Since April of 2024, one of the biggest stories in pop culture is the feud between American rapper and songwriter known as Kendrick Lamar and Canadian rapper and singer Aubrey “Drake” Graham. This ongoing “beef” has spread across all social media platforms and even entered into daily conversations among many teens, specifically at BVH.
First Person Shooter,” off of Drake’s most recent album, “For All the Dogs” features American rapper and record producer Jermaine Lamarr Cole, known as “J.Cole.” J.Cole notably sings the lyrics; “Is it K-Dot? Is it Aubrey? Or me? We the big three like we started a league, but right now, I feel like Muhammad Ali.” J. Cole cemented Drake, Kendrick and himself as the “big three” of rap and this concept quickly began to gain recognition.
Kendrick snapped back at this line in his song, “Like That” featuring Future and Metro Boomin, where Kendrick said, “Mother**** the big three, ***** it’s just big me.” BVH senior Kali Swanson, who has followed the drama for quite some time, explains what set off the beginning of this feud.
“The beef started with the song ‘First Person Shooter’ on Drake’s most recent album [‘For All the Dogs’], then ‘Like That’ [by Kendrick] came out and began the beef. I’ve been following since the very beginning, I remember when Drake and Kendrick made music together. I’ve been following the relationship between Drake and Kendrick for a very long time,” Swanson said.
Drake then responded to “Like That” with his song, “Push Ups,” in which Drake attacked Kendrick’s height, shoe size, as well as attacked other rappers, such as The Weeknd, Rick Ross, producer Leland Tyler Wayne, known as Metro Boomin and Future. English 9 Accelerated and IB English teacher Raymond Chhan expands on how “Push Ups” was one of Drake’s weakest songs against Kendrick.
“He does deserve some credit for “Family Matters” and “Push Ups.” For Drake, some of [his songs] were good, some weren’t. The fact that he fixated on other musicians or artists and not only on Kendrick might have been a weakness too,” Chhan said.
After “Push Ups,” Drake followed up and dropped “Taylor Made Freestyle,” where Drake claimed that Kendrick never responded to “Push Ups” due to Taylor Swift dropping “The Tortured Poets Department” around the same time. He responded with one of the largest songs in the conflict, “Euphoria,” a six-minute diss against Drake and his fashion sense, his use of the n-word, as well as his hip-hop merits. Chhan explains why Euphoria was his favorite song from all of Kendrick’s diss tracks.
“My favorite [song] was ‘Euphoria.’ I do think that ‘Meet the Grams’ and ‘Not Like Us’ are really good in their own way. All three are really different from one another, so I think that Euphoria is a good demonstration of Kendrick’s ability as a rapper,” Chhan said.
72 hours after “Euphoria,” Kendrick released“6:16 in LA” beginning his streak of multiple diss tracks, in which he claims that OVO Sound, Drake’s record label boss, was a mole for Kendrick. Evidently, dishing out information about Drake for Kendrick to use for his diss tracks. That same day, Drake drops “Family Matters” in which Drake alleges that Kendrick abuses his fiance, Whitney Alford, as well as further insults known rappers like A$AP Rocky, The Weeknd, Metro Boomin and other musicians.
“Drake peaked in ‘Family Matters.’ It was pretty good and fairly self-written, which we haven’t seen from [Drake] in a while. I was pretty happy this beef was going on because it meant I kept getting good music from both sides, but after ‘Taylor Made Freestyle,’ it felt like he just stopped trying, or he ran out of ideas,” Swanson said.
Kendrick dropped arguably one of the biggest songs between the two, “Meet the Grahams.” which caught the attention of followers worldwide, as Kendrick addressed all of Drake’s family, from his parents to his son, Adonis. However, what shocked everyone was the big “reveal” that Drake had a daughter in the hiding.
“It was surprising. I definitely looked into it some more. I [still] don’t know if it’s true or not. I don’t know if anyone knows, but it was definitely surprising. I feel like that was a bombshell review,” Chhan said.
The speculation of Drake having a secret child is nothing new however, as Drake’s son Adonis was previously revealed in a diss track by Pusha T’s “The Story of Adidon.” This newest reveal was shocking to most but came with a sense of deja vu.
“‘Meet the Grahams’ was pretty shocking especially because it would be Drake’s second kid revealed on a diss track, and we don’t know if it’s been confirmed yet. He previously denied his son’s existence until proof came out. We’ll have to see if some proof came out, but it’s looking like his daughter does exist,” BVH senior William Fowler said.
