UPDATE: Following an eerie Alchemist instrumental for “Meet The Grahams,” Kendrick Lamar takes a clubbier approach in “Not Like Us” — his third Drake diss in 24 hours — which dropped Saturday evening.
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Over a bouncy DJ Mustard beat, the self-proclaimed “certified boogeyman” continues his assertions of Drake as a pedophile. He also calls Drake a “colonizer” for his relationship with Atlanta’s rap scene, saying that he uses collaborators like 21 Savage, Quavo, Future and others for cultural capital.
With catchy, anthemic quips in this song, Kendrick uses “Not Like Us” to make the case that he can use Drake’s hitmaking formula against him.
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Kendrick Lamar may have fired the first shot of this round of diss tracks with Drake with “Like That,” but he’s issued several warnings toward his foe to not cross any boundaries.
With the lethal “Meet The Grahams” released on Friday night, Hip-Hop fans discovered that K.Dot was already multiple steps ahead.
After Drake slyly referred to Kendrick’s fiancé Whitney Alford by name on his infectious reply “Push Ups,” Kendrick responded with the sprawling diss track “euphoria.” The lyrics retread various themes of existing Drake criticism while stating, “we ain’t gotta get personal / this is a friendly fade, you should keep it that way.” At the song’s end, he ominously warned “don’t tell no lies about me, and I won’t tell the truth about you.”
Days later, Kendrick followed up with “6:16 in LA” and began to hint at the sort of ammunition he had at his disposal. “Have you ever thought that OVO is workin’ for me?” he rapped, while employing a soulful Al Green sample. He went on to reveal that Drake had disgruntled moles in his crew who didn’t have his best interests at heart. “A hundred n****s that you got on salary / And twenty of ‘em want you as a casualty / And one of them is actually next to you / And two of them is practically tired of your lifestyle, just don’t got the audacity to tell you.”
Shortly before midnight EST that evening, Drake released “Family Matters.” Against most foes, it would’ve been a haymaker: Among the seven-minute song’s allegations: that one of Kendrick’s sons is the biological child of Kendrick’s longtime manager and business partner Dave Free, that Kendrick’s artist Baby Keem ghostwrites his lyrics and that Kendrick physically assaulting Alford.
He also accompanied the song with a music video that appeared to have the iconic van from Kendrick’s “good kid m.A.A.d city cover” demolished. “I’ve emptied the clip over friendlier jabs,” he snarled in the opening lyrics.
But less than an hour later, Kendrick responded with “Meet The Grahams,” and he had some revelations of his own. The conceptual diss track takes Drake’s family theme deeper, with each verse addressing a different member of Drake’s family. The first verse is to his son Adonis, lamenting his bad luck at having such a poor role model for a father. The second verse admonishes Drake’s parents for doing a poor job of raising him and compares Drake to Harvey Weinstein, accuses the former of keeping a sex offender on payroll and encourages other celebrities to stay away from him.
The third verse drops the biggest bombshell: that Drake has another child — an 11-year-old daughter — whome he hasn’t claimed. “Yes, he’s a hitmaker, songwriter, superstar, right ,” Kendrick scowled, “and a f****n’ deadbeat that should never say ‘more life.’”
Drake used social media to deny Kendrick’s accusations of him having another child, but Kendrick’s warnings bore fruit. He clearly had the jump on his opponent: he knew that Drake would levy shots against his family, warned him not to, and through whatever connections he had at his disposal, prepared a series of body blows ahead of time that were ready as soon as Drake showed his hand. “I calculate you’re not as calculated, I can even predict your angle,” Kendrick snapped on “euphoria.”
The feud has been one of Hip-Hop’s most dramatic battles in years, with both artists using a variety of tools such as social media, music videos, and even artificial intelligence to play their respective chess moves. J. Cole may have had a point in backing out: this battle is getting more and more personal, and with the lengths to which that these past two songs have gone, only time will tell how much worse it’ll get.
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