Earlier this month, Kendrick Lamar turned up on a remix of Beyoncé’s “AMERICA HAS A PROBLEM.” Today, he’s back with “The Hillbillies,” a team-up with his cousin and frequent collaborator Baby Keem that arrived on the YouTube channel run by Lamar’s pgLang entertainment company. As is customary for any new Kendrick song, “The Hillbillies” promptly rocketed up the Genius Top Songs chart.
Produced by EVILGAINE of Surf Gang, “The Hillbillies” samples Bon Iver’s pandemic-era track “PDLIF,” which itself contains a sample of U.K. jazz artist Alabaster DePlume’s “Visit Croatia.” Lighthearted and charmingly low stakes, “The Hillbillies” finds Kendrick and Keem going back and forth about women and designer clothes. Also, European football—Kendrick and Keem repeatedly compare themselves to Lionel Messi and Neymar, superstar teammates on the French soccer club Paris Saint-Germain (PSG), respectively.
And as Genius user @SalahMekraoui points out via an annotation on the song page for “The Hillbillies,” there’s a good reason Kendrick and Keem liken themselves to these particular South American soccer greats. The rappers actually attended a PSG match last October during which both Messi and Neymar scored goals.
The first verse goes to Baby Keem, who insists he can’t date “regular girls.” In fact, he declares himself too fancy for Giuseppe Zanotti luxury wear before flipping the mic to Lamar—er, Messi.
