Punch TDE Reveals That Kendrick Lamar Wanted To Redo His “Control” Verse

Kendrick Lamar’s verse on Big Sean’s “Control” still remains a topic for today. It cemented K.Dot as a top tier MC and as the de facto leader of his generation of rappers. In a new interview with the My Expert Opinion podcast, TDE President, Punch, revealed that Kendrick actually wanted to redo his verse to allow Big Sean to do another verse. However, he was ultimately able to convince Kendrick to leave the verse as is.

“We had that conversation like and a few weeks later, I think he was on tour, and he sent me the song. He was like, ‘Yo, what you think? I listened to it and I said this is perfect. It’s the one. And he told me, he wanted to give Sean another verse, but he was like, ‘Nah, keep that.’

“It caught fire everywhere. When I seen Phil Jackson mention it in a tweet, I’m like, ‘Oh OK. This is different right here.” […] We knew it was huge. He didn’t understand the impact ’cause he was overseas on tour.”

Punch then addressed how many New York rappers had a problem with Kendrick’s verse. He said that Joe Budden’s response to Kendrick’s “Control” verse was his favorite.

“I listened to all of them,” he said. “I think it might have been Budden. I like Budden,” Punch said. “It was funny to us. We literally sitting back like, ‘Ha! N-ggas mad. Look, all of them responding. That’s crazy.’”

You can check out the clip from the interview below, as well as Joe Budden’s response to Kendrick’s verse.