Linx Go Live: The Pop Out

Written By: Anthony Seaman

Weeks after “Not Like Us” nuked any signs of life within the Kendrick v. Drake beef The Pop Out: Ken & Friends was announced. A nightlong takeover of the famous Forum in LA was set to be a victory lap around the grave of Aubrey Graham. With the palpable disgust Kendrick held steady across the month-long barrage of diss records from across the rap multiverse tonight could go a million ways. Would this be the big budget blowout of Jay-Z at Summer Jam ‘01? Would Drake go full 50 Cent and buy out all the seats so Kendrick has to perform for an empty crowd? What if he only does “Meet The Grahams” for an hour straight and bring the alleged daughter up? Fumbling through my notes app for my roommate's Amazon Prime log in, I hop in to the livestream right as Blxst was struggling to hit literally any listenable note. Immediate cold water on all expectations. Obviously Mustard wasn’t going to go on stage and go full Jazzy Jeff on us, so him brining out a rotating cast of hitmakers and icons who’ve had ties to him checks out. After Blxst exits the stage comes the man most famous for his hits with Fifth Harmony and Post Malone hops on; Ty Dolla $ign. I missed the first few songs looking for my “Mr. Morale is the 2nd best Kendrick album” T-shirt, but once it was on snug with some hot tea to boot, it was time to lock in to the festivities. 

Mustard & Friends 

Paranoid: Ty swole as hell. Whatever workouts Ye was doing under Mercedes-Benz Stadium Ty copied, upped the ante, and perfected. What isn’t perfected? This microphone situation. Someone is getting tossed backstage as we speak. 

My Type Of Party: Dom Kennedy popping out is something only LA would lose their minds over. And for the record, Yellow Album may be the single best body of music from the cities lore in the past 20 years that isn’t on streaming. Honorable Mentions: Beach House, BOOM, and Jonson&Johnson. 

When I Come Around: If Datpiff got its shit together earlier, kids across the globe would be waking up playing a Datpiff Official Dom Kennedy playlist with this, “Fat Raps (Remix)”, “She Needs Me (Remix)”, “Don’t Forget The Swishers” and “She In My Car” all in a line. Dom’s legacy runs side by side to Fabolous (classic mixtapes, hits, and a comically bad back half of a career) but gahdamn at his peak that man could elevate a song. 

Static: How many people are learning tonight Steve Lacy is from Compton? As big a surprise as it is, the lyrics of the song are just a bisexual Ty Dolla $ign joint so I guess it fits. 

Bad Habit: Yup, crowd still doesn't know the verses but that doesn’t change that this was, and still is, arguably the best pop record to come from the Odd Future family tree. Also in that argument? “Know” by Syd and Tyler’s “See You Again”. “Pillow Talk Remix” I will never forget you. 

Tyler The Creator on stage

Wusayaname: SPEAKING OF GREAT ODD FUTURE POP RECORDS. As of right now the loudest crowd pop of the night and rightfully so. H-Town sample, Ty Dolla backgrounds, and a museum worthy verse from NBA Youngboy. A thing of beauty. *Chefs kiss*. 

Earthquake: Man I need to run Igor back it's been far too long. Never will I miss a chance to sing the praises of a Tyler The Creator live show. Seeing him rap live while balancing on a fallen tree in Miami, a cigarette boat in Orlando, and now a barren wasteland of a stage in LA I feel vindicated. He probably does too. Having Tyler in a set that features DJ Mustard and Ty Dolla $ign would be a blasphemous statement for anyone who lived through all of their rises to fame.

Ocean Views: Gospel and folk music wrapped in a hip-hop casing. The quintessential Nip song. I'm patiently waiting for an angelic hologram of Nip and Kobe to be zapped in from the ceiling.

Nipsey Hussle Tribute

Last Time That I Checced: Hell yeah. All I got. Hell yeah. 

The first two Roddy Ricch songs: Roddy is a better performer than I expected, but I couldn’t tell you the name of any of these first few records nor the difference between them and any toned down Gunna song. This is also about the time I checked Twitter for the first time to realize I missed Remble earlier in the show. Heartbreaking.

The Box: An anthem of Biblical proportions. I can never hear anything squeaky the same again. Yet more powerful than that clever onomatopoeia is the Compton Canadian tuxedo. He got that shit on, but ripped pants on purpose? With the leather monkey? A lot goin’ on here. 

Ballin’: Song of the summer every summer until beaches aren’t sandy and surfers aren’t cool. 

BPT: Might be my favorite YG song. That first verse is delivered with a pitbulls tenacity and is so damn hard to rap along to. There’s a version of YG that exists where he’s always doing cagey street records like this instead of tailoring songs to post up in the corner at the club to. Sidenote: Russell Westbrook sighting????? 

