Good morning Daily Beat family! Now that the pleasantries are out-of-the-way, let’s talk about yesterday. In a rebuttal to Kendrick Lamar’s verse on ‘Control’ by Big Sean, legendary DJ Funkmaster Flex just released Joell Ortiz's response to Kendrick Lamar. The lyrical fire storm is a 3 min rapid fire rebuttal from the Brooklyn MC, who goes in on Kendrick's claim. First he states that he isn’t the King of New York, then he continues by saying that because Kendrick is now a main stream “rich rapper” he has gone soft and lost the true edginess that made hip hop so famous. Ortiz goes on to say,

You rich rappers can't respond with all the dollars you get. Gangster rappers can't retaliate with hollows and clips. And you fashion rappers wear the kind of jeans that hardly can zip. So zip it, I got this shit real hip-hop in this bitch.

Not only is he taking a shot at Kendrick, but a shot at the current hip-hop culture as a whole. Joell believes that the entire fashion and lifestyle being sold is not “real” hip hop. If you continue to listen in, you find that Joell’s track is just a brutal delivery of puns, well-timed metaphors, attacks on Kendrick, and attacks on mainstream hip-hop. Couple this with his aggressive yet fluid delivery and you have one hell of a counter strike in this "War of the Lyricist." This could be what I was talking about on my original post covering the spark that started all the controversy. Could this be the return of battle hip hop? Only time will tell. For now, all I know is that finally I may start listening to hip-hop again.