A.V.
reTIreMEnt: THE ALBUM (01/22) ALL DSPs
I think that's 100% what it is...he's a post-internet rap game artist, prolly spent time on these same forums and sh!t before he got on...and more than just taking it to heart, actually knows how this sh!t works....he's completely cognizant of the space he's in as the big on-top popular rapper of the day prone to the inevitable cliche backlash and how people thirst to build up other artists to pit against him...the whole "hot new thing" effect.. how things become the most important story happening in the universe for 5 or 6 day stretches at a time in the hip hop internet news cycle until it's thrown in the bushes when the next "event" happens...he knows how full of shyt the fans can be, like talk all day about the importance of competition and the sanctity of the "rap battle" and throw Kendrick a parade for simply talking about it and anoint him the high priest of hip hop competition...only to have emcees flat out bring it to him DIRECTLY with full fledged 90's/early 2000's styled aggressive blatantly disrespectful diss tracks (including a dude like Papoose that he knows personally)...have Kendrick throw all the "competition" rhetoric out the window and dismiss them with the classic "i'm too big to respond" response that usually is considered a mortal hip hop sin...and have the same fans that were busting nuts over Kendrick talking about hypothetically being "competitive" cops pleas for him bowing down from ACTUALLY being competitive ...people don't really give a shyt about competition, they want just an excuse to root for or against rappers they already like or dislike
Drake knows how this bullshyt works...and Drake knows that Kendrick (another very in-tune post-internet rapper) knows how it works...he sees it as Kendrick's very shrewd play at backlash pandering (playing to people crying on the internet about rappers being friends and collobrating all the time, despite being a bonified member of the current cliche rapper-feature circuit himself ) for a cheap pop...and didn't respect it and caught feelings
This might not make sense to everybody but it's spot on.