was in attendance as well and performed a couple of tracks with Kendrick "California Love," "Still Dre," because this whole thing for Kendrick wasn't just merely a performance of his songs that he beat Drake with or even a performance of some of the most classic songs in his catalog, it was also a reminder of how important the West Coast is in terms of being a major influence in hip hop culture. Because to remind you guys, Drake took this thing to places that weren't necessarily just personal, which granted, that was also the case for Kendrick. But Drake went so far as to not just disrespect and offend Kendrick and Kendrick's fans, but the West Coast in general, which, I mean, as a rapper, it doesn't really matter how big or huge or influential you are. You're only going to get so far doing that. Why Drake didn't see this blowing up in his face in retrospect, I don't know. But clearly, his presumed Teflon untouchability was not in operation over the course of this beef. And that's proven in the multiple names and artists who basically decided to take part in this event, in this performance.

And celebrate with Kendrick in shitting on Drake even further. I mean, even YG was around at this thing, and it's funny how he ended up in the mix, especially given that Drake mentioned him on one of these tracks as proof that, yeah, Kendrick, he's not really LA. He's out of touch. He's out of state. He's not actually a gangbanger, so on and so forth. Then further down the road, there's YG right there celebrating with Kendrick. And I mean, again, why Drake didn't see this coming? I don't know, because YG's breakout album is hugely influenced narratively and stylistically by Good Kid, Mad City. YG is clearly a Kendrick fan.

But yes, lots of artists and celebrities and performers of all stripes were involved or dancing on stage during this thing. Kendrick's set involved, as I said, multiple tracks from this round of disses, not just euphoria, which kicked the entire set off. Kendrick's performance was electrifying. The low lights, the red everywhere was bone-chilling. Kendrick was actually also adding extra bars and details to the song, One Line, about Drake having to give back Tupac's Ring. He did 616 in LA as well, and he topped the entire set off with five various performances of Not Like Us and gave the crowd the instrumental one more time at the very end.

And yeah, the performance itself over the course of its hour plus run time was already hype. But by the time you were getting into multiple plays, ways of not like us. It was just turning into complete pandemonium. Coming away from this, I don't know how you could possibly see anybody but Kendrick as the winner here because he beat Drake not only in terms of writing and performance and quality of music in the midst of this beef, but he also beat the guy in the numbers game, too. And to put the final nail in the coffin on this thing, clearly, Kendrick was able to turn out a massive audience and a star gutded guest list, not to see a performance of some new hit album he has out or anything like that. No, it was to celebrate the fact that lyrically, he beat the ever-living daylight out of Drake and turned that man inside out. Moving past this point, though, I don't know if in the long term, this beef and the way that it played out is really going to affect the overall hierarchy of the mainstream in hip hop. I think as long as Drake continues to churn out a super popular, super bland, widely accessible hits, he most likely will continue to maintain some pretty massive chart positions.

But I wouldn't be surprised past this point if this whole thing didn't cause Drake to operate a little bit differently, tone it down on the tough talk, tone it down on the constant sneak dissing, and I don't know, maybe actually make some true and real and honest friends in the music industry. Because for how many records, how many songs, for how many years now have we heard Drake say over and over and over, I got no friends, I have no friends in the industry, friends with nobody, no new friends. Unfortunately, that really came around to bite him in this instance.

I mean, look, everything that I'm saying here is obviously being given by somebody who has a total and utter outside perspective. But Drake's nonstop obsession with just his own personal success, and only that, has robbed of the ability and the capacity to move and truly dominate and eventually call on the culture that he supposedly is the king of. If this performance in Kendrick winning this beef is proof of anything, it's that the numbers that you see on Spotify, the monthly listeners, so on and so forth, chart positions, they're not necessarily a reflection of cultural weight and impact.

Because, again, who is the artist who's doing a performance like this, pulling off a performance like this, it's Kendrick. It's not Drake. Drake's not doing a Response Toronto show where everybody is wrapping Family Matters back at him. That's not happening. That's not going to happen.

Also, Amazon broadcasting this thing onto the Internet, that's pretty cold as well. Drake's never going to shop at Amazon ever again. But yeah, those are my thoughts on this whole victory lap, Kendrick really wrapping this thing up with a bow. It's great to see the hype. It's great to see the unity. It's great to see a killer performance. And this whole beef and all the Kendrick tracks that came out of it really, truly are just the gift that keeps on giving. What are your thoughts on all of this?

Anthony Fantano. Forever.