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Following the recent Super Bowl performance, you may have heard about the decade-long beef between rappers Kendrick Lamar and Drake. During the performance, Lamar stared into the camera during his direct diss of Drake on the track “Not Like Us.” However, the beef between the two chart-leading artists has roots that stretch much deeper. The tension began when on the 2013 track “Control” Lamar rapped about how he was the king of rap. Drake followed the song up with “The Language” which many thought was a response to Lamar’s remarks. The beef rolled on with Lamar calling Drake out as being fake in 2017’s “The Heart” Part 4, and Drake rolled out another blow in 2023 when on “First Person Shooter,” his notable “Big three, it’s just big me” suggested he was the biggest in rap.
Kendrick Lamar directly responded on the track “Like That” with a similar line “It’s not a big three, it’s just big me” This direct response kept the fire alive between the two rappers. Drake went on to release "Push Ups" making fun of Lamar’s small athletic build standing at 5’5”. Lamar struck back with his track “Euphoria” which questioned Drake’s fashion sense and place in hip hop. Lamar went back-to-back releasing the track “6:16 in LA” which took another jab at Drake's OVO, suggesting that he had moles inside of Drake’s organization. Drake returned with the track “Family Matters” taking a jab at Lamar’s believed infidelity in his relationship with his fiancé Whitney Alford. Lamar followed this up with “Meet the Grahams,” which called out Drake as a ‘deadbeat father’ and suggested that Drake was hiding other children aside from his son Adonis. Kendrick Lamar then released the show-stopping track “Not Like Us” which titled Drake and his OVO crew as ‘pedophiles’. The track spent three weeks at the top of the Billboard 200 and won Grammys for record and song of the year. The beef has continued with even more tracks being released by both artists, as well as lawsuits against each other’s past sampling on songs.
