Rakim has shown love to Kendrick Lamar for shouting him out on The Clipse’s new track “Chains & Whips.”
The rap legend took to Instagram on Saturday (July 12) to acknowledge Lamar bringing him up on the track. “I salute you KING!!!” he began. “Thnx for the illest shout I heard in a loooong time, and keep up the incredible work my brother, you ain’t no joke !!!! Peace and blessings to you and yours.”
On the track from the Clipse’s new album Let God Sort Em Out, Lamar raps: “Let’s be clear, hip-hop died again / Half of my profits may go to Rakim.“
Check out Rakim’s post below to hear the lyric:
Last year, Rakim shared his thoughts on Lamar and Drake’s rap beef and how it revitalized hip-hop. “I think that it was important, because these brothers are at the top of the game, and revered hip-hop,” he said during an interview with Billboard. “You know, a lot of people in that position won’t accept no challenge, because they got too much to lose. So, it was dope that these brothers put the mainstream success down and said, ‘Yeah, let’s do it.'”
Rakim added that the beef revealed the difference between “real” and “mainstream” hip-hop.
“The battle put a lot of things in perspective — because it showed the difference between real hip-hop and mainstream hip-hop,” he explained. “Younger artists now know that there’s a difference. A lot of them didn’t even understand that.”
He went on: “They just listened to the majority, not knowing that a lot of people don’t categorize what they were hearing as real hip-hop. The battle was very needed for the genre. I tip my hat to them brothers. Let’s just hope that it stays to the music.”
