Drake and Kendrick Lamar’s 2024 Feud

Laramee Minor     
Staff Writer    
  From meeting in 2011 to a diss track battle in 2024, Drake and Kendrick Lamar have an abundance of history between them. Both Drake and Lamar are considered two of the greatest rappers of all time. In the early stages of their careers, the two were known to collaborate on each other’s musical projects, but in recent years friendship has turned into an explosion of insults towards one another. 
  The majority of the drama started when Drake released his song, “First Person Shooter,” which featured another big name, J. Cole. The song featured lyrics stating Drake, Cole, and Lamar were  some of the greatest rappers of all time. One of Cole’s verses stated, “Is it K-Dot? Is it Aubrey? Or me? We the big three like we started a league.” However, Lamar did not view this as a compliment, and he quickly fired back with his song, “Like That,” where he explained that he is confident that he is the best. Lamar fired back by stating, “...the Big Three? …it’s just big me.” 
  Not long after this, Cole decided he did not want to be a part of the dramatics and apologized to Lamar during a concert. It was there that Cole explained he felt terrible about his actions and vowed to #BeeBetter in the future; however, Drake went in a different direction when he started to counter Lamar’s lyrics in his own songs. This quickly sparked arguably one of the biggest events that has ever happened in rap music. 
  Shortly after Cole’s apology, Drake released his diss track, “Push Ups.” Throughout the song, Drake threw insults by saying not only is Drake better than Lamar, but so are several other artists. He retorts, “You ain’t in no big three, SZA got you wiped down, Travis got you wiped down, Savage got you wiped down.” As one can imagine, Lamar did not take this lightly and struck back at Drake with his six-minute song, “Euphoria.” Every second of the song was dedicated to insulting Drake. His viral verse reads: “I hate the way that you walk, the way that you talk, I hate the way that you dress.” It did not end there; Lamar did not give Drake a chance to respond by dropping his next diss track, “6:16 in LA.” Throughout this song, Lamar explained that he hates bullies like Drake and how much of a terrible person he is. 
   Drake then responded to Lamar’s insults with his song, “Family Matters,” which arrived on streaming platforms just 14 hours after Kendrick Lamar dropped, “6:16 in LA.” Throughout the entirety of the song, Drake jabs at not only Kenrick himself but Lamar’s family and love life. 
  Lamar did not hesitate to drop his third diss track towards Drake entitled “Meet the Grahams.” With this song, Lamar slammed Drake for being a “deadbeat” father. He ended the song by stating, “... a rap battle, this is a lifelong battle with yourself.” It had not even been 24 hours when Lamar released his fourth and final song, “Not Like Us,” where Lamar referred to Drake’s criminal record. Lamar’s final song rapidly became the favorite as it charted higher in the Billboard Top 100, higher than any of the other songs released. 
  Even though Drake did respond to the allegations with his song “The Heart Pt. 6,” which he denied any wrongdoing, it became clear that for the most part fans saw Lamar as the winner of the feud. Lamar’s “Not Like Us" and "Euphoria” completely topped the charts with "Not Like Us," debuting as number one and “Euphoria” charting as number three on the Billboard Top 100 Charts. Lamar’s songs have further gone mega viral on social media. Despite all the drama, the Drake v. K-Dot diss track battle will go down in history and will always be remembered as the time when two of the greatest rappers fought to see who was truly number one.