Kendrick Lamar is winning his rap battle with Drake based only on numbers—the beef has enthralled the internet throughout the weekend.
Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” was released on May 4, and it has already broken the single-day American streaming record on Spotify, with over 6.59 million streams. He dethrones Drake’s 2021 collaboration “Girls Want Girls” with Lil Baby.
Drake’s “Push Ups” and “Taylor Made”—the latter containing AI-generated voices of Tupac and Snoop Dogg—followed the release of Metro Boomin and Future’s “Like That,” which started the spat. Tupac’s estate issued a cease and desist letter to Drake over that one. Here’s a quick timeline to catch up on this generational conflict.
READ MORE: Drake Responds To Kendrick Lamar’s Pedophile Claims In New Diss, “The Heart Part 6,” Fans Have Mixed Feelings
Future, Metro Boomin, and Kendrick Lamar released “Like That” on March 22, with Lamar disputing J. Cole’s claim that he, Drake, and Lamar are in rap’s major league. “Love when they argue the hardest, MC.” / Is this K-Dot? Is this Aubrey? “Or me? / We the big three, we started a league, but right now, I feel like Muhammad Ali,” J. Cole rapped. Lamar responded with, “Motherf*ck the big three, n*gga, it’s just big me.”
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Drake responded to Lamar’s song “Push Ups,” on April 13, which includes the lyrics: “You ain’t in no Big Three, SZA got you wiped down, Travis got you wiped down, Savage got you wiped down / Like your label, boy, you in a scope right now / And you gon’ feel the aftermath of what I write down / I’m at the top of the mountain, so you tight now / Just to have this talk with yo’ ass, I had to hike down.” Drake also criticizes Rick Ross, who released a diss single of his own.
When Drake seemingly did not receive a response from Kendrick Lamar, he posted the “Taylor Made Freestyle” on Instagram on April 19 to entice the rapper to respond. The tune incorporates AI-generated voices of Tupac Shakur urging Kendrick to respond—but it has been removed due to legal threats from the Tupac estate.
Kendrick Lamar finally answered on April 30, dropping a tune named “Euphoria,” in which he criticizes Drake’s lyrical ability, parenting, and claims Drake has plastic surgery. On May 3, Kendrick dropped 6:16 in Los Angeles, keeping his vow to go ‘back to back.’ The single was produced by Jack Antonoff, a frequent Taylor Swift collaborator.
Drake responded to the single with “Family Matters,” which was released on May 3. The song is harsh on Lamar, implying that his son is not his and that his fiancée may suffer violence at his hands. “When you put your hands on your girl, is it self-defense ’cause she’s bigger than you?” He also compared Lamar to Bobby Brown. “On some Bobby shit, I wanna know what Whitney need,” Drake sings.
Lamar followed it up with “Meet the Grahams,” which was released mere hours later on May 4. The song maintains the subject of going after each other’s families. In the song, Lamar apologizes to Drake’s son Adonis for his father and suggests that Drake has a hidden daughter.
Not barely 24 hours after releasing “Meet the Grahams,” Lamar publishes “Not Like Us,” which features bombshell charges against Drake. The lyrics include “Certified Lover Boy, certified pedophiles” along with “Say Drake I hear you like ’em young / You better not ever go to cell block one,” along with the final line, “Tryna strike a chord and it’s probably A-minor.”
Following those startling charges, Drake releases “The Heart Part 6,” a play on Lamar’s long-running The Heart series. Drake claims that his own team manufactured the hidden daughter story in order to entice Kendrick to accept the bait. “You gotta learn to fact check things and be less impatient,” rapper Drake says.
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