Kendrick Lamar and Baby Keem have delivered “The Hillbillies” live for the first time before an audience, and they teamed up with Tyler, The Creator to perform it for the first time.
The trio performed live at the Camp Flog Gnaw festival at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles on Saturday (November 11). Since Tyler, The Creator put on the festival and appears in the song’s music video, it seemed only logical to have him perform the track with Kendrick and Keem.
The Clipse, Ice Spice, Pink Pantheress, Lil Yachty, and SZA also were on the lineup for the festival.
Check out the performance below.
Kendrick Lamar & Baby Keem debut “The Hillbillies” live with Tyler, The Creator 🎶 https://t.co/3Yh0bOWXIApic.twitter.com/CHfW230pIV
— HipHopDX (@HipHopDX) November 12, 2023
While the audience seemed to love the song, Kendrick Lamar and Baby Keem were previously accused of biting Drake on it.
The pgLang rappers released their collaborative effort back in May, with the Bon Iver-sampling song being accompanied by a grainy video capturing Kendrick and Keem having fun as they travel the world.
Fans took to social media following its release to claim they stole Drake’s flow from his Honestly, Nevermind track “Sticky,” while pointing out the similarities in the songs’ beats.
“Kendrick Lamar and Baby Keem used Drake’s Sticky flow and this is how it came out,” one fan wrote on Twitter, while another said: “Yooo everyone fucking with that new Kendrick!! Now give Drake his credit for predicting dance music was the new wave cause Hillbillies is just Kendrick’s version of Sticky.”
Someone else joked: “Drake after listening to the new Kendrick & keem song” next to a clip of Soulja Boy on The Breakfast Club yelling: “He copied my whole fucking flow! Word for word! Bar for bar!”
One listener even claimed that Kendrick was not jacking his longtime rival, but “clowning” him — supporting their case by comparing K. Dot’s lyrics to Drake’s globe-trotting bars on “Middle of the Ocean.”
If Baby Keem’s tweet is anything to go by, however, spoofing Drake’s “Sticky” might have been the whole point of “The Hilbillies.” To promote the song, Keem posted a link to its video on Twitter with the caption: “Baby Keem & Kendrick Lamar – The Hillbillies (Sticky Dub).”
On the track, Kendrick Lamar and Baby Keem go back and forth about fame, women, and designer clothes while comparing themselves to soccer stars Lionel Messi and Neymar.
“We gon’ fuck up the world/ Excuse me, but is that your girl?/ Didn’t mean to possess your girl/ Baby, I’m high-profile, don’t ever tell ’em you met me, girl/ They gon’ think that you rep me, girl/ 5’7″, I’m Messi, girl,” Kendrick raps playfully.
Kendrick Lamar and Baby Keem previously collaborated on “Savior” from K. Dot’s Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers in 2022, as well as “Family Ties” and “Range Brothers” from Keem’s 2021 album The Melodic Blue.