So, by now, I’m sure most people have heard at least SOMETHING about the current beef going on between Drake and Kendrick Lamar. Even as I write this, I’m sure something new will come out and this article will become outdated. Things are really starting to escalate between these two beasts of the hip hop game right now, so this article serves to explain as much as possible for those who don’t know what is going on and want the tea.
Back in 2011 (yes, the timeline is a long one), Drake was already a big name in the industry. His album ‘Take Care’ had done really well: it went eight times platinum and won Drake his first Grammy for Best Rap Album. When touring the album, Drake had A$AP ROCKY and Kendrick Lamar open for him, these two both being relative newcomers to the game. The relationship at this point with Kendrick was a positive one, with Drake even featuring on Kendrick’s album ‘Good Kid, M.A.A.D City’ on the song ‘Poetic Justice’.
However, things soon turned sour. In 2013, Kendrick featured on a song by Big Sean called ‘Control’ where this beef with Drake was ignited. In his verse, Kendrick names multiple rappers including Drake, Pusha T, Meek Mills, A$AP ROCKY and more and says ‘I got love for you all, but I’m tryna murder you n*****’. Now, this is not a diss at these rappers, but rather a proclamation of Kendrick’s own competitiveness, an announcement of his own superiority which is to be expected in the hip hop industry. Many of the artists named by Kendrick interpreted it that way, understanding what Kendrick meant by the verse, but Drake did not. Drake said in interviews that he perceived his name drop as an offensive dig from Kendrick, upsetting him because of their supposedly friendliness when they saw each other in person. And so begins a decade long feud.
Since the ‘Control’ verse, there have been numerous subtle jabs between the two rappers about each other on various tracks. Often this is done subliminally so that only the hip hop fans who really keep up with both Drake and Kendrick’s music can follow and connect the dots with their sly insults. It has been very apparent for a while that Kendrick despises Drake with a passion, but it is only in the past few weeks that he has finally let his hatred loose.
For a while, there has been the debate amongst the rap community over who is the current G.O.A.T.: Drake, Kendrick Lamar or J.Cole? Drake released a song featuring J.Cole in October 2023 called ‘First Person Shooter’ where the two of them address this debate and J.Cole says ‘Love when they argue the hardest MC / Is it K-Dot? Is it Aubrey? Or me? / We the big three’. Kendrick was not too pleased with being compared to J.Cole and Drake because he sees himself as the ultimate G.O.A.T., for him it is insulting to be put next to those two. And so the feud really begins as Kendrick is featured on a track by Future and Metro Boomin called ‘Like That’. He directly addresses the ‘First Person Shooter’ lines, proclaiming ‘Motherfuck the big three, n****, it’s just big me’. He continues to insult J.Cole and Drake, particularly with the line ‘Prince outlived Mike Jack’, saying that Prince’s artistic legacy has outlived the popularity that Michael Jackson had when he was alive. This is a direct analogy for Kendrick .vs. Drake’s careers where, although Drake may sell way more records now, it is Kendrick’s artistry that will have the longest lasting legacy in the hip hop world.
The release of ‘Like That’ in late-March is where it all really began and hip hop fans were left waiting excitedly for either J.Cole or Drake to respond to Kendrick. In the end, it was J.Cole who released a diss track first, called ‘7 Minute Drill’ in early-April. In the song, J.Cole says Kendrick’s career has fallen off lately but it is clear that he did not really feel that way as, a few days later, J.Cole expressed regret at making the song, removing it from streaming platforms. J.Cole then said on stage at a festival he was headlining that it was silly to respond but he did so because of the pressure he felt after Kendrick’s ‘Like That’ verse. He said to the crowd ‘Y’all love Kendrick Lamar? As do I’, entirely removing himself from the fight, leaving only Drake to face Kendrick.
With anticipation growing, Drake eventually responded to Kendrick with ‘Push Ups’, his first direct diss track towards Kendrick. The song’s main point against Kendrick is quite weak as he mostly just insults Kendrick’s small stature. There are some notable bars, like his retort to Kendrick’s Prince/Michael Jackson analogy with ‘What’s a prince to a king? He a son’. He recognises that Kendrick is often depicted as a true hip hop artist while Drake is often dismissed as a pop star but calls out hypocrisy as Kendrick has done features for pop acts like Maroon 5 and Taylor Swift. The title ‘Push Ups’ comes from both a viral clip of Kendrick doing push ups and the line ‘you better drop and give ‘em fifty’ refers to Kendrick having to give 50% of his earnings to his old label, Top Dawg Entertainment. Drake also mocks Kendrick’s voice and cadence in how he delivers these bars, something which Kendrick will take further in his following diss track.
