For several years, the fight in between Kendrick Lamar and Drake lay inactive. They traded refined stabs in the beginning, after that lessened to silent competitors, as stress in between any type of high-performing coworkers might.
When Lamar remained in among the extra at risk phases of his occupation in 2023– following a seriously well-known and Grammy-winning cd launch in 2022 that really did not gather him any type of No. 1 tracks– Drake launched a track dissing him. It took months, yet when Lamar reacted in 2024, he eliminated Drake in every feasible opportunity.
Drake’s justification trembled Lamar out of tension, reignited the composing expertise that made Lamar the only rap artist that has actually ever before won a Pulitzer Reward and stimulated among one of the most extreme back-and-forth fights in between rap artists in current background.
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Lamar has actually won the lyrical face-off in every feasible place– initially on the graphes and after that at the Grammys. And he truly won at the Grammys, becoming the winningest musician of the night. Of seven nominations, he won 5, beating himself in 2 groups and taking home every feasible prize that his scorching diss track “Not Like United States” might have won.
Currently he’s taking that success lap and his culture-defining diss track to the largest feasible place: the Super Dish halftime program. He’ll likely have hundreds of followers at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans and much more in the house vocal singing along.
There is possibly no higher success for a respected hater than unifying the nation to vocalize “attempting to strike home and it’s most likely A small,” the renowned words to his five-time Grammy-winning track, at the largest television occasion of the year.
Wait, what occurred in between Lamar and Drake?

Drake onstage in 2013. That was the year his connection with Kendrick Lamar curdle. (Gilbert Carrasquillo/Getty Photos)
Early in their professions, Drake and Lamarwere collaborators Lamar was included on Drake’s 2011 track “Hidden Alive Intermission,” after that Drake was included on Lamar’s “Poetic Justice” in 2012. They both showed up on A$ AP Rocky’s “F *** in’ Troubles” in 2013.
Points transformed that year. Lamar was included on Huge Sean’s track “Control,” in which he called out a number of his rap peers: J. Cole, Meek Mill, Drake, Big K.R.I.T., Wale, Pusha T, A$ AP Rocky, Tyler, the Designer, Mac Miller, Jay Electronica and Big Sean himself. “I obtained love for you all, yet I’m attempting to murder you,” he claims in the track.
Both discreetly terminated shots backward and forward for the following couple of years, with Lamar dealing a lot of the strikes, after that points blew over till October 2023. That’s when Drake launched the track “First Individual Shooter” including J. Cole. In it, J. Cole says, “Love when they say the hardest MC/ Is it K-Dot? Is it Aubrey? Or me?/ We the huge 3 like we began an organization/ yet now, I seem like Muhammad Ali.”
He likewise claims, “Me and Drizzy, this spunk like the Super Dish”– yet he could not have actually potentially recognized what he was foreshadowing.
Drake is not an unfamiliar person to rap fights. His 2015 Meek Mill diss track, “Back to Back,” was extra preferred than anything Mill produced,winning him that war It was likewise chosen for a Grammy, which he paradoxically shed to Lamar. Drake’s fight with Pusha T ended differently, as Pusha exposed to the globe in “The Tale of Adidon” that Drake had a secret kid, closing down the fight. Drake has actually likewise been trading stabs with Kanye West for several years. Lamar’s exceptional lyrical expertise made this a various sort of fight, however.
Lamar’s 2022 cd, Mr. Spirits & & the Huge Steppers, won the very best Rap Cd Grammy and struck No. 1 on the Signboard 200. Yet due to the fact that it was a theoretical cd mounted as a treatment session, it really did not supply the bangers or social discussion that Lamar typically does– a sharp comparison after his last cd, DAMN., came to be such an experience in 2017. He belonged of the 2022 Super Dish halftime program together with numerous various other musicians, yet with his social importance at a time-out, it may have appeared to Drake as if Lamar was extra at risk than ever before to a straight reaction to their mid-2010s beef.
On March 22, 2024, Lamar reacted to the “Very First Individual Shooter” diss. He showed up on Future & & City Boomin’s “Like That,” in which he struck both Cole and Drake. He says: “F *** sneak dissin’, first-person shooter/ I wish they included 3 buttons … motherf *** the huge 3 … it’s simply huge me.”
3 days later on, throughout his trip drop in Sunup, Fla., Drake seemingly addressed the budding fight, stating, “I obtained my direct high.”
On April 19, the diss track battles formally started. Drake launched “Rise,” in which he buffooned Lamar’s little stature, saying, “Exactly how you huge steppin’ with a dimension 7 guys’s on” and “pipsqueak pipeline down,” amongst numerous various other points. He likewise apparently called out Rick Ross, the Weeknd, City Boomin and Future.
