In case you missed it, Kendrick Lamar and Drake are beefing (they have been for a minute) and there’s been a lot to keep up with throughout the timeline of their back and forth. We already dropped a roundup of every major moment you need to know in K-dot vs. Champagne Papi’s beef back in April - but since then, a lot of sh*t has happened, so here’s our updated rundown of exactly why the rappers’ beef kicked off and its timeline up until now.
2012 - 2022Sh*t started off subtle
The Cold War between Drake and Kendrick might’ve been brewing since 2012, but it really kicked off in 2013, instigated by Kendrick’s feature on Big Sean’s track “Control” in which he name-dropped Drake and a number of other rappers, saying “I got love for you all, but I’m tryna murder you.” Drake clapped back the same year in his track “The Language,” sneak-dissing Kendrick with the line: “I don’t know why that they been lyin/ But your s*** is not that inspirin.”
2023 - March 2024Then it hit the studio
Then, “Like That” - a track on the album We Don’t Trust You by Future, Metro Boomin, and Kendrick Lamar dropped on March 22nd. In the track, Kendrick called out both Drake and J. Cole referencing their collaborative track on For All The Dogs called “First Person Shooter”, by saying “F*** sneak dissin’, ‘First Person Shooter,’ I hope they came with three switches.” But the nail in Drake’s coffin undeniably is Kendrick’s line: “Motherf*** the ‘Big 3,’ n****, it’s just big me/I’m really like that/And your best work is a light pack/N****, Prince outlived Mike Jack.”
Just after “Like That” dropped, Metro Boomin took to X to say “Once you pick a side stay there.. #WEDONTTRUSTYOU,” a comment that had fans wondering whether every major rapper would be taking sides. Users began posting their speculations for which side each artist would take, grouping “KENDRICK, YE, & FUTURE VS DRAKE, COLD, & 21.” Kendrick and Drakes’ beef had gone from a few lines to industry wide drama that had people speculating what would happen next.
April 2024Things really started kicking off
Then, the ball really got rolling. In April, a diss track by Drake titled “Push Up” leaked online, featuring the line “Pip-squeak, pipe down/You ain’t in no Big Three, SZA got you wiped down,” and sent fans into a frenzy. 50 Cent backed Drake by posting on Instagram “All you 🥷🏿’s got smoked by a light skinned,” and Lebron James weighed in on X, saying, “nothing like 2 heavyweights doing what they do best!”
Drake then dropped an official track called “Taylor Made Freestyle” on April 19th that was pretty direct in it’s retaliation. In the first lines he rapped, “Kendrick, we need ya, the West Coast savior, Engraving your name in some hip-hop history, If you deal with this viciously, You seem a little nervous about all the publicity.” K-dot apparently took that personally, given that he retaliated twice in the next two months, with “Euphoria” and “6:16 in LA”.
Sh*t was speeding up, but Drake was not going to let that get to him. On the same day that Kendrick Lamar released “6:16 in LA” in May, Drake retaliated with “Family Matters”, where he basically called Kendrick a bad father to his kids. And you know K-dot wasn’t having that, dropping “Meet The Grahams” on May 3rd, opening with the lines: “Dear Adonis, I’m sorry that that man is your father, let me be honest, It takes a man to be a man, your dad is not responsive.”
May 2024Kendrick knocked a blow
K-dot obviously wasn’t done after dragging Drake’s dad, grandpa, kid, and Drake himself in “Meet The Grahams”, bc he proceeded to release “Not Like Us” literally a day later, which might be one of the most savage, reputation ruining diss tracks in this beef (or… ever?). If you haven’t heard the hardest lyric in the track, where’ve you been? ICYMI, it’s: “Why you trollin' like a bitch? Ain't you tired?, Tryna strike a chord and it's probably A minorrrrrrrrrr.”
September - October 2024The industry started taking note
After literally over a decade of back and forth between Drake and Kendrick, it was “Not Like Us” hitting the charts - and dropping an iconic music video - that caught the rest of the world’s attention. After that, Kendrick Lamar booked the 2025 Super Bowl Half Time Show (and we’re not saying his beef with Drake is why, but it certainly helped get people talking) and Channel 4 announced it would be making a documentary about the feud. You know your beef’s reached biblical levels when a mainstream TV channel decides to drop a doc on it.
November 22nd 2024Kendrick knocked another blow
You might’ve thought Kendrick Lamar was winning at this point - Drake hadn’t retaliated to “Not Like Us” and he’d bagged the Super Bowl - but that didn’t stop K-dot from hitting again. Going 3 for 3, he didn’t just drop a single this time: on November 22nd, Kendrick released a full album titled GNX where he dragged Drake on numerous tracks. Kendrick also didn’t just come for Drake: he also called out a few other rappers on GNX, including Lil Wayne who responded on socials. The most viral of said tracks on GNX has to be “Squabble up”, which got its own music video shortly after.
November 25th 2024Drake finally hit back
It’s not over till it’s over, and in this case, it’s over when someone sues. That someone was Drake who revealed via his lawyers on November 11th that he was suing Universal Music Group and Spotify. In a petition filed to NY’s supreme court, Drake claimed that UMG and Spotify artificially inflated Kendrick’s “Not Like Us” - the diss track with a bar hinting Drake’s into “minorrrrr”s - so it got more streams, whilst holding his own music back. Drake’s lawyers said, “UMG … paid currently unknown parties to use ‘bots’ to artificially inflate the spread of “Not Like Us” and deceive consumers into believing the song was more popular than it was in reality.”
Shortly after this, Drake came out on top by being Spotify’s “most listened to artist overall in 2024, so maybe he’s taking this as a win? We haven’t heard from K-dot since, but that might just be the silence before the storm. Wdyt?
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