2016 is President Obama’s last full year in office, and while he has many important issues to deal with in that year—global warming, curing cancer, fighting ISIS, growing the national economy—he did make time to answer one of the great questions of our era. Yes, seconds after answering what kind of pants a dog would wear, the most powerful man on Earth finally put to bed the question of who would win in a hypothetical rap battle: Compton’s own Kendrick Lamar or Toronto’s Drake.
“You gotta go with Kendrick,” Obama brusquely declared. “I’m just saying. I think Drake is an outstanding entertainer, but Kendrick … his lyrics … His last album was outstanding. Best album I heard last year.”
We agree on his last point, by the way, as To Pimp A Butterfly topped The A.V. Club’s list of the best albums of 2015. But K-Dot also might have had some other built-in advantages over Aubrey Drake Graham. For one, Lamar was only at the White House a few days ago to meet with the Commander in Chief about a mentorship PSA, and just a short time before that Obama named the rapper’s song “How Much A Dolla Cost” his favorite track of the year. Beyond even those factors however, how, in good conscience, could the sitting President of the United States give the mic to a Canadian?
Check out Obama’s response below around the 27:00 mark.