Beef is older than rap, but this showdown is new in its scale and velocity. When Jay-Z and Nas scrapped in the early 2000s, they did so at a time when rap was not quite yet synonymous with pop. But in today’s fractured musical ecosystem, the 37-year-old Drake, who has had 13 No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, and the 36-year-old Lamar, the only rapper to ever win a Pulitzer, have achieved a rare level of name recognition. The most consequential rap beef ever, between Biggie and Tupac, simmered for months and unfolded via physical releases, local radio, and in-person dustups.
Since the early 2010s, Drake and Lamar have reigned as the yin and yang of popular rap: the entertainer and the artist, the hedonist and the monk. Drake has flooded the marketplace with hits, collaborations, and tie-in products. These two men have long been in a cold war, trading covert lyrical insults that fit with the ideological and aesthetic clash they both seem to represent. So when Lamar rapped, “I hate the way that you walk, the way that you talk, I hate the way that you dress” on last week’s diss track “Euphoria,” he was harvesting from richly tilled soil. The hatred he spoke of was both visceral and intellectual; the song argued that the mixed-race Drake was insufficiently Black, or at least exploitative and cringey in his performance of Blackness. “It’s not just me,” Lamar rapped, referring to his distaste for Drake and the people he surrounds himself with. “I’m what the culture feelin’.” He was, by this logic, unleashing the pent-up resentment of true rap fans against a man he later labeled a “colonizer.”
Others can debate Lamar’s racial claims, but on some level the attack represents a desperate wish: for Drake, along with all he represents, to be cleanly excised from modern hip-hop culture. On the diss track “Not Like Us,” Lamar rapped a list of well-respected artists such as 21 Savage and Young Thug who have lent Drake “false street cred.” This attack cut Drake, but it also called attention to how many rappers have mingled their brands with his. Even for Lamar, the relationship between realness and commercialism isn’t neat: As Drake pointed out in his own diss tracks, Lamar has worked with Maroon 5, Swift, and Drake himself.
As tensions grew, Cole dropped out of the fight. However, Drake and Kendrick continue to battle with increasing ferocity – leveling life-changing accusations against each other in a flurry of tracks. This beef with both rappers can get out of hand, if taken too seriously. Right now Drake has released diss-tracks regarding the beef that is happening with Kendrick Lamar and other rappers/producers.
Whatever ends up happening with both rappers, it was definitely a great business since it’s drawing a lot of attention on both of them. And while the question of “who won” still lingers, Billboard magazine reports that streams of Lamar’s back catalogue have increased by 49% since the weekend, while Drake’s have dropped by 5%. Lamar’s pop-orientated Not Like Us, with is potentially hook, has also become a club hit – picking up 21 million streams in its first three days of release.There are also a lot of conspiracy theories flying around – the main one being that Universal Music stepped in to stop the feud.
