{"id":494110,"date":"2026-03-25T08:17:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T08:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/494110\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T08:17:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T08:17:10","slug":"i-dont-know-if-battling-needs-to-be-a-part-of-the-culture-anymore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/494110\/","title":{"rendered":"I don\u2019t know if battling needs to be a part of the culture anymore"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jay-Z<\/a>\u00a0has\u00a0weighed in on\u00a0the\u00a0Kendrick Lamar and Drake beef<\/a>, saying he\u00a0doesn\u2019t\u00a0know if \u201cbattling needs to be a part of the culture anymore\u201d.<\/p>\n

The high-profile duel dominated headlines in 2024 and 2025,\u00a0spinning out from\u00a0a back-and-forth trade of diss tracks<\/a>\u00a0to become\u00a0a heated defamation lawsuit<\/a>\u00a0and a complex feud that\u00a0impacted\u00a0their personal lives<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Jay-Z\u00a0had a remote part to play in the beef as it is his Roc Nation company that\u00a0ultimately selects\u00a0the Super Bowl halftime show headliners and\u00a0Lamar\u2019s show in 2025 saw him lead a singalong of the contentious lines in \u2018Not Like Us\u2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now, in an extensive interview with GQ<\/a>, Jay has spoken for the first time about the feud. He said his point of view\u00a0is based on the\u00a0current status\u00a0of the \u201cfour pillars of hip-hop\u201d, namely \u201cbreakdancing, graffiti, DJing and battling\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said breakdancing is \u201cnot at the forefront of rap anymore\u201d,\u00a0graffiti is now \u201cnot part of hip-hop\u201d and \u201cyou\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0even know the DJ for half of the artists anymore\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the last pillar is battling,\u201d he added. \u201cWe love the excitement and I love the sparring, but\u00a0in this day and age\u00a0there\u2019s so much negative stuff that comes with it that you almost wish it\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0happen.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, people that like Kendrick hate Drake, no matter what he makes.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0like an attack on his character. I\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0know if I love that. I\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0know if\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0helpful to our growth where the fallout lands, especially on social media,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0too far.\u00a0It\u2019s bringing\u00a0people\u2019s kids\u00a0in\u00a0it. I\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0like that. I sound like the old guy wagging his finger, but I think we can achieve the same thing, as far as sparring with music, with collaborations more so than breaking the whole thing apart. It could stand it before because there was no social media. You had the battle and it was fun and then you moved on. Right now, I\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0know if it could stand it with the technology that we have.\u201d<\/p>\n

He concluded by saying he\u00a0doesn\u2019t\u00a0know\u00a0\u201cif\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0worth it at this point\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if battling needs to be part of the culture anymore. We grew from breakdancing. We love graffiti. Before, the MC\u2019s job was to bring attention to the DJ\u2026. I want to hear what the rapper is saying. Now the last pillar is battling, and these are all the things that come with it. I hate that I have this point of view on it. I do. Because I know what it sounds like. It\u2019s just how I feel about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He went on to clarify his position, adding:\u00a0\u201cThere is clearly an agenda to silence voices in our community, a heavy\u00a0right-wing\u00a0agenda. And the culture is happily playing along in the name of this insane thirst of Stan culture to have something on the other side. We are in a strange time. I\u2019m curious as to how this plays out!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

In October, Drake\u00a0filed an appeal to revive his defamation lawsuit against Universal Music Group<\/a>\u00a0over Lamar\u2019s diss track \u2018Not Like Us\u2019,\u00a0after\u00a0a federal judge ruled that the allegedly defamatory statements made in the hit song<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 among them that Drake was a \u201ccertified\u00a0paedophile\u201d (Drake has continually denied any wrongdoing) \u2013 qualified as \u201cnonactionable opinion\u201d and dismissed the suit.<\/p>\n

Shortly after the ruling was thrown out,\u00a0stats emerged showing that \u2018Not Like Us\u2019 had re-entered the iTunes and Apple Music Top 100 song charts<\/a>. In the latter streamers\u2019 case, this was across multiple countries. Similarly,\u00a0the\u00a0day of the ruling, the track was said to have received upwards of 1 million streams on Spotify.<\/p>\n

As for Jay-Z,\u00a0he has announced a pair of stadium shows in New York to celebrate his classic albums<\/a>\u00a0\u2018Reasonable Doubt\u2019 and \u2018The Blueprint<\/a>\u2019. The Yankee Stadium shows will mark the 30th\u00a0and 25th\u00a0anniversaries\u00a0respectively of the two records, on July 10 and\u00a011.<\/p>\n

Jay-Z is also set to co-headline the Philadelphia festival Roots Picnic with The Roots <\/a>on Saturday May 30.<\/p>\n

His most recent full headline performance was a 2019 show at New York\u2019s Webster Hall, while he was last on stage in July 2025, when he joined his wife, Beyonc\u00e9, during her final \u2018Cowboy Carter\u2019 tour date in Las Vegas<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jay-Z\u00a0has\u00a0weighed in on\u00a0the\u00a0Kendrick Lamar and Drake beef, saying he\u00a0doesn\u2019t\u00a0know if \u201cbattling needs to be a part of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":494111,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,677,128,678,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-494110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-hip-hop","tag-music","tag-rap","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}