After ‘Push Ups’ (released 19th April), everyone was waiting for Kendrick to reply. But, typical of Kendrick, he was taking his time. Some even thought he would not respond at all. Drake grew impatient and released a second diss track, called ‘Taylor Made Freestyle’. This song is more controversial because it was made using AI to have the voices of 2Pac and Snoop Dogg, both rappers whom Kendrick admires and looks up to, diss Kendrick. The title refers to Taylor Swift having just released her latest album ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ which is rumoured to be the reason why Kendrick was delaying his response to ‘First Person Shooter’, to avoid a loss of sales. The use of AI was not wise, as 2Pac’s estate threatened legal action and the song was then taken down. Some may see that move as mind games from Drake, others may think it was lazy and weak. Either way, Kendrick did respond not long after.
Kendrick Lamar’s first direct diss track directed towards Drake was ‘euphoria’, a six-minute track with three different beat switches. While Drake may have mostly focused on Kendrick’s small feet, Kendrick went after Drake’s entire being. Kendrick calls Drake an actor, a scam artist who cosplays a rapper for money and fame. Kendrick discusses Drake and his racial identity (a popular topic of conversation) as Drake was raised in a white Jewish community in the suburbs of Toronto and yet he pretends to be from the hood in his songs to try and win street cred. Kendrick admits he likes when Drake releases his pop songs but dislikes the disingenuousness of Drake pretending to be tough. Kendrick notably calls Drake a deadbeat dad, something which will escalate later. Drake was famously destroyed by Pusha T in his 2018 diss track ‘The Story of Adidon’ where Pusha T revealed Drake had a secret child. This forced Drake to become a present father for his son, Adidon, which Kendrick jabs at.
Kendrick refuses to use subliminal disses anymore, proclaiming himself ‘the biggest hater / I hate the way that you walk, the way that you talk, I hate the way that you dress’ - this is a interpolation of fellow rapper and Drake-hater DMX’s radio rant against Drake. Kendrick mocks Drake for being cringe, says no one in the industry likes him, and points out Drake’s own racial insecurities, asking ‘How many more black features ‘til you finally feel that you’re black enough?’. Kendrick continues by saying that Drake received liposuction to get his six-pack (it’s absolutely insane, I know, I’m giggling while writing this), calls out Drake’s use of ghost writers and AI (Drake was exposed for using ghost writers by Meek Mills during their beef in 2015) and hilariously starts mocking the Toronto accent. The song is a complete assassination of Drake as a person, ending with Kendrick revoking Drake’s n-word pass.
Hip hop fans and beyond were all discussing this one. I was in hysterics, truly. It’s just hilarious the way Kendrick completely mocks Drake's entire existence. Drake’s immediate response was on his Instagram story, where he featured the famous scene in the 1999 teen rom-com ‘10 Things I Hate About You’ where the main character, Kat, emotionally reads a poem listing all the things she hates about her love interest, Patrick, before she reveals she does not really hate him at all and she’s actually in love with him. I must admit, it was a funny way to respond to Kendrick’s listing of the things he hates about Drake. Regardless, we were left waiting for Drake to properly respond with a diss track.
However, Kendrick surprised everyone by releasing another diss track only three days later called ‘6:16 in LA’ on 3rd May. Kendrick did in fact promise this back-to-back release in ‘euphoria’ with ‘Back To Back, I like that record / I’ma get back to that, for the record’ and he plays Drake at his own game with this double release that increases pressure on Drake to respond. There are various theories about what the title could mean, including the date 16th of June being 2Pac’s birthday and Father’s Day. Another notable feature is Jack Antonoff, famously Taylor Swift’s longtime collaborator, being a producer on this track. The song samples Al Green, including guitar from Drake’s uncle. Kendrick mostly states in the track that all of Drake’s closest men, those working for OVO Sound (Drake’s record label), are secretly conspiring against him.
