Over the last month, the Drake v Kendrick Lamar rap battle has dominated the discourse in music and culture so completely that even a parody offshoot track about the rap battle has become a hit. BBL Drizzy, a song with Motown-style production and 70s soul album cover, has become a vehicle for anyone to join in on the fun of dissing Drake. The song features a Levi Stubbs-like character braying the lines: “I’m thicker than a snicker / I’m thicker than you, ninja / Don’t act like you don’t know me / These yams deserve a trophy / Baby it ain’t no mystery / Got the best BBL in history”
“It’s so ridiculous and over the top,” says Willonius Hatcher, the comedian behind the song. “You can’t help but laugh.”
BBL Drizzy pic.twitter.com/0gPBUlk6VF
— Avocado Papi 🥑 (@KingWillonius) April 14, 2024
When the rap battle ended on Saturday with Kendrick sealing victory, Hatcher figured his BBL Drizzy moment was over. But then on Sunday, the producer Metro Boomin remixed the song to further humiliate Drake, who dismissed the sought-after artist as a run-of-the-mill beatmaker. Ordinarily, Metro’s remix – faster, higher-pitched and more percussive – would be the kind of thing he’d sell for a minimum of six figures. But in the spirit of spite, he posted it on the internet on one condition: “best verse over this gets a free beat,” he posted on X.
The bounty, which Metro has since upped to $10,000 and a beat for first place, and a free beat for the runner-up, has talents of all stripes rushing to take turns to dunk Drake like a cop at the county fair in an assortment of musical genres. SoundCloud rappers are crushing him in different languages, including Japanese – wagyu beef, perhaps. In one viral video, the instrumental plays over a girl performing a classical Indian dance. In others: the Duolingo owl twerks over the beat; a nun serves. The R&B artist Masego uses it as a backing track for a two-and-a-half-minute sax solo, a genre that rivals shredding on the electric guitar. Madison McFerrin, Bobby’s soul-singing daughter, has made a run. One kid riffs over the track in sign language.
What’s more, all of this piling on is in addition to the usual onslaught of jokes, memes and jigs roasting Drake. “At the end of the day, my job as a comedian is to make people laugh,” Hatcher says. “If you listen to the track, you know it doesn’t come from a mean-spirited place.”
A veteran club comic from south Florida who uses AI to enhance material, Hatcher – AKA Avocado Papi (“I make amazing avocado smoothies,” the 39-year-old coos) – did not have a dog in this historic hip-hop fight. In case you haven’t been paying attention: it started in April with Kendrick’s ambush via a song called Like That from the studio album We Still Don’t Trust You, a Drake hatefest led by Metro Boomin and the rapper Future.
In response, Drake released Push Ups, returning fire on Rick Ross, the Weeknd and other rap Avengers who had taken aim at him, while dismissing Metro out of hand: “Shut your hoe-ass up and make some drums.” Drake underscored the line, posting a meme of Metro’s head superimposed on to Nick Cannon’s character from the movie Drumline and hiring a marching band to play drums outside of Magic City as Metro was promoting We Still Don’t Trust You at the fabled Atlanta strip club.
As the war of words escalated, Hatcher created short AI films using Midjourney. The idea was to send up the underlying melodrama of what was, essentially, two guys arguing in sonnets – Drake and Kendrick in Dune, or as heads of hostile houses in Game of Thrones. Pullquotes from diss track lyrics and online barbs from the feuding rappers’ camps became fodder for original songs that Hatcher says he wrote himself, using AI tools to produce the actual music and accompanying cover art. “There’s this misconception that AI made all of it,” says Hatcher, recalling the early online discourse around his work. “You have to have the human element. For artists who have been very disciplined in their craft, AI is like a superpower.”
Once Rick Ross accused Drake on Instagram of having undergone plastic surgery – specifically, a Brazilian butt lift – “BBL Drizzy” (Ross’s words) became an internet punchline that Hatcher likewise couldn’t resist engaging. But of the slew of tracks he posted with that title, none hit quite like the Motown version – which Hatcher says he created with the AI music maker Udio. Again: the lyrics were all him. “AI wouldn’t say thicker than a snicker,” says Hatcher. “I remember heading to Vegas for an AI esports battle. When I got on the plane, before I fell asleep, it was at 30,000 views, which was amazing to me. When I landed, it was at a million something.”
Altogether, Hatcher put out 20 songs during the course of the rap battle. “I was working harder than the rappers!” he jokes. “But there’s no way BBL Drizzy takes off if I had to create it under normal means. It would’ve taken too long. I would’ve missed the moment.”
As of Wednesday, Metro’s original X post touting the BBL Drizzy beat giveaway had more than 23m views – enough to saddle Drake, a social media savant, with his first big internet loss. It also makes you wonder what Hatcher gets for crowd-sourcing all this comedy first. He swears the reward pales in comparison to the result – a bit of good, clean fun to help cleanse the timeline after weeks of enmity. At the very least he can count on more attention for bigger projects, such as the AI sci-fi musical he’s developing with Kevin Hart’s production company.
On Sunday, Hatcher expressed some regret in an X post about having been forgotten as the song’s original creator. In response, Metro did something that had yet to be done in this rap battle: he apologized. “I wasn’t aware king,” he wrote, “but thank you for your contribution to history. Y’all show this man some love.”
“Historically, we’ve seen these rap battles take a turn,” says Hatcher, the rap war’s clearest winner in the end. “If you listen to the original track, it doesn’t come from a mean-spirited place. It’s just meant to add levity to both sides. I have so many Drake fans messaging me like, ‘I’m still riding with Drake, but this song is hilarious.’ I’m pretty sure Drake heard it, and he probably laughed about it, too.”
