Kendrick Lamar maintains that his part of Big Sean's "Control" is nothing more than a little friendly competition among artists.
Or it's at least nothing more than competition.
"A lot of cats that I named, they're actually good friends of mine and I basically wanted to show that I'm competitive," the good kid, m.A.A.d city artist, who's nominated for leading 14 BET Hip-Hop Awards, explained tonight on Chelsea Lately. "When you get out on the basketball court and you're playin'..."
"What the f--k do you know about basketball?" Chelsea Handler fired back, poking fun at Lamar's 5-foot-6 stature.
"So, before music," Lamar said, apparently wanting to get the b-ball reference out of the way first.
"I wanted to be Michael Jordan. No, seriously," he added as Chelsea gave him the eye. "But like you said, I'm a small guy, I only grew to 5'6 and it deferred my dreams to writin' rhymes...I have a lot of insight on hoopin'...Looks may be deceivin' but..."
Chelsea suggested that he still might grow, but Lamar admitted that, at 26, his growing days were over.
But back to the metaphor!
Lamar said that his verse of "Control" called out fellow rappers "in a competitive nature, like basketball...You know, Kobe vs. LeBron, I'm sure they're good friends off the court..."But when you're in that booth, you have to be able to annihilate whoever out there and that keeps the level of hip-hop alive, as far as the culture."
Speaking of the culture, Lamar also shared stage time with Miley Cyrus at the MTV VMAs while performing "Give It 2 U" with Robin Thicke.
"It was shocking, very shocking," he said a bit uncomfortably when Chelsea opened up the interview by asking him if Miley had gone near him with her big foam finger. (For the record, no she didn't.)
Asked if her twerking ways affected his performance, Lamar recalled, "It didn't get in the way of what I was doing. [But] I definitely was interested."
Watch the clip to find out just how true Lamar's rhymes about hooking up in his mom's minivan really are (psst, they're totally true!), and tune into Chelsea Lately, weeknights at 11 p.m., only on E!