The Office Star Stuck In The Middle Of The Most Brutal Rap Feud Of 2024
You may remember Brian Baumgartner from his hilarious role as Kevin, the dimwitted accountant and basketball prodigy in NBC’s The Office. What you may not realize, however, is that Brian Baumgartner recently became caught in the crossfire of the most harrowing rap feud of the 21st century.
The former Dunder Mifflin employee made a significant cameo in the November 2023 music video for the song “First Person Shooter” by Drake and J. Cole, which inadvertently set off a chain of events leading to the vicious diss battle between Drake and Kendrick Lamar.
Brian Baumgartner Appeares In Drake’s First Person Shooter
The Kevin Malone thespian appears in the opening skit of “First Person Shooter,” having received a major promotion since we last saw him in the finale of The Office in 2013.
According to his swanky office and desktop placard, Brian Baumgartner portrays an incompetent interim manager in the rap video, who spends his time ducking calls from the CEO to play video games on company time. Meanwhile, Drake, J. Cole, and the rest of the office employees can be found blowing off their own work to engage in numerous extracurriculars such as ping pong, boxing, and basketball tournaments.
Baumgartner Explains His Role In The Rap Beef
Brian Baumgartner recently sat down for an interview with Salon, where he plugged his recent cookbook, discussed some fun behind-the-scenes facts of The Office, and spilled his guts about his involvement in the generational rap beef. Predictably, Baumgartner claims that he had no way of knowing that the “First Person Shooter” video would be the hip-hop equivalent of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and has promoted himself as an arbiter of peace.
The Biggest Feud In Years
On the song, the two top-tier rappers lend credence to the long-running narrative that they are part of a so-called “big 3” of rap music, with Kendrick Lamar rounding out the league.
While many rappers may see this as a compliment, Kendrick Lamar was deeply insulted, as he has a long-standing distaste for Drake, which the two have kept mostly under the radar for over a decade. As Brian Baumgartner explained in his interview with Salon, he never intended to choose sides by making his cameo in the rap video, and still holds out hope that Kendrick will reach out to him in order to patch things up.
Reaching Out To Kendrick
Specifically, Brian Baumgartner said of the rapper, “I need Kendrick to give me a call. We’ll do a sit-down, I’ll take care of everything… I’ll fix it.” That doesn’t seem especially likely however, as the Kendrick and Drake feud truly ballooned out of control during the first week of May, with each rapper delivering multiple diss tracks loaded with personal insults, unproven accusations, and threats of violence.
Kendrick Lamar laid out his true feelings for Drake on the platinum-selling song “Euphoria,” where he literally raps, “I hate the way that you walk, the way that you talk, I hate the way that you dress. I hate the way you sneak diss, if I catch flight, it’s gon’ be direct.”
Blissfully Unaware Of What He Was Involved In
Brian Baumgartner claims that he wasn’t even aware of the rap beef until it had been brought to his attention that the video for “First Person Shooter” had gained a massive spike in views over the last few weeks. In this way, it seems that he has a great deal in common with his character in the video, minding his business playing games while the rappers in the building duke it out without his knowledge.
While the beef seems to have cooled down for the moment, Kendrick and Drake have not formally moved on, meaning Brian Baumgartner’s offer to broker a peace deal may be the only hope the two rappers have to patch things up.
Source: Salon
