When you have a cerebral rap savant like Kendrick Lamar in your Rolodex, who wouldn’t take advantage of that? Ray Vaughn revealed that he sought out Kendrick’s guidance on certain tracks during his battle with Joey Bada$$.
The Top Dawg Entertainment rapper stopped by The Bootleg Kev Podcast on Friday (June 6), where he opened up about what advice he received from Lamar.
“I can call him,” he said of Lamar. “I’m on the phone when I’m going at Joey [Bada$$], ‘Ay, do you f–k with this?’ I always get feedback. It still got a protocol.”
Vaughn said some of the advice he got from Lamar was that less is more at times, as K.Dot suggested he remove ad-libs from tracks.
“If anything, it’s take something out. Like ad-libs, take some ad-libs about,” he continued. “Or if it’s not, it didn’t come out… It’s still the way we run TDE, it’s still the same thing. You’ve got to go down the line. When they post it, it’s going on TDE’s page. N—a, you speaking and it’s coming from our side, come correct.”
The Long Beach rapper also confirmed that he received advice from TDE’s Ab-Soul, but stated that he “couldn’t go too far” due to the nature of Soul’s relationship with Joey.
Joey Bada$$ continued to bait Kendrick Lamar by taking swipes at the Compton MC, but Lamar never ended up issuing an official response.
After a series of jabs earlier this year, Ray Vaughn lit the fuse with his “Justin Credible Freestyle” in May, which sparked over a dozen diss tracks being heaved back-and-forth with drops from Bada$$, Daylyt, Ray Vaughn, Reason, Az Chike, Kai Ca$h and even Ab-Soul and YG.
Vaughn contributed plenty of fuel to the fire with “Crashout Heritage,” “Impossible Patty,” “Hoe Era” and “Golden Eye.”
He clarified to Bootleg Kev that there’s “no real beef” with Joey and claimed, “It’s good for the sport.” “We got all the podcasters [and] hip-hop media talking about hip-hop. Not who’s texting who, not who’s f—ing who,” he added. “We pushed hip-hop to the forefront again.”
Watch Ray Vaughn speak about Kendrick Lamar below.
