Recently in the rap music scene, big-name rappers such as Kendrick Lamar and Drake have found themselves in a drawn-out rap battle of sorts. Kendrick Lamar featured in Future and Metro Boomin’s most recent album: We Don’t Trust You, which was released on March 22. Ever since this album was released, rap fans dissected the lyrics of Lamar’s feature and noticed some shots were fired at Drake and J. Cole in “Like That”, saying,

“f– sneak dissin’, first-person shooter, I hope they came with three switches…”. 

“First Person Shooter” references J. Cole and Drake’s 2023 collab from Drake’s For All the Dogs LP. In Cole’s and Drake’s collab, Cole says,

“Love when they argue the hardest MC

Is it K-Dot? Is it Aubrey? Or me?

We the big three like we started a league, but right now, I feel like Muhammad Ali”.

What Cole is implying by this is that he and Drake are now a part of the big three of the rap and hip-hop scene. This completely disrespects other top rappers and is suspected to be one of the reasons why Lamar started to lose respect for Cole and Drake, and replied, 

“Motherf— the big three, n—-, it’s just big me”.

Lamar then goes on to compare himself to Prince saying,

“ Prince outlived Mike Jack’”,

implying that Lamar’s career will outlive that of Cole and Drake, just like Prince did Michael Jackson’s.

While all of these shots are being fired at Drake and Cole, Drake starts creating a diss track of his own. “Push Ups” was released on April 19th. The cover of the song is a shoe chart showing a size 7 US in men’s shoes which mocks Lamar’s height and size, which begins with Drake commenting on Lamar’s body. This is already a large leap from “Like That”, and fans began to notice that this would become a feud. Then, only a couple days later on April 24th, Drake dropped another song this time called: “Taylor Made Freestyle”. The song immediately starts by saying,
“Kendrick, we need ya, the west-coast savior

Engraving your name in some hip-hop history”.

Which was calling Lamar out for doing the same thing that Cole and Drake did previously in “First Person Shooter”. In “Taylor Made Freestyle”, Drake calls out Lamar for not yet responding to “Push Ups” and Drake utilizes AI vocals of Snoop Dogg and Tupac, some of Kendrick’s known idols and inspirations, to further poke the bear. “Taylor Made Freestyle” is now off of all streaming platforms due to Tupac’s team threatening to sue Drake for using his likeness without his permission, even though it was AI. Now “Taylor Made Freestyle” only remains through reuploads from fans and onlookers.

Finally, on April 30th, Lamar responded to “Push Ups” and “Taylor Made Freestyle” with “Euphoria”, a six-minute and twenty-three-second long song. In “Euphoria”, Lamar claims that Drake is a “scam artist” and a “master manipulator” as well as calling him fake and basically saying that he is see-through and that everything he does is predictable to Lamar. Lamar also insults Drake’s music, exposes how he treats his “homeboys”, calls out Drake for messing with Tupac and his likeness, says he knows things about Drake and to keep it friendly or he will expose the alleged truth, and then Lamar states that, 

“Now let me say that I’m the biggest hater

I hate the way that you walk, the way that you talk, the hate the way that you dress

I hate the way that you sneak diss”.

Now it is clear that Lamar very much dislikes Drake and he continues to talk badly about him for the rest of the song, even going as far as to say that he thinks that Drake is a misogynist and that he “don’t like women”, and that he doesn’t take care of his son.

Then, on May 3rd, Lamar released yet another track in the saga called, “6:16 in LA”. In this track, fans learn that Lamar has inside information coming from people close to Drake. Drake is the founder of OVO Sound, and one of his staff from OVO has been allegedly leaking information to Lamar, implying that there is beef within the OVO company. Lamar also implies with the lines: 

“100 n—as that you got on salary

 and 20 of them want you as a casualty

and one of them is actually

 is next to you 

and two of them is practically tied to your lifestyle,”

that his “homeboys” are just using Drake for financial gain, and don’t care about Drake because he is a “Fake bully”. Accompanying the release of the song, Lamar posted a picture of some of Drake’s belongings, taken from inside of his house. This implies that Lamar has an inside at OVO.

Later that day, Drake released “Family Matters” which drills Lamar on his alleged strained relationship with his fiancee, Whitney Alford. He continues to claim that Lamar and Alford’s relationship is unfaithful and that Lamar isn’t public enough with his relationship with his son, saying:

“Why you never hold your son

And tell him say cheese.

We coulda left the kids outta

This don’t blame me.”

“Family Matters” was accompanied by an official lyrical video on Drake’s YouTube page where he heads to New Ho King Chinese Restaurant, which was referenced in “Euphoria”. Drake accuses Lamar of telling lies and being a “black savior”. Drake refutes Lamar’s comment about him being a misogynist and Drake says, 

“I been with black and white and everything that’s in between.”

On May 4th, Lamar continued the diss-saga with “Meet the Grahams”. In “Meet the Grahams”, Lamar address’s Drake’s son, Adonis, his mother Sandra, and his father Dennis. He then tells Sandra and Dennis that their son,

“Got sex offenders on ho-vo that he keep on a monthly allowance.”

Then, Lamar addresses “baby girl” and says,

“I’m sorry that your father not active inside your world.”

This implies that Drake has a secret daughter, but this has not been proven, and the public has no information regarding it at this time. The cover of the track is an enlarged image of the picture that Lamar posted on his Instagram earlier in the week, this time showing more of Drake’s alleged belongings.

Then later that night on May 4th, Lamar released another song called “Not Like Us”. In this song, Lamar focuses on pedophilia and sex offenders. The cover of the song shows a satellite view of Drake’s mansion with red icons, implying that Drake’s home is filled with pedophiles and registered sex offenders. Lamar is accusing Drake of being a pedophile by saying lines such as, 

“Tryna strike a chord and it’s probably A-Minor”, and 

“certified loverboy, certified pedophiles”.  

The most recent addition to the saga as of May 5th, is Drake’s response song called “THE HEART PART 6”, which references one of Lamar’s previous albums called “Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers” where Lamar made a song called “The Heart Part 5”. In this album and song, in particular, Lamar talks about his abusive childhood and trauma. Drake references this in “THE HEART PART 6” saying,

“That’s that one record where you say you got molested… this about to get so depressing”. Drake then continues to deep dive in Lamar’s relationship with Alfond and calls Lamar “so obsessive” for talking about him and allegedly spreading rumors about him.

So far, this is all that has happened but this feud is ongoing, and fans will soon see how it will play out.