Many people in the rap community know about the long-standing feud between rappers Drake and Kendrick Lamar, and it has recently started to heat up again since 2013 with the two rappers going head-to-head in a rap battle.
In Oct. of 2023, Drake released “For All The Dogs’ and had a song with J. Cole called “FPS” and in it, Cole raps, “Love when they argue the hardest MC (Master of Ceremonies), Is it K-Dot? Is it Aubrey? Or me? We the big three like we started a league”.
Cole feels himself, Lamar, and Drake are the “Big Three” greatest rappers of all time.
On Mar 22, 2024, rapper Future and producer Metro Boomin released an album called “We Don’t Trust You”. One of the tracks called “Like That” hid a featured artist, ultimately revealed to be Lamar.
In “Like That”, Lamar starts rapping on the beat produced by Metro Boomin, responds to “FPS” and sends subliminal shots at rappers Drake and J. Cole. Lamar raps and says, “there is no big three, it’s just big me (Edited for audience)” near the end of his verse.
These lyrics started a three-way conflict between the rappers and fired them up to release diss tracks against each other. I feel like this was one of Kendrick’s best features of his career. He sounded angry, and he had a lot on his chest and spoke his mind.
On Apr. 19, 2024, Drake responded to “Like That” with his own diss track called “Push Ups” and sent shots towards Future, Metro Boomin and picked at Kendrick about his size seven shoe. Drake even rapped towards Future that his first number one song, which is a feature, was on the top 100, “Way 2 Sexy”, on Drake’s “Certified Lover Boy”, was because Drake was on the song himself. I feel like his disses were generic and didn’t really do anything to affect Lamar’s reputation.
On Apr. 29, Drake released his second diss track titled “Taylor Made Freestyle” as a follow up to “Push Ups” and used an AI version of Tupac and Snoop Dogg in the song, two of Kendrick Lamar’s idols growing up.
In it, the AI version of the rappers said that Kendrick is the ‘West-Coast Savior” and even gave Lamar advice on Drake’s weaknesses. After their verses, Drake raps “Since “Like That”, your tone changed a little, you’re not as enthused” and showed he has little patience and was waiting for Kendrick to drop another diss track. This was Drake’s second weakest diss track since he uses AI to help him. This made it seem like this track was ghostwritten.
A day later, on Apr. 30, Lamar dropped a six minute long diss track response to Drake titled ‘Euphoria” and it starts off slow, with Lamar saying that he can predict what Drake will rap about and calls Drake a “master manipulator”. Almost suddenly, the beat changes and Lamar raps that he hates almost everything about Drake, the way he walks, talks, and dresses. This was Lamar’s second best diss track, with his flow and the way he just disrespects Drake’s aspects.
On May 3, Lamar snapped back with another diss track towards Drake called “6:16 AM in LA” and even sent shots at Drake’s label “OVO” and said that he has a mole collecting information on Drake from the lyrics “Everyone inside your team is whispering that you deserve it.”
Less than a day after Lamar dropped “6:16 AM in LA”, Drake dropped his third diss track towards Lamar titled “Family Matters” and accuses Lamar of domestically abusing his fiancée Whitney Alford and having Lamar’s cousin “Baby Keem” writing all of his songs. This was Drake’s best diss track in the feud because of his flow, the three beat switches and decent disses towards Lamar.
Minutes after “Family Matters”, Lamar dropped his third diss track towards Drake titled “Meet The Grahams”. Over an eerie, creepy piano beat, Lamar accuses Drake of being a “deadbeat” father and is hiding another child from the public and disses his entire family.
Lamar raps, “You lied about your son, you lied about your daughter, you lied about them other kids that’s out there hoping that you come.” Lamar continues to warn Drake that he will leak information about OVO, that there are pedophiles on Drake’s payroll. Personally, I think this is the track that ended Drake’s chance at making a comeback, also ruining Drake’s reputation.
On May 4, Lamar dropped his fourth diss track titled “Not Like Us”. Lamar clearly had fun on this song due to the West Coast type beat and claims that Drake’s OVO team are pedophiles. Lamar raps, “Say Drake, I hear you like ‘em young, you better not ever go to Cell Block One” relating to the rumors that Drake is a pedophile himself. The song cover for this track shows an aerial view of Drake’s Toronto’s mansion with red sex offender markers placed on the home. This is Lamar’s best diss track from the whole feud due to the replayability and fun vibe it has to it.
On May 5, Drake also dropped his fourth diss track towards Kendrick titled “The Heart Part 6” and responds to “Not Like Us”, saying that he planted and baited Lamar with fake information about the hidden child with lyrics like “We plotted for a week and then we fed you the information.” In my opinion, this is the weakest track Drake released within the feud and it might have been too late for him to make a comeback and get the upper hand on Lamar.
Part of the resolve to this feud, J. Cole released his diss track called “7 Minute Drill” on Apr. 5, and dissed Kendrick as a response to “Like That” and at his yearly Dreamville Fest, he publicly apologized for the diss track, took the track off of streaming services, and gave his respect to Lamar, saying he is one of the greatest to ever touch a microphone.
This was the first time back-to-back diss tracks were released in hip-hop history and I think Lamar won this feud with better disses and replayability the tracks have. This beef will definitely go down as one of the best feuds in this genre.
