What Does The Beginning Of Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Euphoria’ Say In Reverse And Where Is It From?

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Kendrick Lamar’s feud with Drake heated up today as the Compton rapper dropped “Euphoria,” a fiery diss track loaded with spicy takedowns of the Canadian hitmaker. The song has become an instant fan favorite, as Twitter users spent the afternoon dissecting its best bars and laughing at Kendrick’s accidental(?) confusion between two similarly-named celebrities. Even the State of New York joined the discourse, using the song to troll rival NBA star Joel Embiid ahead of a possible closeout game in the playoffs.

One part of the song sparking curiosity is its intro, which is a reversed vocal sample. According to the Dissect Podcast account, the sample comes from The Wiz, the 1978 musical film adaptation of the stage reimagining of The Wizard Of Oz. Toward the end of the film, after the Wiz (Richard Pryor) is exposed as a washed-up politician from Atlantic City, he exclaims, “Everything they say about me is true! I’m a phony!”

Obviously, Kendrick’s use of the sample is meant to imply that Drake is the hip-hop equivalent of the Wiz: a fraud who has gotten by on mystique and a false persona for years. This, of course, would make Kendrick… Dorothy? Toto? In any event, he sees himself as the chaos agent revealing the truth behind Drake’s facade.