My N***a: 2014 Mustard was the best and worst era I've ever lived through as a rap fan. This song was one of those few “best” parts. 

Toot It & Boot It: Is it the worst mixed hit record of all time? No, because “Look At Me!” exists, but this is a strong second. I don’t think this record has hit my eardrums since I was 12. Acapella ending was a nice touch. 

Who Do You Love?: Playing the Drake record is wild. I'm surprised Top ain't come slap the leather off YG loafers himself for that. 

BIG BANK: Lazy filler tracks and mediocre crossover records weigh down the back third of YG's catalog much worse than his unrefined party boy beginnings. This song still sucks and even the home crowd knows it. 

Ken & Friends 

Transition/Intro: Showtime baby. The Snoop and Dre album announcement popping up on the jumbotron at this time is as wise a marketing tactic you could do, but there’s better odds of a Clippers title than this coming out on time. Even with music from Kendrick’s biggest influences blaring out (Lil Wayne, Eminem, Outkast) I'm imagining the list of friends that could pull out being a lot smaller. E-40, Future, Black Hippy, maybe Snoop. Having Ross, Ye, Rocky, and The Weeknd all pop up for a diss jamboree would work if he wants to go scorched Earth. Maybe Mustard’s set was there to get the home crowd riled up and ready to hate as one. A video begins playing with a man speaking, but it’s not a part of the show. The pgLang Cash App commercial is for my money the most well thought out ad I can remember. Typically the idea of teaching financial literacy is a tone deaf Band-Aid used to ignore the fact they’re teaching disenfranchised communities how to survive in a world that doesn’t want them and rarely gives them enough money to invest in anything bigger. This isn’t one of those stunts though. It’s a tasteful showing of Kendrick playing translator between someone with a real business mind and real questions from his neighborhood and an elder full of advice but lacking the code to be understood. A few more ads run, then darkness comes. The excited scream rain in. The crowd is freckled with phone lights. An O-V-Hoe chant starts. Drake is too big of a rap nerd to let his pettiness take over and have him miss watching this event. A single tear is rolling down his face to plop down on whatever Chrome Hearts goods he’s lounging in for such an event. E-40’s voice is hard to make out over the screaming crowd as he introduces the show. Still need to hear a Pascal Siakam bar from him at some point in this lifetime. 

Shot By @pres_morris

Euphoria: Perched on the flat stage like a gargoyle in the night, Kendrick finally lifts up from the stage. More amazing than his already fabled breath control is the chest length streams of diamonds that reveal themselves once he stands up. I try to pull from memory the last time so much jewelry was photographed on this man. The jewel encrusted crown of thorns was shocking more so for the diamonds than the design itself. He’s flexing, hard. Rapper hands flying around on 10. Also 3 minutes in this man has not blinked once. There’s a supreme focus, but a lack of rage in the first two sections of the song that finally begins to spill out come the 3rd beat. Maybe it’s the dynamics of the on record performance forcing a more lowkey move set, but regardless it’s a rather stoic start. Contained, hyper vigilant, almost never missing a bar in one of the more complicated records in his catalog. 

DNA: The blood red stage lights mixed with smoke and pyro makes it more clear how he’s dressed like Veeze (#FreeTimberlake). Quick cuts on the “yeahs” is the smartest directorial move yet. Still haven’t seen a blink. The energy is coming up, and his nerves are easing away. 

ELEMENT: Stylistically this song is the Ground Zero for the unhinged killer that was pushed to the peak on “Euphoria”, “Family Ties” and “Not Like Us”. A beat that tense matched with an artist reporting from a place of that much anxiety could do nothing else but force bursts of paranoia and ire. 

Alright: Saying "let me take yall back to day one" and playing a song from your third album is quite the glitch but the song is so big no one could give a damn. It’s become the rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement despite the lead to verse being about staying hopeful and finding purpose while staring in the face of capitalism, death and survivors guilt. It’s the kind of song we as a media illiterate people deserve in place of real rallying cries for revolution. This is lining up to be a Greatest Hits kind of night, but getting "Hood Politics" in the setlist would match this moment so well.

Swimming Pools: This song has always kinda sucked and it’s even more clear side by side with records from later in the catalog. Spacious verses, simple hooks with simple words and a beat that is bland enough to not distract from the message but present enough to be recognizable. The blueprint for a 10’s major label single. All it’s missing is a Young Money artist feature. 

Money Trees: TDE’s first signee appears on stage to share time with his former hyper man who’s finally figured a thing or two out. Now this should have been the single for GKMC. You’d give Jay Rock his moment, and have a much better record circulating. Kendrick writing that verse means nothing to me if I’m being honest. Rapping along trying to master Rocks flow in my childhood bedroom is a memory I’ll always hold dear. Unfrogettable stuff. 

