Kendrick Lamar and Drake have gone back and forth with some explosive diss tracks as each superstar rapper takes aim at one another in this massive hip-hop beef.
In a beef that started a couple of months ago, with a Kendrick verse on the song “Like That” with Future, these two modern legends of hip hop have traded blows multiple times. This beef has also pulled in some of the biggest names in hip hop, besides Kendrick and Drake.
Multiple rappers and musical artists, including A$AP Rocky, J. Cole, Rick Ross, The Weeknd, and even Kanye West have taken shots at the Toronto rapper since the Kendrick verse on “Like That” dropped from Future and Metro Boomin’s March record titled We Don’t Trust You.
This whole beef in reference traces back to the track “First Person Shooter”, which featured J. Cole and Drake. J. Cole mentions in a verse on the hit track that he, Drake, and Kendrick are the big three in the modern rap game.
Kendrick responded to Cole with his verse on “Like That”, which seemingly came out of the blue on Future and Metro’s We Don’t Trust You when it was released in late March 2024. At the time of “First Person Shooter” releasing last October, it didn’t seem like much of an insult for J. Cole to include Kendrick in the “big three” conversation in rap.
But Kendrick clearly wanted no part of that comparison between him and J. Cole and Drake.
Drake and J. Cole both released diss tracks back at Kendrick in the weeks that followed the release of “Like That”. J. Cole released “7 Minute Drill” on his impromptu mixtape Might Delete Later. But J. Cole quickly rescinded his diss track aimed at Kendrick. He apologized for the diss track just a couple of days later during his headlining set at Dreamville Fest.
Roughly one week after J. Cole rescinded his response and removed “7 Minute Drill” from streaming services, Drake’s response to “Like That” was leaked on April 13. Drake called out not just Kendrick but all the rappers who dissed him recently on the song “Push Ups”.
Drake later released the song in full on streaming services on April 19.
On the same day that Drake dropped “Push Ups” on streaming services, he doubled down on his attacks at Kendrick with the song “Taylor Made Freestyle”. Drake played some creative mind games with Kendrick with a controversial use of Tupac and Snoop Dogg AI voices, while saying that Kendrick was beholden to a Taylor Swift release schedule, on the follow-up to “Push Ups”.
While Drake was pressing Kendrick for a response on “Taylor Made Freestyle” and with some regular posts on social media, the Compton rapper was cooking up the six-minute diss “Euphoria”. Kendrick had a double-diss of his own, following up the release of “Euphoria” (which dropped on Kendrick’s IG page on April 30) by dropping “6:16 in LA” just a couple of days later.
As it stands, the ball is in Drake’s court to respond. Kendrick’s diss track “Euphoria” has spent two days at No. 1 on the Spotify USA Daily Songs chart and the iTunes Store charts, ahead of Drake’s “Push Ups”.
Kendrick appears to have the upper hand at the moment. But Drake came through with a solid response once, and he could do it again.
However, Kendrick is far from the first rapper to beef with Drake. These two have a long beef history, which is something that is common for the OVO record-label founder. Drake has beefed with almost everyone in the rap industry it seems in the last decade.
Here’s a ranking of the five best diss songs aimed at Drake from the last decade.
Kendrick was far from the only rapper Future and Metro recruited to diss Drake in their two-album saga We Don’t Trust You, and We Still Don’t Trust You. On the follow-up to We Don’t Trust You, A$AP Rocky hopped on the track “Show of Hands” with Future to send even more shots Drake’s way.
A$AP responded to multiple Drake references in his songs over the year that are assumed to be discussing his feelings from his past relationship with Rihanna. Rocky and Rihanna have dated for the last few years, and have two children together.
It was rumored, though, that Drake and Rihanna had dated at least at one point in the last decade. Drake has sent subliminal shots at Rihanna over the years since their rumored relationship ended in the mid-to-late 2010s.
“N****s swear they bitch the baddest, I just bagged the worst one
N****s in they feelings over women, what, you hurt or somethin’?
I smash before you birthed, son, Flacko hit it first, son
Still don’ trust you, it’s always us, never them
Heard you dropped your latest sh*t
Funny how it just came and went”– A$AP Rocky on “Show of Hands”
A$AP took shots at Drake’s subliminal disses toward Rihanna in his verse on “Show of Hands”. He also implies that Drake’s last project For All the Dogs, has aged poorly.
