The Aftermath: A comparison of new solo projects from The Big 3 of rap (now that the dust has settled)

Image via Complex Original/Elijah Justice

2025 was an absolutely ridiculous year for hip-hop. The beef really kicked off at the very end of 2024, although it was brewing for over a decade behind the scenes. I think most would agree that Kendrick’s verse on Future’s Like That was the big bang that took everything from 0–100 real quick. I haven’t taken much time to reflect, but I fully believe with my heart that everything that happened was extremely healthy and great for hip-hop as a whole.

Let me clarify before I go any further, I am a huge fan of Kendrick Lamar, Drake, and J. Cole. I never chose a side. I understood why Kendrick dropped the verse, I understood that Drake made a mistake speaking on Kendrick in the past, and he didn’t realize the size of the bear he was poking. He had it coming. I also understand why Cole chose to drop out. Personally, I think Cole could have potentially eaten both of them alive if he wanted to. It wasn’t his beef to begin with. That’s another discussion.

The reason I’m writing this article is because I listened to all 3 of Drake’s albums as soon as they came out, and I started contemplating the effect that Kendrick and the whole situation had on the level that Drake was reaching on Iceman. I feel the same way about GNX. I think when things like this happen, it forces the bar to get raised faster than it normally would.

Let’s take a break and look at where we’re at now compared to where we were. Right after this kicked off, Kendrick dropped GNX. Considering how fast it dropped, a lot of the project was probably already recorded beforehand. Drake responds with back-and-forth diss records, which are all pretty solid for the most part. I’m excited through the whole thing looking at it from both sides.

After GNX, Kendrick goes back into his cave, aside from a few playful Baby Keem features and other side quests. Drake goes completely silent music-wise until he teases Iceman, and for the most part he acts unbothered and continues living life as normal — appearing on streams and posting on social media as usual. J. Cole goes completely off the grid, as the internet bullies him relentlessly and calls him soft for “backing down” from the fight. Yes, the same guy that put hands on Puff Daddy. The internet as a collective is completely illogical and unforgiving. That’s unfortunately just the way it is.

The dust settles long before Cole announces that The Fall-Off is ready to drop (a project he’s been hyping up for years as his best and final project (We’re not falling for this retirement trick (See: Jay-Z.))) In my honest opinion, The Fall-Off lived up to the hype. The thing that watered it down for me was that it was too long and the most incredible parts of it were buried. There’s a classic album in there. It took me a few spins to find it.

Fast forward to this month: Drake drops 3 albums at once. It’s not unheard of but it’s a huge deal. Another opinion of mine nobody asked for: Iceman was great, and the other 2 were good. If we’re talking about songs specifically, there were a few songs on the other 2 that I liked as much as, if not more than songs on Iceman.

When Cole dropped, my brain didn’t compare it to GNX at all. The thought didn’t even cross my mind, but when I was on my third Iceman listen, I realized it was time to reflect. When it comes down to it, Drake and Kendrick can’t be compared. It’s like comparing a Quarterback to a Wide Receiver and trying to pick who’s better. They don’t do the same thing. It’s not even the fact that Drake sings and raps. Kendrick sings too. Kendrick’s singing isn’t better or worse than Drake’s and neither is his rapping ability.

Even still, I’m going to use my self-created OVR rating system that I use in every other situation to attempt to rank the 3 projects (GNX, The Fall-Off, and Iceman.) This is a system I created to be less subjective even though it’s still my personal opinion at the end of the day. I’m factoring in multiple attributes to come to a general OVR: Flow Dynamics, Complexity, Replayability, Lyricism, Bars, and Melodies.

That being said, here’s my breakdown:

GNX

Flow Dynamics: 100

Lyrical Complexity: 85

Replayability: 100

Lyricism: 75

Bars: 75

Melodies: 90

Iceman

Flow Dynamics: 80

Lyrical Complexity: 75

Replayability: 95

Lyricism: 75

Bars: 80

Melodies: 90

The Fall-Off

Flow Dynamics: 90

Lyrical Complexity: 100

Replayability: 65 (I will elaborate on this below.)

Lyricism: 100

Bars: 100

Melodies: 70

Avg. OVR:

ICEMAN: 82.5

GNX: 87.5

The Fall-Off: 87.5

I took the mean average of what I rated every attribute and this is what I came up with, so it’s obviously still biased to my opinion. Feel free to use my system with your personal feelings, though. I think it’s fun.

Now I want to explain my low score for The Fall-Off’s “Replayability.” I mentioned earlier that I felt there were too many songs, but I felt there was a classic album buried underneath the filler. I calculated the replayability based on the fact that most of the songs will not get added to my playlist and played again. However, the ones that would are elite. I feel that it had more skips than the other two. This is expected since it had twice as many songs.

That being said, I’m going to do a separate calculation for The Fall-Off if I were to remove half of the songs and keep the elite ones.

This would put The Fall-Off’s OVR at 90.83 according to my system.

You can decide whether I’m full of sh*t or not. Music opinions are subjective.