The Portland Trail Blazers may have picked one of the steals of the NBA Draft, but their all-star point guard stole the show Thursday night.
Damian Lillard, also known as Dame D.O.L.L.A. and almost universally regarded as the best rapper in the NBA, responded to a rap battle challenge from Sacramento Kings forward Marvin Bagley III with a 2-minute diss track for the ages that quickly started trending on Twitter.
Lillard's track was a response to Bagley, who tweeted out a track mocking Lillard on his SoundCloud page Thursday afternoon.
The back-and-forth started that morning during an interview with Bagley on ESPN’s First Take. Host Max Kellerman mentioned his opinion that Bagley and Lillard are the two best rappers in the NBA. Then, he asked Bagley who he thought was the best.
“Me. I love music, so I’m going to go with myself,” Bagley said.
“Would you ever battle Damian Lillard?” Kellerman asked.
“Yeah. For Sure,” said Bagley.
Less than 15 minutes after First Take posted the interview clip on Twitter, Lillard responded.
About 6 hours later, Bagley dropped this track, called “No Debate,” on his Soundcloud page and tweeted out a watch emoji with the link.
Then, about 3 hours later, Lillard dropped the hammer with “MARVINNNNNN???” in the middle of the NBA Draft. (WARNING: Explicit language)
The track was immediately hailed as a victory for Lillard.
But Dame wasn’t done. He dropped “BYE BYE” about 4 hours later and didn’t let up against Bagley. (WARNING: Explicit language)
Despite the praise for Lillard, Bagley wasn’t done either. Early Friday morning, Bagley finally responded with “Checkmate.” (WARNING: Explicit language)
Lillard said that Thursday night’s tracks would be his only response because he’s finishing his album, so stay tuned for that. He will also reportedly make his big screen debut in Space Jam 2, which is filming this summer and scheduled to be released in 2021.
Bagley agreed.
But who knows? Hopefully this rap beef isn’t over for good.
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