Kendrick’s follow-up to “Euphoria” was a surprise drop on his Instagram on May 3, titled “6:16 in LA”. There are multiple references that the title of the track have been connected to on Genius and social media, including Father’s Day and Tupac’s birthday.
This track doesn’t have as many direct shots at Drake as Kendrick’s first response on “Euphoria”, but it still has just as many witty bars and intelligent shots at the Toronto rapper as you would expect on any track of his.
“6:16 in LA” has more chill and consistent production and tone to the songwriting on the track than we get with the multiple beat switches and aggressive delivery from Kendrick on “Euphoria”.
The track that started it all in 2024 for the back-and-forth between Kendrick and Drake in one of hip hop’s all-time biggest beefs. “Like That” not only delivers a great verse from Kendrick, where he separates himself from the “big three” conversation with Drake and J. Cole, but it also has a great performance from Future and a top-notch Metro beat.
“If he walk around with that stick, it ain’t André 3K
Think I won’t drop the location? I still got PTSD
Motherf**k the big three, n***a, it’s just big me”– Kendrick Lamar on “Like That”
Kendrick also separates himself with the strength of his discography in more of a timeless sense compared to the come-and-go album cycles he implies Drake has, like with his last studio album, For All the Dogs.
“What? I’m really like that
And your best work is a light pack
N***a, Prince outlived Mike Jack’
N***a, bum
‘Fore all your dogs gettin’ buried
That’s a K with all these nines, he gon’ see Pet Sematary (Yeah)”– Kendrick Lamar on “Like That”
The direct response to Drake’s “Push Ups” and the “Taylor Made Freestyle”, Kendrick’s “Euphoria” surfaced on YouTube in a surprise drop on April 30. Kendrick takes dozens of shots at Drake, ranging from his ability as a father to the often-discussed accusations that Drake is a “Culture Vulture”.
“Then givin’ him tools to walk through life like day by day, know nothin’ ’bout that
Teachin’ him morals, integrity, discipline, listen, man, you don’t know nothin’ ’bout that
Speakin’ the truth and consider what God’s considerin’, you don’t know nothin’ ’bout that”– Kendrick Lamar on “Euphoria”
One thing Kendrick makes clear is that he does not like Drake personally. He has no intentions of mending broken fences with Drake and doesn’t care about how he’s viewed in the scope of the “big three” conversation.
“I hate the way that you walk, the way that you talk, I hate the way that you dress
Surprised you wanted that feature request
You know that we got some sh*t to address
I even hate when you say the word “n***a,” but that’s just me, I guess
Some sh*t just cringeworthy, it ain’t even gotta be deep, I guess”– Kendrick Lamar on “Euphoria”
There is so much to get into when it comes to dissecting Kendrick’s lyrics and dozens of shots at Drake on “Euphoria”. We don’t dig into all of that here.
But Kendrick diving in this deep with a diss toward Drake makes it even more enticing to see what moves 6 God makes next in this beef.
In many ways, Pusha T set the standard for modern diss tracks in hip hop. No longer was the standard of a good diss track just about the lyrics and delivery that rappers send at one another in beefs.
When Pusha T revealed Drake had a child to the entire world on “The Story of Adidon”, the Toronto rapper’s image changed forever in the public eye. Pusha T says on “The Story of Adidon” that Drake had a kid with a pornstar that he tried to keep hidden from the public eye.
“You are hiding a child, let that boy come home
Deadbeat mothaf***a playin’ border patrol, ooh
Adonis is your son
And he deserves more than an Adidas press run; that’s real
Love that baby, respect that girl
Forget she’s a p**nstar, let her be your world, yuugh!”– Pusha T on “The Story of Adidon”
King Push also takes shots at Drake’s inner circle, including his producer 40 and his former boss at Young Money, Birdman, among others.
“OVO 40, hunched over like he 80—tick, tick, tick
How much time he got? That man is sick, sick, sick”– Pusha T on “The Story of Adidon”
“The Story of Adidon” was a response from Pusha T to Drake’s diss track aimed at him called “Duppy Freestyle” in an ongoing beef that lasted multiple years with Drake. The first response we got from Drake on video directly addressing what Push said on “The Story Adidon” came late in 2019 with the Rap Radar podcast.
