WCS 31: ‘Everlasting Bass’ is really like that

Why does Kendrick vs. Drake vs. J. Cole remind one of the GOP on Capitol Hill?

Looks like “pretender to the early 21st-century rap throne” will be in the first paragraph of J Cole’s eventual obit. Other than that, we have no dependable status update on the greatest rap battle since those two kids got shot to death in the nineties. Check your social media drug of choice.

It’s a fight at the top of the rap game that reminds me of the Capital Hill battle within the GOP. Sometimes hourly, conditions have shifted in the musical feud that initially involved titans Drake, Kendrick Lamar, and the aforementioned J Cole. Here’s hoping this fascinating competition stays musically brutal, but not physically harmful.

The song’s sample is from the group that played my first LA rap show,

So much has happened since Kendrick Lamar dropped a surprise verse on Future and Metro Boomin’s fire March single “Like That.” The diss verse—which I’m still hearing multiple times a day—exploded existing tensions between diminutive King Kendrick and—let’s just say it—the light-skinned guys. 

J Cole went back at Kendrick with a punch so mid that his career is now in crisis. Sure, it’s unfair that mid equals wildly unsuccessful in musical beef. But this is Greatest Rapper Alive beef, and these are just the rules. Drake came through with a brazen, AI-driven diss track, extremely well written, but lacking in depth. Representative output, in the eyes of some. 

Sometime Drake ghostwriter Rick Ross weighed in with a track that probably violated his non-disclosure agreement with the Canadian MC and definitely took the mushrooming skirmish in a racial direction.

When non-participant Ye dropped his left-field attack this weekend it became clear that “Like That” had broken out of its ring. It’s alive and it’s wild and I don’t know where the song is next headed. Someone put out an APB on “Like That!”

There’s a lot going on beyond occasionally brilliant MC shenanigans. Like the “Everlasting Bass” synth sample that drives “Like That” and all its remixes. Rodney O and Joe Cooley’s West Coast classic is a song I heard them do at my first LA rap show.

Florentine Gardens on Hollywood. In the winter of 1994-95, hip hop was still proving itself. There hadn’t been a national tour in years. Biggie and Tupac were still alive.

And the show was joyous.

I know that’s a concept hard for anyone who wasn’t listening or going to shows before gangsta music and social media put an insurmountable distance between rap and joy. But on a bare stage, Rodney rhythmically rapped observant, if pedestrian, rhymes about his modest LA stardom. Joe would step out from behind the turntables from time to time and dance. 

The crowd went apeshit when he danced. Easily among my top 30 live shows. 

Hip hop was unequivocally better when it was in touch with a happiness that the Future life can’t buy.

Now that all of that is settled, let’s dive into the 10 narratives I most want to be part of your small-talk lexicon.

10 Supremes weigh in on how criminal homelessness can be

Grant’s Pass people have stared at me, as I tried to grab a meal, just passing through. Most who know of this extremely white and insular Southern Oregon town of just under 40,000 have just passed through. So, here’s what you should know about the municipality whose homeless people have sued to be decriminalized.

The Supreme Court is hearing the case today.
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• Three involuntarily homeless people sued the city over fines. Grant’s Pass case prevent “governments from proactively addressing the serious social policy problems associated with the homelessness crisis.”

• One of the suit’s original plaintiffs, Deborah Blake, has since died.

9 The NBA Playoffs have officially begun… or have they?

Banned journeyman Jontay is the biggest punchline in all of sport. And Nance’s Pelicans fought valiantly in nearly upsetting the Thunder at home. But the home teams won all eight match-ups, a first. So here’s what stands out in a weekend of unerring consistency.
ESPN