Two heavy hitters in hip hop, Kendrick Lamar and Drake have seemingly had an underlying and bubbling beef since 2013, a year marked by Kendrick’s bold artistry being shown with his feature in Big Sean’s song “Control”, where he calls out the entire rap game and his 2013 BET Hip Hop Awards Top Dawg Entertainment Cypher verse. The West Po re recognizes there are years worth of nuanced disses both large and small by both artists, but there is a portion of this diss that has really caught the eye of hardcore hip-hop and mainstream music fans alike.
It’s been a month since Kendrick dropped Not Like Us, the polarizing diss that took over the music industry. Not Like Us broke the record for most streams in 24 hours, a record previously held by his opponent in this beef, Drake. On Not Like Us, Kendrick accuses Drake of being a predator and brings up how OVO has predators on their payroll, specifically “Baka Not Nice”, who was charged with forcing a woman into prostitution. Not Like Us was a calculated move by Kendrick, as he created a “summer anthem” mostly just making fun of Drake for allegedly being a predator. Kendrick also calls Drake a culture vulture, with basically the entire 3rd verse of the song stating how Drake used Atlanta rappers to make him seem more up-to-date with the culture and to hit the club and get fake street cred, to come across as tougher.
The Heart Part 6 (a reference to Kendrick’s series of songs under the same name), Drake’s rebuttal, was much less popular. In the song, Drake directly addresses the allegations levied upon him in Kendrick’s Meet the Grahams. “We plotted for a week, and then we fed you the information, a daughter that’s eleven years old, I bet he takes it”. Along with denying his alleged daughter’s existence, Drake doubles down on his previous disses directed at Kendrick’s relationship with his wife, bringing up Dave Free and his supposed relationship with Kendrick’s wife. Drake also references Mother I Sober, one of the songs of Kendrick’s most recent project, Mr Morale and The Big Steppers. In the line, Drake accuses Kendrick of being blinded by his past traumas of being a victim of molestation, using it as an excuse to go at Drake with accusations of pedophilia. However, on Mother I Sober, Kendrick blatantly states that he was not molested as a child, the track being directed more towards his mother and her past traumas. The diss as a whole is very weak, possibly the weakest diss from this entire beef. Drake not only fails to bring up damning evidence but doesn’t bring anything new to the table he hasn’t already accused Kendrick of. Not Like Us breaking several records previously held by Drake only serves to make him look worse.
Gus Sickler, a Junior at WPHS gives a more neutral stance on this beef “I just think a lot of these artists got these kind of secrets, some artists are just better at hiding it than others. At the end of the day, these are grown-ass men, you should not be idolizing these people.”
This diss battle between Kendrick and Drake has no doubt been the single most interesting music beef in recent memory. We only highlighted a blurb of this beef, which although huge, is actually not even the most jarring and devastating part of this beef, with that probably going to Kendrick Lamar’s “Meet The Grahams”. While it can’t be certain whether or not Drake will continue the disses, the consensus is that Kendrick handily won this beef. Unlike his previous rap beefs, it seems Drake’s public image has shifted dramatically since The Heart Part 6 Dropped. Kendrick has won over the masses, with over 70M streams within the first day, and over a million dislikes on The Heart Part 6. Drake posted an image on Instagram captioned “Good times. Summer vibes up next,” almost confirming he doesn’t plan on continuing this diss battle. It’s hard to say whether or not Drake’s image will fully recover from this loss.