This is not the first time the loyalty of Drake’s team has been questioned. Pusha T insisted that it was Drake’s best friend, 40, who leaked that Drake had a secret child, which Pusha T publicly revealed on ‘The Story of Adidon’. Kendrick continues to encourage paranoia and distrust in the Drake camp: ‘A hundred n***** that you got on salary / And twenty of ‘em want you as a casualty’. Kendrick says Drake cannot hide anymore behind his memes and Instagram stories, Kendrick is not interested in social media trash talk and wants to deal with Drake straight on. Now Drake has to respond, and best believe he did.
Only hours after ‘6:16 in LA’ was released, Drake came out with ‘Family Matters’, which also came with a music video where he could visually diss Kendrick as well as with his bars. A seven-minute track, we see these diss tracks are just getting longer and longer. Drake responds to ‘euphoria’ with his most prolific use of the n-word and turning these racial identity questions towards Kendrick instead. He particularly mentions Kendrick’s mixed-raced partner, Whitney, and how Kendrick supposedly cheats on Whitney with white women ‘to help out with your self-esteem'. Drake states that Kendrick lives the bachelor life in New York while Whitney is left to look after their children. According to Drake, one of Kendrick’s children is not actually his because Whitney had an affair with Dave Free, Kendrick's childhood friend with whom he co-founded his company, PGLang. Of all the accusations Drake puts out, the most damning is that Kendrick beats Whitney up. Now, how true all of this is is unknown. Kendrick anticipated this from Drake in ‘euphoria’, calling Drake a ‘master manipulator and habitual liar too / But don’t tell no lie about me and I won’t tell truths ‘bout you’.
The biggest shock then comes with Kendrick releasing ANOTHER diss track less than an hour after ‘Family Matters’ came out. The only way this could have happened is if Kendrick already knew what Drake was about to release and when, suggesting Kendrick is right about Drake having leaks in his team. Kendrick released ‘Meet the Grahams’ which, much like Drake’s track, focuses on more personal family issues. Again, Kendrick must have known that Drake was going to address Kendrick’s family and therefore his swift retaliation does exactly the same. ‘Meet the Grahams’ is diabolical. Another six-minute track, Kendrick begins with ‘Dear Adonis, I’m sorry that that man is your father’ - what a wild thing to say! Kendrick addresses this song to multiple members of Drake’s family, his infant son Adonis followed by his mother Sandra, his father Dennis and Drake in the final verse. However, the big bombshell moment of this song is the third verse addressed to ‘Dear baby girl, I’m sorry that your father not active inside your world’ - Kendrick is stating that Drake has another secret child, this one being a daughter around eleven years old. And this daughter is one of many, apparently. It’s quite incredible that there are now two different diss tracks against Drake that expose him for having secret children. Just incredible.
Besides that revelation, Kendrick finally directly addresses something about Drake that has been much speculated over. Drake has shown a lot of weird behaviour towards underaged girls, famously texting Millie Bobby Brown and commenting ‘I’ve been waiting’ under Billie Eilish’s Instagram post celebrating her eighteenth birthday. Kendrick tells Drake’s parents that ‘your son’s a sick man with sick thoughts [...] Him and Weinstein should get fucked up in a cell for the rest of they life’ because ‘He got sex offenders on ho-VO [...] we gotta raise our daughters knowin’ there’s predators like him lurkin’. Not only is Drake guilty, but Kendrick says all those whom Drake hires under his label OVO are child predators and Drake uses hush money to silence any victims. This is a really serious allegation. Kendrick ends the song by declaring this as more than a rap battle - Kendrick has gone after Drake’s character flaws, his addictions, insecurities, failures as a father, his culture vulture behaviours and his illegal activities. Kendrick promises ‘I live a boring life, I love peace’ while simultaneously raging havoc in Drake’s world.
The trilogy of diss tracks from Kendrick, ‘euphoria’, ‘6:16 in LA’ and ‘Meet the Grahams’, are absolutely brutal. Drake did what he could with ‘Push Ups’ and ‘Family Matters’ but the general consensus from rap fans is that Drake cannot keep up with Kendrick. It’s quite likely that Drake will respond to ‘Meet the Grahams’, but it is difficult to tell if he can do anything substantial against those damning allegations. A rap battle that began as a fight over who was the G.O.A.T. quickie escalated into something much more than that.
The rap community is incredibly hyped by this, getting more music from Kendrick in this past fortnight than he released in the famous 1855 days between his albums ‘DAMN.’ and ‘Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers’. All we can do now is wait and see what happens next.
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