By: Hermekay Dehaney
The feud between Drake and Kendrick Lamar, who are two of the most prominent figures in hip-pop, has been building for years, marked by a series of indirect and direct disses throughout each other’s music careers. The feud has been growing in tension with both releasing back to back diss tracks aimed at each other for the past couple months.
But when did it start, and how did it escalate?
Well, for starters the two were once acquainted with each other and even collaborated on different songs and albums, such as Drake’s album ‘Take care’ in 2011, and Kendrick’s album ‘Good kid, M.A.A.D city’ which was released a year later in 2012.
The drama wouldn’t start until 2013 where Kendrick Lamar was featured on Big Sean’s song called “Control” where he dissed other artists including Drake, saying “I got love for you all, but I’m trying to m**der you.” Drake would then respond in an interview by saying “[I]t just sounded like an ambitious thought to me. That’s all it was. I know good and well that Kendrick’s not m**dering me, at all, on any platform. So when that day presents itself, I guess we can revisit the topic.” This would be the start of the decade-long feud.
The feud would escalate however, in March of 2024 when Kendrick Lamar would release his song “Like That,” which was produced by Metro Boomin’ and the rapper Future in an album called ‘We Don’t Trust You,’ in response to J Cole and Drake’s 2023 song “First Person Shooter.” In the J Cole verse, he said “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,” to which Kendrick responded by accusing the rappers of sneak dissing, and went on rapping by saying, “big three —— it’s just big me.” What made that song significant was that the producer, Metro Boomin’ was a former producer for Drake but ultimately fell out with him.
J Cole would then respond by releasing a diss track, “7 Minute Drill,” rapping, “I got a phone call, they say that somebody dissing, You want some attention, it come with extensions,” and “He still doing shows but fell off like The Simpsons.” He also dissed Kendrick’s recent songs by saying it was “tragic.”
Only a couple days after releasing that diss, he would end up backing down by saying “I ain’t gonna lie to y’all the past two days felt terrible,” which he would explain that he felt pressured because “the world wanna see blood.” And he ended up removing his diss from all streaming services, and apologized to Kendrick.
Drake would then release his diss track “Push Ups” on April 13, in which he clowns Kendrick for being 5’5″. He then went on to slam Kendrick for collaborating with mainstream artists such as Maroon 5, and Taylor Swift by saying “Maroon 5 need a verse, you better make it witty. Then we need a verse for the Swifties.” He then dropped another diss called “Taylor made freestyle.” Kendrick responded by dropping a 6 minute long diss track “Europhia,” on April 30, accusing Drake of getting plastic surgery as well as calling Drake a “master manipulator,” and saying “Let me say I’m the biggest hater,” and also “I hate the way that you walk, the way that you talk, I hate the way that you dress.”
I personally think this is where the feud reached its climax, because this was the start of the back to back disses.
Kendrick dropped another song less than 72 hours later “6:16 in LA,” where claims that someone in Drake’s circle is leaking damaging information about him. Then on May 3rd Drake clapped back with “Family Matters,” basically accusing Lamar of cheating on his wife. Lamar hit back with another song just an hour after Drake’s diss “Meet the Grahams,” where he accused Drake of having a secret daughter, and calling him a “narcissist, misogynist, livin’ inside his songs.” He also made a verse addressed to Adonis, Drake’s son, saying, ”Dear, Adonis, I’m sorry that that man is your father, let me be honest,” he also addressed Drake’s parents in the song. This feud would not stop there as Kendrick would drop yet another diss track “Not Like Us,” which alleges Drake being a p**ophiles, he raps “Certified Lover Boy? Certified p**ophiles.”
Drake would respond with a track called “The Heart Part 6,” where he basically denied all the serious allegations against him.
So far it’s been quiet from Kendrick and Drake dissing each other besides Drake dropping a remix of Metro Boomin’s recent diss track against him, but that’s another story for another day.
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