Cam'ron and Mase joined the world in giving Kendrick Lamar’s surprise-dropped "euphoria" a swift listen on Tuesday, quickly bringing their respective assessments to the latest episode of the It Is What It Is podcast with co-host Treasure "Stat Baby" Wilson.
Early into the new episode, Cam complimented Mase on his decision to rock a three-piece for the occasion, something he said was inspired by his "euphoria" listen. From there, the two both gave Drake the current upper hand in the 2024 rap war, though they also had praise for Kendrick.
"Ah, man. Drake is definitely winning from a MC standpoint," Mase said when asked to share his thoughts. "It took a while for us to get the record from Kendrick, and when you wait a while it’s gotta be out of this world. I think if Kendrick dropped this record right after [Drake dropped "Push Ups"], it would have been crazy. If it was immediate then it would have been crazy but we waited a while to get this."
Cam agreed, saying that "Drake is winning" and pointing out that Kendrick’s latest "didn’t really move" him. While Cam made clear that he wasn’t calling Kendrick’s new diss "bad," he did call the track "kinda long," and like Mase, he highlighted how long it took for the song to be released after the back-and-forth first broke out.
Digging deeper into the timeliness argument, Cam noted that Mase’s own "The Oracle" didn't get an immediate release back in 2017. Cam conceded that Mase’s diss against him "was hot," with Mase pointing out that Kendrick’s "euphoria" lacked a specific quality he looks for in a response.
"It’s a certain thing you gotta have in a record that Kendrick doesn’t have in his record," Mase said, later adding that such songs need to "say something" that makes listeners look at the subject of the song differently after it’s released.
See more from the It Is What It Is hosts below, including a conversation about Kendrick being "one of the greatest lyricists" of his generation.
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In case you somehow missed it, and there's virtually zero chance you did, "euphoria" arrived out of nowhere on Tuesday, thus upending the news cycle for multiple music-focused publications. That evening, Drake joked about the song by comparing a key passage from the track's lyrics to a scene from 10 Things I Hate About You.
