Future’s “King’s Dead” Verse Resurges On Genius As It Takes Over TikTok

Kendrick Lamar linked up with Jay Rock, Future, and James Blake back in 2018 for the Black Panther track, “King’s Dead,” and now the song is experiencing an unexpected resurgence. Like many older tracks finding new life in 2020, it’s all thanks to TikTok.

The “King’s Dead” trend involves TikTokkers pairing up with one rapping Future’s main lyrics while another delivers Kendrick Lamar’s ad-libs (in italics below):

I took her to my penthouse, then I freaked it (Then I freaked it)
I haven’t made my mind up, should I keep it? (Should I keep it?)
I got big dawg status, it ain’t no secret
La di da di da, slob on me knob
Pass me some syrup, f*ck me in the car

The song has now appeared in over 900,000 TikTok videos, helping it rise to No. 1 on the Genius Top Songs chart. “King’s Dead” averaged less than 600 pageviews at the start of March, but rose to more than 43,000 on April 13:

It was this same portion of the song, where Future interpolates Three 6 Mafia’s “Slob On My Knob” in high-pitched falsetto, that first helped turn “King’s Dead” into a meme back in 2018. It peaked at No 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart that year. Ironically, Future previously told Genius that he didn’t intend for that to be in his verse at all.

“I did a verse for the song, and then I just did that at the end just in case they want to keep it like an outro or something, and then he kept it, like Kendrick kept it,” he said in an episode of For the Record. “I was just like, ‘But I ain’t want that on my verse.’ He was like, ‘Man, that’s the best part.’”

“King’s Dead” is already creeping back into Future and Kendrick Lamar’s top 10 most popular songs on Spotify, and its second round of success could send the song back onto the Hot 100 chart more than two years after its release. If so, all four artists have TikTok to thank.

Listen to the song above and read all the lyrics to Kendrick Lamar, Jay Rock, Future, & James Blake’s “King’s Dead” on Genius now.