I am a Comptonite, born and raised. I am a Los Angeleno, a Californian, an African American, a human being.

I am not patriotic in common ways, but I am loyal to where I come from. I remember growing up in a city that was a neocons’ worst nightmare. All these Black and brown people running around, a militarized police force, an attitude that we needed to be policed and corralled and ignored. I grow up and move to Chicago and lo, the same thing.

But we loved our own. We loved our heroes, we loved our sports teams, we loved our city. I was lucky enough to come of age in THE golden age of sports in Los Angeles. World championships in three sports. The Olympics. All amidst a backdrop with its soundtrack of gangsta rap and using sports as an escape.

This year, when my hometown Dodgers faced the Toronto Blue Jays, I saw it as fun and in no way an indictment of my loyalty. I am a big fan of Vladimir Guerrero Jr, having watched his dad toil in nearby Anaheim for many years, and so wouldn’t have minded Toronto winning.

But, as I said, I am loyal.

I was certainly aware of the parallels between this World Series and the events of the past two years between Drake and Kendrick Lamar. Kendrick is the hometown hero, a poet savant who simply pointed out that this Canadian dude wasn’t on his level and was faking a lot of culture bonfires which, in a genre that prides itself on rules of culture and some measure of gatekeeping, resonated in the chord of “A MINORRRRRRR”.

I was prepared to laugh this connection off; after all, neither Kendrick or Aubrey were putting on hats and adjusting batting gloves in facing down 98+mph fastballs and splitters with 15 inches of break. Neither was I. But I started to notice that not everyone saw it that way.

“We gone beat they ass like Drake did Kendrick.”

This bold statement, as wrong as it is, activated the hater in me. The latent hater, dormant since being reminded that all I ever wanted was a black Grand National last year, awakened, and it was ANGRY. ‘

Every Dodger win was proof that Kendrick was right. Every Blue Jay win was pointed to as proof that, somehow, Drake was better and more relevant and indeed won a rap war that culminated with Kendrick going in front of the world at the Super Bowl halftime and reminding him that a lot, A LOT, of people don’t like him.

So, with a Dodger win, and the marketing efforts of Nike and Major League Baseball are going to lead to another few weeks of charting for Kenfdrick’s knock-out punch “Not Like Us”, and the hater can rest again.

For now.