Top Dawg Entertainment president Terrence “Punch” Henderson has revealed who he thinks had the best response to Kendrick Lamar’s “Control” verse.
The Hip Hop executive appeared on the latest episode of Math Hoffa’s My Expert Opinion podcast, where he discussed K. Dot’s incendiary verse on the 2013 Big Song song, on which he crowned himself the “King of New York” while calling out several peers including Drake, J. Cole and A$AP Rocky.
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The song sparked a tidal wave of responses from both those mentioned in the verse and various New York rappers who took offence to Kendrick’s claim to the city’s throne. But when asked whose response stood out from the pack, Punch gave the nod to Joe Budden.
“I listened to all of them,” he said. “I think it might have been Budden. I like Budden.” He added: “It was funny to us. We literally sitting back like, ‘Ha! N-ggas mad. Look, all of them responding. That’s crazy.'”
Released just days after “Control” dropped, Budden’s response, titled “Lost Control,” found him reasserting his lyrical pedigree for over five minutes, jabbing Kendrick Lamar in the process.
“Out-rhyming A$AP ain’t showing me where your weight at / I’m on my shit today, you the King of New York? / You might as well had spit on Biggie’s grave, couldn’t let that slip away,” he spit over the original No I.D. beat.
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“I’m in the court of public opinion ready to click and spray / Light Jay Elec ass up, that’s my exhibit A / Bitch kill my vibe is what you want to get into / Drown ’em all in a swimming pool full of phlegm and drool.”
The former Slaughterhouse MC even took aim at those mentioned in Kendrick’s verse, rapping: “King of New York? My n-gga, stop it five / Keep it funky, Drake washed you twice / Tell me Tyler that fire with saliva? I reply, ‘Don’t bring that lie around’ / Run up on Meek with the silencer, n-gga quiet down.”
During an interview with Power 106 Los Angeles shortly after “Control” came out, Kendrick Lamar gave Joe Budden props on his response, but named King Los’ reply as his favorite.
“I liked the Los verse,” he said. “Joe Budden did this thing. Joell [Ortiz], a lot of people with different approaches … Joey had the facts in his verse, a few things that he felt. Papoose had the comical joint. Los was flipping his words and putting that spunk on it. I think he had the killer thing, though. Yeah, Los killed it out of everybody.”
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The former TDE rapper later revealed he didn’t take offense to any of the responses, and stated his verse was simply meant to “innovate” Hip Hop.
“The whole point of the thing is not just the challenge for the moment, but challenge for the whole extension of this Hip Hop culture. Not just off the hype, but what we going to do after,” he said on The Arsenio Hall Show.
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“What we going to do to challenge ourselves, how we’re going to make better records, how we’re going to push forward and innovate the next generation coming up rather than just sticking in the moment of the verse. That was the whole point of the joint and I hope everybody really gets the idea behind it.”
