Big Sean was hit with a seemingly unsolicited diss from Kendrick Lamar on a leaked song last year, but he ended up receiving an apology for it afterwards.
The Detroit native sat down with Charlamagne Tha God on Out Of Context for an in-depth conversation published on Friday (August 2). At one point during the chat, Char brought up the 2023 leak, which appeared to be an unreleased version of “Pandemic” from TDE’s 2018 Black Panther soundtrack.
On the song, K.dot raps, “Big Sean keep sneak dissin,’ I let it slide/ I think his false confidence got him inspired/ I can’t make them respect you, baby, it’s not my job/ You finally famous for who you date, not how you rhyme (boy).”
Sean first explained the back story, saying that he believes it all started when he did a song called “No More Interviews” in 2016. On it, he makes a reference to rappers who rhyme fast, and a lot of people at the time speculated he was talking abut Kendrick, though he wasn’t.
Shortly after, Dot dropped one of the songs in his “The Heart” series, and it sounded like there was a slight at Sean.
He reached out to Dot via text – the two had a good relationship with and had even been to each other’s houses – but when the number didn’t work, he asked TDE’s Top Dawg if there was smoke, which Sean was told there wasn’t.
Then, Sean says, Joe Budden continued to fan the flames of a beef between him and Kendrick, to the point that not only was the internet feeding into it but he and Dot seemed to almost believe it as well.
“He made that narrative so fucking real that I think it really did become a thing,” Sean said. “So I get to the point where I’m like damn, should I have something prepared?”
He then ran into Kendrick’s manager Dave Free, however, who once again confirmed there were no issues, so he let it go. Then 2023 comes and the song leaks, catching Sean a bit off guard.
“I’m like damn, mothafucka said it wasn’t shit! It was crazy.”
But, he did take a step back and realize that since it was a leaked song from 2018 and Kendrick had clearly changed the bar on the official version, that perhaps he too was feeding into the narrative others were making but had come to his senses.
Just to be sure, Sean hopped on text with Kendrick and the Compton native quickly apologized and it was squashed.
“I’m not a clout chasing ass n-gga, bro. I’m solid,” Sean concluded. “I stand on mine and I’m not about to do something because everyone thinks a certain thing. We already talked about it. I already got an apology for it. I really had too much communication with him since then and you know, I represent a lot of people from my city from where I come from, fans of mine who think I didn’t stand on my shit and that’s not the case.
“That’s why I wanna clarify I wasn’t being a bitch or like tucking my tail or nothing like that. If it was real smoke, if it was really something, I would be there front and center for it.”
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Upon its initial release in 2023, Sean told TMZ: “Ain’t no diss.”
When asked if he and Kendrick are still cool, he said: “Of course. If it was a diss, it would have been a diss,” before issuing a subtle warning: “If it was a diss, it would have been another diss.”
In the new convo with Charlamagne, Big Sean did reveal, however, that he had some ideas prepared should a full beef have really gone down.
You can view the full interview up top. The Kendrick Lamar convo happens around the 37:01 mark.
