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Kendrick Lamar takes the West Coast off standby

Lamar's blowout Juneteenth concert, held at the Forum in Los Angeles and live-streamed on Amazon Music, planted flags for the future of LA rap, while uniting in hate for a certain Toronto titan.

Blog-era staples (Dom Kennedy) rubbed shoulders with chart-topping anomalies ( Roddy Ricch), and there were particularly grand receptions for two artists on the outer edges of the LA hip-hop scene: the guitarist turned surprise sensation Steve Lacy and the Odd Future auteur Tyler, the Creator. But rounding up the gang and taking a little tour of a few songs from the glory days seemed to bring an almost childlike delight out of him — playing hype man for Jay Rock during “ Win,” which is like stadium catnip, and the freaky Mike WiLL joint “ King’s Dead,” and teaming up with Q for the hard-bopping “ Collard Greens.” (The reunion’s deep sense of camaraderie could have only been improved by an impromptu run-through of the “Black Lip Bastard” remix.) Everybody on this stage got fallen soldiers.” But it was hard to overlook the fact that the thing unifying the coast in this moment was not love but hate, and Kendrick, the self-proclaimed biggest Drake hater, was primarily operating in his capacity as speaker for the culture in his personal war with the Toronto high roller.

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