"Some of that was just rhymes"— Fans debate Common's freestyle skills over Kendrick Lamar's Not Like Us

With Kendrick Lamar's Drake diss track Not Like Us taking over the hip-hop scene, Common jumped in to freestyle a verse from the song. This occurred when the Chicago rapper appeared on REAL 92.3's The Cruz Show Podcast on July 4, 2024. He was there to promote his upcoming album, The Auditorium Vol. 1, with producer Pete Rock, slated for release on July 12.

His freestyle rap verse received mixed reviews from fans on social media, with one person tweeting:

More people joined in to give an unenthusiastic opinion about the rapper's freestyle verse, with some questioning if it was freestyle.

"Do yall know what "freestyle" means? Love Com but this ain't a freestyle. Dope verse though of course," tweeted someone.

"why do they say freestyles. these aren't off the dome. dope none the less but most mcees that go on shows just spit lyrics they wrote but haven't dropped yet," added another person.

"He’s used this same freestyle in like 4 different places com’ on common," added someone else.

However, some reactions were positive, calling the rapper "one of the best" in the industry.

"Common never gets the credit he deserves. One of the best in the game on the mic off the top," wrote a fan.

"He still got it," added another.

"This is flow! He make it sound like a whole different track!" tweeted someone else.

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Common and Drake were engaged in a feud in 2011

Drake has been known to engage in public diss battles with fellow rappers. Some of his most famous competitors include Meek Mill, Pusha T, and, most notably, Kendrick Lamar. The Canadian rapper also took shots at Rick Ross, Metro Boomin, A$AP Rocky, and The Weeknd during his battle with Lamar.

But one of his short-lived feuds was with Common from late 2011 to February 2012. According to Billboard, the feud started when the Chicago rapper dropped the track Sweet from his December 2011 album The Dreamer/The Believer.

In the song, he seemingly took subliminal shots at Drake for being a pop artist with the lyrics,

“Y’all n***as man, you soft motherf*ckas… Singing all around me man, ‘la la la!’"

Drake responded with a verse on Stay Schemin from Rick Ross' Rich Forever mixtape on January 7, 2012, where he alluded to the Chicago rapper's song with the lyrics:

"Don’t be duckin like you never wanted nothin’/ It’s feelin like rap changed it was a time it was rugged/ Back when if a n***a reached it was for the weapon/ Nowadays n***as reach just to sell their record."

While his diss on Sweet was masked, Common confronted the Canadian rapper head-on when he hopped on a remix of Stay Schemin on January 9, mentioning him by name.

"I’m taking too long with this amateur guy/You ain’t wet nobody, n***a, you Canada dry/ Soft n***a, make no mistake, I’m talking to Drake. It’s the remix. Rick Ross, Common, and that h*e a** n***a,” Common rapped.

The feud ended as quickly as it started, and Common confessed in a June 2024 interview with Drink Champs that Drake's father, Dennis Graham, advised the two rappers to "squash" their beef when they met in person.

He also gave his opinion on the highly-publicized rap battle between Kendrick Lamar and Drake when he appeared for an interview with 7PM in Brooklyn in May, calling it a "really incredible battle."

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Kendrick Lamar's Not Like Us shook up the hip-hop scene unlike any song in recent times, breaking multiple records and retaining the No. 3 rank on this week's Billboard Hot 100. The Compton rapper released the music video for the hit song on July 4, which currently has over 41 million views on YouTube.