On April 24, Drake included extra gas to the fire by launching “Taylor Made Freestyle” on Instagram, describing Lamar’s relationship with Taylor Swift (and possibly adding to Swift’s passionate party of Lamar’s Grammy win on Sunday). He utilized AI to make his vocals seem like Tupac and Snoop Dogg. Tupac’s estate released a cease-and-desist and Drake took the track down.
When Lamar reacted on April 30, it was with a six-minute, savage track called “Ecstasy,” in which he doubted Drake’s use the N-word, his style feeling and his skill. “The well-known star we as soon as understood is lookin’ paranoid and currently spiralin’/ You’re movin’ similar to a degenerate, every antic is feelin’ horrible,” he says.
The attack proceeded when Lamar launched “6:16 in LA.” on Might 3, in which he affirmed that a mole within Drake’s OVO business was dripping details to him. Drake reacted hours later on with “Family members Issues,” in which he charged Lamar of unfaithful on his future wife.
On Might 4, Lamar reacted with “Meet the Grahams,” in which he called Drake a “” and charged him of having a secret child. He likewise affirmed that Drake has actually existed concerning his family members, plastic surgery and utilizing ghostwriters. “F *** a rap fight, this a long-lasting fight with on your own,” Lamar says.
Much less than 24-hour later on, Lamar dealt Drake one last impact with the specifying track of the fight: “Not Like United States.” He charged Drake and his OVO partners of pedophilia in the now-famous line “Qualified Enthusiast Young Boy? Qualified pedophiles.”
Drake reacted on May 5 with “The Heart Pt. 6,” stating he baited Lamar with incorrect details concerning having a secret child and stired up reports concerning Lamar’s future wife.
Lamar really did not launch anymore tracks. The damages had actually been done. “Not Like United States” debuted at No. 1 on the Signboard Hot 100– his very first chart-topping hit given that 2017. “Ecstasy” after that increased to No. 3. Drake effectively, though unintentionally, drew Lamar back right into social supremacy.
Lamar sealed his success on June 19 with his “The Bulge: Ken & & Buddies” performance in Inglewood, Calif., where he executed “Like That” and “Ecstasy.” He liquidated the program doing “Not Like United States” 5 times in a row, drawing out participants of opposing gangs and significant L.A. numbers to spread out a message of unity. They were joined in their joy bordering a track dissing Drake.
The success lap advanced July 4, when Lamar launched the music video for “Not Like United States,” that included refined referrals to Drake, consisting of an owl in a cage.
On Feb. 2, Kendrick won 5 Grammys for “Not Like United States”: Document of the Year, Track of the Year, Finest Rap Track, Finest Rap Efficiency and Finest Video. The track he was included on that particular worked as his prompting impact in the fight, “Like That,” was likewise chosen for Finest Rap Track and Finest Rap Efficiency. He put on a Canadian coat, which followers took one more refined Drake diss.
Lamar’s most recent cd, GNX, was launched far too late in 2024 to get approved for the 2025 Grammys. He dissed Drake in at least three of those tracks.
Exactly how has Drake reacted?
While Lamar heads to the Super Dish with 5 fresh Grammys, Drake is taking his fifty percent of the fight to court.
On Jan. 15, Drake submitted a government claim versus Universal Songs Team, the document business he and Lamar are both authorized to, affirming disparagement and harassment. He asserted Universal focused on “company greed over the safety and security and wellness of its musicians” by launching “Not Like United States,” which shares “the details, apparent, and incorrect accurate claims that Drake is a criminal pedophile, and to recommend that the general public needs to consider vigilante justice in reaction.” Significantly, he’s not taking legal action against Lamar himself.
In a declaration to Yahoo Enjoyment, UMG called the accusations “not true” and promised to “intensely safeguard this lawsuits.”
On Jan. 14, Drake took out among his 2 pre-action issues versus UMG and Spotify that affirmed the business utilized unjust techniques to enhance “Not Like United States.”
Drake did not participate in the Grammys. On Feb 4, 2 days after the event, he began his “Anita Max Success Scenic Tour” in Perth, Australia, putting on a hoodie covered in bullet openings with smoke putting out of them.
” I like you very much,” he said onstage. “My name is Drake. I began doing songs in 2008. I come completely from Toronto, Canada. The year is currently 2025, and regardless of what, Drizzy Drake is significantly to life.”
We’ll see what Drake does following, yet it’s not most likely that he– or any type of various other musician, for that issue– might cover the month Lamar has actually had. Lamar has Drake to say thanks to for that.