Kendrick Contra Wagner

The music world was set a-flame today when hotshot rapper and self-defined "eiffel tower" Kendrick Lamar claimed the title of "the King of Bayreuth". Not content with the recently claimed title "King of New York", as well as his previous distinctions of "Viscount of New Edinburgh" and "Welterweight Thumb Wrestling Champion", Lamar has this time decided to go after the big names in classical music. On a guest verse in a recent release by overshadowed rapper Kurly Frie$, Lamar suddenly dropped a "hall of fame" lyric listing off the big names of history's greatest composers:

I'm usually homeboys with the same meisters I'm sprachstimmin' wit
But this is art music and them mensches should know what time it is
And that goes for Vivaldi, Mozart, Bach
Mendelssohn, Webern, Wagner, Offenbach
Schubert, Schumann, Buxtehude, Charles Gounod
I got love for you all but I'm tryna murder you maestros
Tryna make sure your posterity never heard of you maestros
They dont wanna hear not one more bar or reverb from you maestros

Notably lacking on the list is the name of Gustav Mahler, which Kendrick has long since despised as "overripe" and "decadent". But that verse alone was made twice as contentious when Lamar claimed the title "King of Bayreuth":

I'm important like the Pope, I'm as mean as the Kaiser
I'm Otto Bismarck's offspring, I'm the King of Bayreuth

The small Bavarian town is the living site of Wagner worship, where the composer founded his famous "festspielhaus" or "happy fun house" for the performance of his serious and not-for-dicking-around "music dramas". How, where, why or when the west-coast rapper from Compton can lay claim to this site is still something of a mystery. However, rumours are circulating that Lamar is attempting to put on a production of Parsifal, the most esoteric of Wagner's operas and once strictly restricted by the composer to performances only at the Bayreuth stage. Kanye West, J. Cole and the Wu-Tang Clan are all said to be involved, sending the message out to the opera world loud and clear: dooodoodooddoodooo brrrap.

Meanwhile, responses to Lamar's claim have been somewhat slow in coming. Unlike the rapid vitriol and fast verses that followed Control within a matter of hours, the latest controversy has proven more difficult for Kendrick's competitors to match up to. On the list are nonetheless a String Quartet in G Minor by Action Bronson, A Versace Tone Poem by Migos as well as a Gilbert and Sullivan style Operetta piece by Odd Future, featuring Frank Ocean and Tyler the Creator in drag searching for their lost goat.

"This is just what classical music needed" tweeted conductor of the New York Philharmonic James Nevine. "Classical music has always been about competition, and Kendrick did just what needed to be done to re-ignite the old beef of Brahms vs Wagner, or Handel vs Bach. Too many of these composers nowadays are just sucking each other's dicks."