WIN: The only acceptable environment for this song is in a giant venue after stomping on the neck of the biggest rapper in the world. Even hearing it at sporting events is tiresome. The flames going up with every “win” on the hook is a beautiful touch though. Also….LeBron is here?!?!?! That episode of The Shop funnier every year.

King’s Dead: Future not coming out for his verse is a war crime. Who was the booker for this show?

Kendrick w/ Ab-Soul for "6:16 In LA"

6:16 In LA: “WOW Freestyle” not making the Rock / Kendrick segment hurts but the Funk Soul Brother #2 himself appearing from the smoke dashes any disappointment. With Ab-Soul at an arms length Kendrick goes bar for bar over the stomping Al Green sample. Rapping “I live in the circadian rhythms of shooting star” to the only other guy who would unironically say that is hilarious. It seems like eons ago but once upon a time Ab was the lyrical miracle of TDE, living life on the edge rapping like a drugged out GZA if you replaced chess talk with YouTube conspiracy theories. After surviving a suicide attempt just a few years earlier, seeing Soulo share any moment this large tugs at the heartstrings. It tightens up how personal and intimate this diss was. Spreading out the disses is a nice chess move too. 

Collard Greens: AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!

THat Part: I’m not even mad Ab didn’t get a record. It should have been “Terrorist Threats” but if more that 20% of the crowd heard an Ab-Soul LP after Control System I’d sell my record collection for a penny. If 50% of the crowd knew Control System at all I'd give it up for free. My up and down love of this song has always been about the raps thesmelves and never about how amazing this beat is. Cardo has a superpower of entering the shapeless ether that makes up the universe and coming out with a melodic field that’s not of this Earth, just to slap on the most menacing combination of drums that only a madman native of this Earth could do.

King Kunta: My chants for “SayWassup” have gone unheard. Q and Kendrick getting a "Man Of The Year" duet off would have been fitting for this re-coronation ceremony. I’ll take the anti-ghostwriting G-funk masterwork that is “King Kunta” instead I guess. These guys are having so much fun on that stage. Rock, Q and Ab dancing along to the soul trapped inside the bassline (please God someone keep Ab's blind ass away from the pyro). 

m.A.A.d city: “Seen a lightskin n***a with his brains blown out” hits way harder now. Not bringing MC Eiht on the stage is some bullshit in my opinion. The 2nd half of this record was the GKMC moment that put a strong knot between the Compton rap of the early 90’s and the Compton rap of today. If not here, where else would be the stage to pull that trick out? 

Shot By Andres Tardio

HUMBLE: There’s something off. Not the music, not the staging, not even the tracklist (well maybe the setlist), but the energy on Kendrick doesn’t track. The mumbles before this song about “holding down the next 20 years” might just be a one off move, but something feels off. It seemed like a set up for another guest to come but instead it’s just “HUMBLE”. What’s coming? Is he nervous? Why does this song not hit as hard in this arena? Mike Will Made-It and Kendrick have had a track record of creative collision that’s never missed, and in the one place that it should hit the most, the record seems small. 

Like That: Is this the first full performance of this song live? After Travi$ egged on Metro at Rolling Loud to preview the song it’s been trapped within DJ sets, headphones, and every car speaker in America, but with live vocals in full? Energy wise this is the first time Kendrick is matching the moment. He’s dancing more. He’s squirming around more. He’s finally warmed up. There’s no Future coming out (sadly) but I’ve already stopped expecting big guests to come out. Maybe it was just his real life day one rap friends, Black Hippy, all along. 

Still D.R.E.: That last sentence? Ignore it. Whoever wrote that doesn’t know shit about shit because Dr. Dre is slowly gliding up from the stage. Those damn Scott Storch key stabs make everything sound harrowing. It's chilling seeing him stand solid on that riser. More fear inducing is my most depressive thoughts. Seeing Dre at this big age makes me sad in advance for the day I'm forced to mourn this legend. At 59 this man is looking more like Quincy Jones every day, and really sounds like it now. He’s not winded, but he’s also not moving much either. The man spent more house bent over mixing boards than anything else in this life and his stiffness shows it. More powerful than the drums or keys on the song are the seeds he planted over 30 years ago growing strong across industries in every corner of the globe. Even now the epicenter of American culture has been radiating from one of his pupils for the 400th time. The Godfather of Compton with the cities current King. What a moment. 

California Love: Pac is in Havana mad as hell he missed his flight to be there tonight. 

Not Like Us: “Psst. I see dead people” coming from Dre’s mouth? This place might collapse on itself. I might break my couch. Cooler than any Anthony Edwards highlight, and more deranged than any Trump headline. The little sicko is out. Kenny pausing and dancing in place while the crowd chants “A minorrrrrrrrrrrrrr”? This long pause in the music? Alone basking in the Sun as The Forum cheers him on? Rephrasing the Snoop moment at the Source Awards? Running the song back? Lord oh Lord. I need to be cooled off. Someone get Blxst back up here to tamper things down.

