The dead rapper Kendrick Lamar was accused of copying
Kendrick Lamar received a lot of praise following the surprise release of GNX in late 2024. His rapping style on the album was striking, but to certain people, it sounded very familiar.
Some listeners and critics noted a similarity between Kendrick’s delivery on GNX and the work of another rapper, who, sadly, was killed in 2021. That was the Los Angeles artist Drakeo the Ruler, who, before he died, had developed a reputation as a distinct force within the West Coast scene.
Drakeo was frequently embroiled in serious legal issues throughout his career, including periods spent in jail. But, despite these problems, he nonetheless managed to forge a career and a committed following for his distinct manner of rapping.
Drakeo’s life and career were cut tragically short when he was fatally stabbed backstage at a music festival in 2021. He was only 28 when he died.
When, three years later, GNX dropped, some of Drakeo’s fans felt that Kendrick’s new style on the album was heavily indebted to the fallen rapper. In fact, Drakeo’s own dad appeared on the No Jumper podcast in August 2025 to explicitly argue the point.
“I’m not a big Kendrick Lamar person listening to his music, I’m really picky with music just being a musician and all that,” Frakeo’s dad, who goes by the name of 2Low, said. “But I heard this one song of his, and I’m like ‘Wait.’ I didn’t know if I was listening to a Drakeo song that I just didn’t hear yet. I’m like, ‘Oh, this is one of my son’s songs that I haven’t heard yet.’”
2Low elaborated on the specific similarities that he perceived between Kendrick and his son’s style. “The rhyme pattern, the syncopation, all of that was the same,” he claimed. “The flow, everything was the same.”
Evidently annoyed by what he perceived to be a lack of respect for Drakeo on Kendrick’s part, 2Low went on to speculate about why Kendrick never credited his son as an influence. He wondered if, maybe, it was “a politics thing.”
2Low suggested that, perhaps, Kendrick had calculated that crediting Drakeo might affect his own reputation negatively. “I can understand it on that level,” he said, “but at some point, you got to keep it real.”