Over this past weekend, years of friendly fire between two mainstream rappers has turned deadly. Many people think they know how the beef between Kendrick Lamar and Drake began by bringing up that in October of last year, Drake released a song featuring J. Cole called First Person Shooter. In the song, J. Cole referred to himself, Drake, and Kendrick as the “Big Three”, saying that they were the ones driving the rap game. Intentional or unintentional, this line offended Kendrick and re-awakened his competitive spirit.
On March 22, 2024, Future dropped the song Like That featuring Metro Boomin and Kendrick Lamar. All three of the artists on this song have beef with Drake, but the most memorable part of the song is when Kendrick responds to the “Big 3” claims by saying “Mother-f the big three, its just big me”. Kendrick made it very clear that he does not view Cole and Drake as equals but as underlings. Kendrick’s entire verse was a spew of insults towards Drake. The two songs from both parties only caused a dormant volcano to erupt, now the two artists – Drake and Kendrick – are engaged in what many would call a “lyrical death match”.
Kendrick and Drake have a passive-aggressive history with over ten years worth of tension. In 2011 Drake had already published his first two albums Thank Me Later and Take Care. Even though Kendrick had been making music years before Drake, it wasn’t until 2011 when he started gaining popularity. Drake peeped Kendrick’s rising fanfare and was quick to reach out to him, he even gave Kendrick his own interlude on his Take Care album. Drake and Lamar went on to make the song Poetic Justice on Kendrick’s album Good Kid, M.A.A.D City, after Poetic Justice collaborations stopped between the two.
But returning to the present time, after Like That was released J. Cole dropped an unexpected album called Might Delete Later, and one of the songs on the album directed a diss at Lamar. But once the beef started heating up, Cole was quick to apologize and distance himself from the confrontation. Cole even did what the name of his album suggested and removed the song from all streaming platforms.
After Cole’s diss, it was finally Drake’s turn to clap back. On April 19, Drake released two songs: Push Ups and Taylor Made Freestyle. In the two songs, Drake fires petty shots at Kendrick by making fun of his height and small feet and even pokes fun of Lamar for featuring on pop songs.
Eleven days later Kendrick responded to Drake with a six-minute diss called “Euphoria” in reference to the HBO show that Drake is the executive producer of. The song jumped to #11 on the charts because of the endless blows Lamar dealt. Kendrick not only called out Drake’s egotistical lies, but he also attacked Drake’s biracial identity. Towards the end of the song, Kendrick unleashes a different level of hate by listing things he straight up despises about Drake. And the crazy part about it is that the original diss was 19 minutes long.
Drake tries to fire back at Lamar with diss Family Matters. Kendrick is notorious for his stance on Black culture and Drake is always ready to exploit it. Drake is constantly saying that Kendrick is “rapping like he’s gonna free the slaves/You actin like an activist”. On top of that Drake spoke about how Kendrick allegedly beats his wife.
Within minutes, Kendrick drops the song Meet the Grahams. For those who don’t know, Grahams is Drake’s last name. This song alone put Drake in the ground. The song began with Kendrick addressing Drake’s six-year-old son by saying, “Dear Adonis, I’m sorry that that man is your father.” Lamar continues to apologize to Adonis by listing a plethora of horrible things his father did, and also mentions that Drake takes Ozempic and even uses the photos of the medication with Drake’s full legal name on it as the cover for the song. Lamar also mentions the gossip of Drake’s Brazilian butt lift (a rumor where Rick Ross awarded him the name “BBL DRIZZY”) and says that he hopes Adonis never turns out to be like his father. Kendrick even tells Adonis that he won’t understand this song now, but to come back and listen to it when he is older. After his apology to Adonis, Kendrick shifts the focus towards Drake’s parents, Sandra and Dennis Graham. Unlike the apologetic message to Adonis, Kendrick states what a horrible person their son is and how they are to blame for what a monster he is. Kendrick tells them that their son is a mentally ill man and that people like him deserve to die, he follows that line by saying “Him and Weinstein should get f-up in a cell for the rest of they life”. And as the song couldn’t get any messier, Kendrick dedicates the third verse to Drake’s secret daughter. Lamar apologizes because her father isn’t active in her life. He states that Drake tries to “..destroy families rather than takin’ care of his own.” In the fourth verse Kendrick finally directly addresses Drake saying, “This supposed to be a good exhibition within the game but you f-up the moment you called out my family’s name.”
And this hip-hop drama continues to unfold, people can’t help but be reminded of Tupac and Biggie…and we all know how that ended!