Not Like Us, 2nd Run: Still basking and letting the crowd do 80% of the work is a pro move. Pausing on the “A minorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr” and letting the crowd hit it AGAIN? Aye man, sometimes you gotta pop out and smell the roses. 

Kendrick & Dr. Dre on stage 

Not Like Us, 3rd Run: I don’t like to buy into the idea of “we’ll never see something like this again” in any form; sports, music, love. But damn man. This shit ain’t normal. Compton’s chosen son, mentored by Dr. Dre himself, coming up from battling people in the streets to becoming “the biggest underground artist of all time”? This is what this has all been building towards. All the nights alone writing. All the hours spent in dilapidated studios and hotel rooms. From Arabian Prince to Ice-T to NWA to Pac to Game to now. Even my journey as a fan of his from hearing “Rigamortis” for the first time, to hearing “The Heart Pt. 2”, to buying GKMC week one, to the GRAMMYs and Pulitzers to now. 17k+ singing O-V-hoe at the top of their lungs. One man, one mic, a couple little lights and some pals dancing and doing verses. It’s a relatively simple gameplan. It’s just big Kendrick right now and forever. What is weird though; the harshest bars are cut out. He looks winded yeah, and maybe it's a plow to get the crowd to deliver the venom as a flex of restraint, but this whole night lacks the sting I was expecting. The “A miiiinooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr” pauses were the peak of his nastiness. If you told me this was just a regular Kendrick hometown show I'd believe you. Deep down I still have the hope that under his red hoodie lies a shirt with Pusha's "Story Of Adidon" cover on it at least.

Not Like Us, 4th Run: Mustard. Westbrook. DeRozan. Blxst. YG. Black Hippy. Big-Hit carrying his grandson. WS Boogie. Worthy. Bino. Big Boy. Lacy. Roddy. Hed. Tommy The Clown. Calls to the void looking for G Perico. All the nameless homies that someone is gonna write an article tracking (couldn’t be me though, this is enough). Laughing, dapping, dancing. The essence of the night is finally clear. It’s not the celebration of the death of an enemy, it’s a unifying moment for a city that’s been tormented for generations with the struggles of systemic racism in a capitalistic nation. Gang violence. Crack epidemic. OJ. Rodney King. Kershaw playoff performances. Eazy-E dying. Kobe dying. Underfunded schools. Nipsey, Drakeo and 2Pac murders. The unknown names behind bars and under the dirt that could have gone just as far as anyone on this stage but just never got the chance. From Kendrick himself, “You’ve never seen this many sections on stage having peace”. The crowd is secondary now. “Everyone on this stage has fallen soldiers' dog”. Still, weird every rapper on the stage besides Big-Hit is under 40. Doing a super West Coast unity moment with only current artists (with almost everyone on stage being men) is more lazy than spiteful. It's a moment of raw emotion, the sloppiest kind of presentation. The most pure. There was no appearance from a legend to double down on the Aubrey hate. There were no more big reveals of information. Drake isn’t on anyone's mind right now. The beef was clear cut done and over with weeks ago. But with this moment Dot is taking the opportunity to show the beef has become a means to an end. As dismissive as Drake was to Kendrick, Kendrick is having the last laugh by leaving Drake as a footnote.

Not Like Us, 5th Run: With a handheld camera the madness of the stage is harnessed at eye level. The tight angles and quick cuts are out. Instead some poor soul has to remain focused in a moment that deserves (and will probably get) a 10 part Netflix documentary sponsored by pgLand and KIA, executive produced by 50 Cent. In the scrum there’s people with phones out recording the moment. Homies trading handshakes. WS Boogie rapping dead to the camera while Kendrick throws his arm around him. It’s an IG Live of the greatest house party in a city that made house parties feel like the pinnacle of human experience. Laughing despite the wars outside. Comradery that pierces generational divides. A beef based in the battingly ideologies of two different primary colors that has splintered into a ratking of misery, forgotten right now by each side's most famous representatives. After 15 years of feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders and taking every chance to tell us about it, there’s a new look on the Hub City Threats face; peace. With his eyes closed looking to the sky there’s calm. Gone is the unblinking stare into the void. The Eminem level technical diction is in the wind. Every song was an exorcism of emotions so that real peace could finally fill his vessel. A dance circle breaks out and Kendricks smile widens. “Fuck it up! Fuck it up!” yelps blurt from his mouth following every move busted in the circle. Kids, OG’s, podcasters, rappers. All under the spell of written word. Master of ceremony to a tee. 

Shot by Armen Keleshian