It was a stunning image: Kendrick Lamar, in a Canadian tuxedo, holding five Grammy awards, all for a song that essentially destroyed the career of one of his peers, Drake. So, how exactly did we get here?
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00It was a stunning image — Kendrick Lamar in a Canadian tuxedo holding five Grammy Awards
00:05— all for a song that essentially destroyed the career of one of his peers, Drake. So
00:10how exactly did we get here?
00:12Let's start with a song that won all those awards and that Drake simply could not recover
00:16from. After Drake and Kendrick traded a few tracks during their spring 2024 rap beef,
00:21Lamar went nuclear with Not Like Us, a West Coast club track with an undeniably memorable
00:27In it, Lamar doubles down on his previous accusations of Drake having an interest in
00:31underage girls, and also takes similar shots at other rappers from Drake's label, OVO.
00:35The song doesn't stop there, though. It also goes after Drake for being a quote-unquote
00:39colonizer in hip-hop, only going to see other rappers in Atlanta when he needed to boost
00:43his credibility. So, according to Lamar, Drake is not the song's us in a few ways.
00:49The infectious track debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, and it remained
00:52at the top of the Hot Rap Songs chart for an amazing 21 weeks.
00:56Drake's response was, at best, tepid. The day after Not Like Us dropped, Drake released
01:05The Heart Parts 6. Over the course of his career, Lamar had released The Heart Parts
01:101-5, so it was Drake's attempt to steal back Kendrick's thunder. It didn't work, though,
01:14because in the song itself, Drake's only defense against the accusations of being a predator
01:18was that he was too famous, and would have been arrested for it. He even name-dropped
01:22a young actress he was said to have pursued when she was a minor, Millie Bobby Brown.
01:26The song concludes with Drake describing the battle as an exercise, suggesting that he
01:30had bowed out.
01:31And then the other part, I'm too good for this, you know. Oh, you wasn't too good for
01:36that when you dropped push-ups!
01:38Lamar didn't release a response song. The beef was indeed over, with overwhelming agreement
01:42that Kendrick was the victor.
01:44Now that we've analyzed what ended the feud, let's go back to what started it.
01:48Though Lamar had taken a few shots at Drake for years leading up to it, things really
01:51heated up in March 2024 with the release of the future and metro-booming track Like
01:55That. Lamar took aim at both Drake and J. Cole, the other members of the so-called Big
02:00Three of rap, saying,
02:01"'It's just Big Me.'"
02:02J. Cole responded with the song's seven-minute drill, but then quickly removed himself from
02:06the fight, saying he actually had a lot of respect for Lamar.
02:09Dreamville, y'all love Kendrick Lamar, correct?
02:12Yes!
02:13As do I!
02:16Drake didn't let it go, though, releasing the song Push-Ups that April. In it, Drake
02:20mocked Lamar's stature, both physically and commercially. As he did in his beef with Meek
02:24Mill, Drake then went back-to-back, putting out Taylor Made Freestyle. The song employed
02:28AI versions of some of Lamar's heroes, Tupac Shakur and Snoop Dogg, to attack him for not
02:33responding to Push-Ups because Lamar supposedly didn't want to interfere with the release
02:36of former collaborator Taylor Swift's new album. He eventually had to be withdrawn from
02:40streaming after a legal challenge with Tupac's estate.
02:43When Lamar finally did respond, he unleashed two brutal back-to-back tracks of his own,
02:47Euphoria and 6-16 in L.A. Together, they accused Drake of being a bad parent and having
02:52had cosmetic surgery on his abs, among other things. Lamar also claimed to have spies in
02:57Drake's record label who confirmed he was reviled by his own crew.
03:01Within hours of Lamar's own back-to-back attack, Drake had his response in the form of an epic
03:06eight-minute track called Family Matters. It took things to a whole different level,
03:10accusing Lamar of domestic abuse toward his fiancée, Whitney Alford, who was also the
03:14mother of his children.
03:15Drake also intimated that one of Lamar's kids was actually fathered by his business partner
03:19Dave Free. Family Matters was definitely Drake's strongest blow in the battle, but it didn't
03:23have a lot of time to land, because within mere minutes of its release, Lamar had his
03:27response meet-the-grams ready. And if Drake wanted to get in the mud and drag the kids
03:31into it, Lamar was ready to do the same.
03:34Over an eerie beat, Lamar directly addressed Drake's son, mother, and an apparent secret
03:38daughter. Kendrick says to Drake's son, Adonis, who was also the center point of Drake's beep
03:43with Pusha T,
03:44"'I'm sorry that man is your father.'"
03:46Meet-the-grams also made a claim that came to dominate the discourse. Lamar painted Drake
03:50as a predator of girls and young women, suggesting it was, quote, only a matter of time before
03:55his home got raided. Not Like Us came mere hours later, cementing that accusation in
03:59the public eye.
04:00He said he was the guy, and he's never been challenged for that crown.
04:04Well, now somebody came and said, I'm the crown holder.
04:09After the release of Not Like Us and the failure of The Heart in Part 6, Lamar took
04:13a few victory laps. First came the pop-out concert on Juneteenth. The star-studded sold-out
04:18event at L.A.'s Kia Forum at one point brought together members of rival L.A. gangs the Bloods
04:22and the Crips, suggesting that Drake's defeat had brought even the fiercest enemies together.
04:27Lamar performed Not Like Us five consecutive times, with the crowd never seeming to get
04:31tired of it. Then he released a video for his song, which included shots of Lamar and
04:35Alvord dancing, undermining Drake's accusations of discord in their relationship. The video
04:40climaxes with a huge crowd singing and dancing to the track, emphasizing that Lamar had the
04:44people on his side.
04:45Y'all ain't gonna let nobody disrespect the West Coast, huh?
04:48Lamar's success continued from there. In September 2024, he was named as the featured performer
04:53at the 2025 Super Bowl. In November, he surprised everyone by shadow-dropping his album GNX,
04:59which topped the charts and numerous Best Album of the Year lists. And then in February
05:032025, Not Like Us won those five Grammy Awards, including Record of the Year and Song of
05:08the Year.
05:09The year 2024 left Drake in… a bad place. Lamar wasn't the only rapper who targeted
05:15him. Pharrell, for instance, didn't get dragged into a full beef, but took a subtle shot in
05:19his song, Double Life. Rick Ross, Kanye West, and Metro Boomin all piled on, too. The Canadian's
05:25reputation has taken near-irreparable damage, and he seems to know it. In January 2025,
05:30he released the Fighting Irish Freestyle, in which a tired-sounding Drake appears to
05:34criticize former allies, including basketball star LeBron James, who appeared at Lamar's
05:38pop-out concert.
05:39Though Drake was once indisputably the most successful rapper making music, he seems to
05:44have mostly taken his line of attack out of the music arena and into the courtroom. He
05:47sued Universal Music Group, his own label, and Spotify for inflating the reach of Not
05:52Like Us at his expense.
05:53Now it's more than just fiery diss tracks. It's a full-on federal lawsuit.
05:58That suit was later withdrawn, but he again sued UMG for defamation and harassment for
06:03the claims of criminal behavior made against him in Not Like Us. Some have suggested the
06:07action is intended to prevent Lamar from performing the hit during a Super Bowl halftime show
06:11performance. We'll see how that works out for him.