If you’ve been up on the Internet for the past couple of months, you would know that there’s no escaping the Drake and Kendrick Lamar diss track drama. The two rappers have been embroiled in a historic diss battle and everyone’s watching them.
It all started when J. Cole and Drake ranked themselves, with Lamar, as the “big three” in hip-hop in the song “First Person Shooter.” J. Cole further dissed Kendrick in “7 Minute Drill” on his surprise new album, “Might Delete Later. He later apologized a couple of days later. After the release of “Like That” with Future, Metro Boomin, and Kendrick Lamar, the latter artist stood his ground and said that it’s just him up there in the ranks. Drake, however, took it further and the Compton-born and Toronto-born rapper have released rapid-fire diss tracks—one after the other. Even Metro Boomin wrote up a diss beat towards Drake and offered the person who would write the best diss up to $10,000 and a free beat.
Related: How Many Grammys Does Kendrick Lamar Have? He Might Break Records With ‘Not Like Us’
It all culminated in Kendrick Lamar winning the most two coveted award at the Grammy Awards. “Not Like Us” won Song of the Year and Record of the Year during the main awards show at the 67th Grammy Awards. The song swept in other categories like Best Rap Song, Best Music Video, and Best Rap Performance.
Kendrick Lamar is featured in “Like That” by Future and Metro Boomin. In the song, he dismisses J.Cole’s notion that there is the “Big Three” in rap, saying “It’s just big me.” He also compared himself and Drake to Prince and Michael Jackson, respectively, rapping, “Prince outlived Mike Jack.”
In response to Kendrick’s verse in “Like That,” Drake quietly leaked “Push Ups” where he addressed the “Big Three” claims. “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 / Big difference between Mike then and Mike now.”
He also directly attacked Kendrick’s involvement in features with Maroon 5 and Taylor Swift.
Drake definitely doubled down with the release of “Taylor Made Freestyle.” Drake enlists Tupac and Snoop Dogg AI voices to diss Kendrick for not responding to his “Push Ups” track. With the release of The Tortured Poets Department coming out on that same day, Drake raps that Taylor Swift is the reason why Kendrick Lamar won’t come forward again and respond to “Push Ups” and references their collaboration on “Bad Blood” saying that, “But now we gotta wait a fuckin’ week ’cause Taylor Swift is your new Top / And if you ’bout to drop, she gotta approve.” With all eyes on her release on April 19, Drake is speculating that Taylor’s hype should die down before actually responding back to the Canadian rapper.
Drake later received a cease and desist from Tupac’s estate and Snoop Dogg questioned why Drake would involve him on the beef.
Kendrick Lamar finally responds to Drake’s disses and points out Drake’s role as a parent with “I got a son to raise, but I can see you know nothin’ ’bout that,” and directly calling him out on his rap abilities “You not a rap artist, you a scam artist with the hopes of bеing accepted.”
Kendrick questions Drake on his decision on threatening him. “Ayy, Top Dawg, who the fuck they think they playin’ with? / Extortion my middle name as soon as you jump off of that plane, bitch”
He also makes fun of Drake being a Canadian by using a Canadian accent, “Don’t speak on the family, crodie / It can get deep in the family, crodie / Talk about me and my family, crodie?”
If one was enough, then he should get the message at two disses. Kendrick released “6:16 in LA” produced by none other than Taylor Swift’s mainstay producer Jack Antonoff. Kendrick doubles down on his attacks on Drake saying, “Who am I if I don’t go to war? / There’s opportunity when livin’ with loss/ I discover myself when I fall short.”
Fans discovered that 6:16 is a reference to Father’s Day (which Kendrick accused Drake of being a bad father), OJ Simpson’s trial date, Tupac Shakur’s birthday, and the premiere date of Euphoria.
Drake released “Family Matters” where he fires up accusations about spousal abuse and cheating. “You the Black messiah wifing up a mixed queen / And hit vanilla cream to help out with your self-esteem / On some Bobby shit, I wanna know what Whitney need,” and “When you put your hands on your girl, is it self-defense ’cause she’s bigger than you?”
Less than 12 hours after Drake posted his rebuttal, Kendrick Lamar lined up “Meet The Grahams.” In the song, he claims that Drake has a daughter that he’s never cared about and alleges that Drake is running a sex trafficking ring. In the third verse he raps, “I’m sorry that your father not active inside your world / He don’t commit to much but his music, yeah, that’s for sure / He a narcissist, misogynist, livin’ inside his songs / Try destroy families rather than takin’ care of his own.”
Kendrick made more fiery accusations in “Not Like Us” by doubling down on the pedophile accusations. “Certified Lover Boy, certified pedophiles,” he raps in a verse. In another, he says “Say, Drake, I hear you like ’em young / You better not ever go to cell block one,” and “Tryna strike a chord and it’s probably A-minor.”
Drake refutes Lamar’s claims in the song “The Heart Part 6,” a title that plays on Lamar’s critically acclaimed 2022 song “The Heart Part 5.” “I never been with no one underage but now I understand why this the angle that you really mess with / Just for clarity, I feel disgusted, I’m too respected,” he raps, before adding, “If I was fucking young girls, I promise I’d a been arrested / I’m way too famous for this shit you just suggested.”
Billboard broke the news that Drake filed a motion accusing UMG and Spotify of inflating Kendrick’s “Not Like Us” streams. The accusations against UMG claim that they used bots and payola to spike up the song, leaving Drake in a vulnerable position publicly.
He also accused them of defamation in a second notion filed 24 hours later, claiming that they could have prevented the release of “Not Like Us” due to the song “falsely accusing him of being a sex offender.” With Lamar spewing lyrics that label Drake as a “certified pedophile” and “predator,” Drake believes UMG could have refused to distribute the song.
“UMG … could have refused to release or distribute the song or required the offending material to be edited and/or removed,” Drake’s lawyers said. “But UMG chose to do the opposite. UMG designed, financed and then executed a plan to turn ‘Not Like Us’ into a viral mega-hit with the intent of using the spectacle of harm to Drake and his businesses to drive consumer hysteria and, of course, massive revenues. That plan succeeded, likely beyond UMG’s wildest expectations.”
“Not Like Us” won Song of the Year and Record of the Year at the 67th Grammy Awards. The song also won in other categories like Best Rap Song, Best Music Video, and Best Rap Performance.
When the song won Song of the Year, the arena filled with artists and music industry professionals were heard singing the “A-minor” line when the song was playing.
Drake, who is on his Anita Max Win Tour in Australia, subtly responded to Kendrick Lamar’s win. In his entrance, he wore a hoodie with bullet holes, which could be a metaphor at all the shots he took when he was in the public eye during the feud. He walked out with his song “Over My Dead Body” playing overhead. “My name is Drake. I started in 2008. I came all the way from Toronto, Canada. The year is now 2025, and Drizzy Drake is very much still alive,” he can be heard telling the crowd.
