Father John Misty saw all the jokes and the conspiracy theories on Friday (Nov. 22) about how his album release schedule has eerily been synched up with Kendrick Lamar‘s music drops over the past 12 years and he responded in the only way he knows how: with a diss track and jokes.
Okay, not a diss track in the Drake sense, but rather the first wide release of the shaggy folk rocker “God’s Plan,” which he originally issued on Bandcamp last month and which fans gleefully suggested was a soft rock shot fired at the Pulitzer Prize-winning MC. FJM uploaded it to his Instagram on Saturday with no commentary and lyrics that didn’t provide much direct linkage to Lamar. “A man’s life, God’s trash/ There’s no law but the old law, baby/ Pettiful, nothing dies/ Said by ass-drawn kamikaze/ Year zero in the summertime,” FJM sings on the track; he reposted it on X, adding three coffin emoji.
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The comments did the heavy lifting: “the heart part 7,” wrote one fan in a joking reference to Lamar’s new track “Heart Pt. 6” (itself a response to rival Drake’s “The Heart Pt. 6” diss track about Lamar), with another adding, “Kendrick diss track?,” and a third admitting, “A Kendrick FJM beef is something I would’ve said could’ve only come to my imagination in a fever dream and yet here we are. Life is beautiful folks.” Leaning into the fake beef, commenters also wondered why Lamar was “real quiet since this post,” warning “u have 24 hours to respond” and asking “@kendricklamar you’ll let this slide???”
Fans immediately heaped meaning on the post, considering that sleuths did the math and figured out that Father John and K.Dot have released new albums in the same year for more than a decade, including in 2012, 2015, 2017, 2018 and 2022 — though not on the same day — until now.
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On Friday, Lamar dropped the instant classic GNX with no advance notice, stealing some thunder from FJM’s new LP, Mahashmashana. Misty got the joke, writing on X on Friday, “Not now I’m furiously scribbling my seeming response” to the odd coincidence, adding, “It’s okay only other times it’s happened was 2012, 2015, 2017 and 2022.” He also showed he had a good sense of humor about the unbalanced chart competition, writing, “Hm how do I tell em my albums don’t chart.”
In addition to the tweets and song, FJM had some more fun with the Freaky Friday release date action, reposting DJ Bean’s mash-up cover featuring the artwork from both men’s LPs and a second in which he was PhotoShopped into Kendrick’s car. Even Misty’s label, Sub Pop Records, got into the action, uploading an edit of the cover to the singer’s album with the Lamar DAMN. font.
The eternally arch, laconic Misty took the whole thing in stride, though Lil Wayne appeared to respond to a lyrical reference on the opening GNX track “wacced out murals” with a bit of heat. On the song, Lamar references his love for Wayne’s classic Tha Carter III album and wonders if his hard work — which includes landing the 2025 Super Bowl halftime show slot in Weezy’s hometown of New Orleans next year — had “let down” the fellow MC.
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“Man wtf I do?!” Wayne wrote in his response on X. “I just be chillin & dey still kome 4 my head. Let’s not take kindness for weakness. Let this giant sleep. I beg u all. No one really wants destruction,not even me but I shall destroy if disturbed. On me. Love.”