The same day “Meet the Grahams” was released, Kendrick released another massive song of his, “Not Like Us.” Kendrick proceeds to accuse Drake of being a pedophile, referencing Drake’s odd history with celebrities who are minors. The bar that most people remember this song for is “Tryna’ strike a chord, and it’s probably A Minor.” Swanson explains the significance of this lyric and its apparent creativeness.
“It has a triple meaning. First of all, A-minor is a chord in music, but it’s also ‘a minor’ as in a child. He delivers it in the chord of A-Minor, with the notes A, C and E, the three notes that go into an A-Minor chord. On top of that, Drake has one song in the key of A-Minor, and the song is titled ‘Teenage Fever’,” Swanson said.
The accusations against Drake being a pedophile are being taken very seriously as more of Drake’s past behaviors are being brought up and examined by fans. A notably confusing relationship is in Drake’s relationship with British actress Millie Bobby Brown, which Drake brought up after “Not Like Us” had been dropped. Fowler expresses his opinions regarding Drake’s previously odd interactions with the actress when she was thirteen years old.
“He started to self-report himself. She was never brought up, there’s a bunch of controversies with that. He was texting her when she was thirteen years old, saying ‘I miss you,’ and giving her boy advice, which was odd for a 30-year-old man to do with a thirteen-year-old,” Fowler said.
The most recent song to be released by Drake is his rebuttal to “Meet the Grahams” and “Not Like Us,” which is his song titled, “The Heart Part 6.” It plays off of Kendrick’s, “The Heart Series,” released in 2010. In this song, Drake responds to all of Kendrick’s allegations against him by claiming that he and the OVO team had planted fake information about Drake that Kendrick picked up and used without checking. However, people are very skeptical about this claim including Fowler in which he explains why he sees this song as one of Drake’s weakest songs.
“‘The Heart Part 6’ was supposed to be Drake’s big response, but it was just terrible. He didn’t respond to Kendrick Lamar’s allegations of being a pedophile, and started with ‘Liar, Liar, your pants are on fire.’ But that’s not a response. If he really did [feed false information to Kendrick Lamar], why didn’t he necessarily come out and give proof that he did set it up. I mean if you look at the numbers and at the popular opinion, and the strength of [Drake’s] disses, they just didn’t land,” Fowler said.
The popular opinion among BVH students in correlation to this case is that Kendrick won by an overwhelming amount. There was an evident lack of Drake supporters in this conflict, and even Drake fans, like Swanson, still believe Kendrick beat Drake in the feud. Swanson explains the reason why she supports Kendrick, despite being a Drake fan.
“I’ve been a Drake fan ever since I was little, so a lot of my reasons for liking him are nostalgia-based. However, I’m a musician, so I’m very passionate about the art of music, and I think that when you speak from an objective lens about who’s better at their craft, it’s Kendrick,” Swanson said.
Other celebrities are involving themselves into this conflict as well, such as Metro Boomin, who was one of Drake’s targets in “Push Ups” and “Family Matters”. He notably dropped a beat on SoundCloud, “BBL Drizzy.” On X, formerly known as Twitter, Metro Boomin stated that whoever had the best lyrics to his beat, he would give them a free beat. Swanson further describes why she jumped onto the trend for a chance at a unique opportunity.
“I was planning to take part in it and draft my own lyrics, and that was something that I was doing for fun on the side,” Swanson said. “I never intended to post it, but I saw other people writing their own creative verses, and I love an open verse challenge because I do write songs, so it was for fun.”
Swanson expresses her hope that the feud will continue on because she wishes to hear responses and a variety of music to listen to. However, Swanson recognizes that the battle is on its last legs, as Kendrick and Drake are quickly running out of topics to target each other about in their diss tracks. Furthermore, Swanson hopes the feud stays as mere entertainment, and shares her ideas as to possible outcomes of this beef.
“It would be really cool if they pulled a ‘gotcha!’ [because] this would be the perfect time for them to drop a collaboration album. No one would see that coming,” Swanson said. “I’ve been thinking that this is all a stunt to drop a collaboration together, like poetic justice, and I think that would be cool. I really hope they keep it entertaining and don’t go past diss tracks, because it gets a bit scary,” Swanson said.
