Drake-Kendrick Beef Still Raging
The Drake vs. Kendrick Lamar feud continues to dominate hip-hop discourse, with fans debating sales figures showing Kendrick and J. Cole's albums outselling Drake's latest release. Critics are calling Drake's approach a 'loser mentality' for not focusing solely on responding to Kendrick's disses.
The long-simmering rivalry between Drake and Kendrick Lamar stretches back over a decade, but it ignited in March 2024 when Lamar, on the track "Like That," refuted the idea of a hip-hop "big three" alongside Drake and J. Cole, rapping, "it's just big me." This prompted a direct and acrimonious exchange of diss tracks, moving beyond subliminal insults to overt, personal attacks. Drake's first response, "Push Ups," mocked Lamar's height and his collaborations with pop artists like Taylor Swift. He followed up with "Taylor Made Freestyle," which controversially used AI-generated vocals of Tupac Shakur and Snoop Dogg to taunt Lamar, a move that led to the song being removed after threats of legal action from Tupac's estate. Lamar's replies escalated the feud dramatically. On "Euphoria," he questioned Drake's Black identity and his credibility as a father. He followed with "6:16 in LA," suggesting he had moles in Drake's camp, and then the highly aggressive "Meet the Grahams," where he directly addressed Drake's son and parents, making unsubstantiated claims of a secret daughter and sexual predation. The lyrical battle peaked with Lamar's "Not Like Us," a DJ Mustard-produced track where he explicitly accused Drake and his OVO label of being "certified pedophiles." Drake denied these allegations on "The Heart Part 6," claiming he had fed Lamar false information about a secret child and expressing disgust at the accusations. Contrary to claims of being outsold, Drake's 2023 album *For All the Dogs* had a significantly larger first week than the latest major solo releases from his rivals, moving 402,000 album-equivalent units. In comparison, Kendrick Lamar's *Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers* (2022) sold 295,500 units in its first week, and J. Cole's *The Off-Season* (2021) sold 282,000 units. The "loser mentality" critique largely stems from Drake's actions after the main lyrical exchanges. Following the viral success of "Not Like Us," Drake's company, Frozen Moments, filed a lawsuit against Universal Music Group, alleging the label, which both artists are signed to, used "illegal tactics" to artificially inflate the song's popularity. This move was widely seen by many online commentators as a "sore loser move."
