Family Ties... Part 2

Hey everyone! Hope y'all are hanging in there. I had some more thoughts about Family Ties and didn't want to edit the first post and add to it. So I figured making another installment of it was best. For all I know, I may have more thoughts about it later.

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As I said before, Family Ties was the first song where Kendrick outright informed his enemies (mainly Drake) he was back outside, he knows there’s botting (said it before Aubrey) and bullshit and “I’mma kill that noise”. It wasn’t, however, in the most obvious lyrics that people talk about the most which is the “Top 5” reference which I referenced in my first blog post (be sure to check that out before reading this one)

K-Dot’s lyrics on “Family Ties” with Baby Keem:

2021, I ain't taking no prisoner

Last year, y'all fucked up on all the listener

Who went platinum? I call that a visitor

Who the fuck backing 'em? All been falsified

Dot mentions “last year” which would mean, during the release of this song, would be 2020. Drake had 5 songs, most with featured artists, on the Billboard charts. One of the songs is “Toosie Slide”, which Kendrick named in “6:16 in LA”. Dot was letting people know then Drake was fake without using too many words and here we have, in 2025, Drake having the audacity to sue UMG and citing botting allegations for “Not Like Us”. The nerve of him.

I think Dot was seeing, and have been seeing how trendy, too “on-brand”, and algorithmic hip-hop was becoming and eventually became hence why he said earlier in the song he wasn’t a “trending topic”, says what he says above to then saying what I think is not only the biggest flex and warning, but what literally ended up coming true. Kendrick says:

The facts mean this a vaccine, and the game need me to survive

The Elohim, the rebirth

Before you get to the Father, you gotta holla at me first, bitch

Yes. Kendrick was needed. Real hip-hop was needed. What does this mean? I’ll explain.

Most of the older generation and even the ones who are “popular” today stayed almost to the same sound and formula. Not much change. From J Cole to even up to recently Ghostface Killa, from Lil’ Wayne to Ice Spice and more, most of these artists play it safely. Same topics, same schemes, same melodies, picking producers who are most likely sending beats rather than sitting with them in the studio (possibly to save money) and if they are in the studio with them they [the producers] aren’t BEING producers by challenging the artist and vice versa (for example, jumping in on switching out certain words, maybe a certain melody, pushing the artist to sound more passionate on the song, drawing inspiration from certain things, etc). There is more to being a producer than just making the music and/or beat. It’s psychological. Same with being an artist.

The hip-hop scene has lacked originality for a while and barely a handful of people have kept its integrity, grit, competitiveness, creativity and drive for freshness but stay true to themselves. One of those people who have consistently done this without fail is Kendrick Lamar.

So, when Kendrick states the game needs him to survive… look what happened! Kendrick and Drake get into it, Kendrick flicks that annoying bee out of the stadium and then a ton of legacy rappers peeped out of their curtains like, “We can come back out now? We can REALLY rap now?” Then they came outside, with all the bravado, dabbing up other legacy artists like they weren’t watching the Kendrick and Drake battle hoping “Hip-Hop” won.

Remember, Drake infamously told Meek Mill in “BacktoBack” he was “Bodied by a singing ni**a”. I choose to believe him. He's a singer, not a rapper and he's not hip-hop (ghostwriters, which is made obvious), even if people see you as such. That line was not very smart at all to say and I’m shocked that so many fans of hip-hop thought that it was dope. (Now that I think about it, I think Dot’s hilarious rebuttal for this was in “Euphoria” when he said he “liked Drake with the melodies.” Let that rest on your mind for a minute and you’ll understand why that is the perfect rebuttal to Drake’s response to Meek on his own diss track)

Kendrick had to slay the gatekeeping dragon to bring hip-hop back to what it once was and it’s still working itself out. Look at what The Clipse dropped with “Let God Sort ‘Em Out”. These men are in their late 40’s/early 50’s creating a classic album, simple and intricate at the same time. Beautifully perfect album. Tyler, The Creator paid homage to old school hip-hop with “Don’t Tap the Glass” which is amazing as well as 2024’s “Chromakopia”, which is a classic as well. True lyricism with all these people pushing the boundaries and NOT playing it safe. Hip-hop wasn’t like that before. It wasn’t safe at all back then. It was criminally creative and pushed boundaries.

Kendrick just had to remind the world what Hip-Hop was, still is and can be. The Elohim, The Rebirth.

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