Peter Grieser Imagine you’re the “boy” Vince Staples is dismissing in “Yeah Right.” Imagine trying to tell him your career is about to take off, and he cuts you off, sneers and a mockingly repeats “boy, yeah right” at you ad nauseum. Imagine looking in the mirror in a dingy club bathroom, squinting to see through the graffiti scratches and replaying Vince’s words over and over again in your head: If your song played, would they know that? Is your real talent self-deception? Your ears ring; all you hear is tinny rumbling, a broken car stereo wheezing out its last bass thumps before dying. It’s one thing if you are lying to yourself. But Vince exposes your real crime—you are deceiving everyone around you. Your girlfriend? If she finds out who you really are, it won’t end well for you. Come correct, and she won’t let you in. You think you can handle the situation before it spirals out of control, but Kućka’s haunting whispers sit on your shoulder, reminding you that you “got an enemy that changes dependin’ what direction you’re facin’.” In a panic, you run out of the club, heaving and fumbling for a cigarette in the alley, but you just can’t shake the feeling that Vince and his crew are following you. But at this point, there’s only one thing you can do: keep moving forward. Keep pretendin’, make it real until every cell replaced, erased. You light that cigarette, look up, and a shadowy Kendrick Lamar approaching you, his braids slowly swaying with his confident gait. He starts with a whisper, you can barely hear him. But he keeps talking, walking, getting louder, getting closer. Soon, he’s inches from you, he’s yelling, and with each syllable, moving his head like he’s shadowboxing. K-Dot twilight the zeitgeist. You try to explain your conversation with Vince earlier, but it’s no use, Kendrick is on a roll now. He keeps yelling, and you’re still distracted by the assembly line beat. I don’t fair fight, but I bear fight. What have you gotten yourself into?
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