Kendrick Lamar takes aim at Drake on surprise new single
Kendrick Lamar and Drake have had an ongoing beef throughout 2024, but their varying approaches to addressing that feud continue to offer an entertaining contrast.
While Drake has been doing a lot over a long period of time, including posting memes, releasing heaps of music, and posting on his Instagram story, Lamar is happy to go silent for some time, let anticipation build, and then drop a devastating blow.
He did this in summer as his run of tracks, including ‘Euphoria’, ‘Meet The Grahams’, and ‘Not Like Us’, cemented him as the victor of the beef. Now, following the announcement that he will be headlining the Super Bowl Halftime Show, he has dropped another five-minute epic. The song is untitled and doesn’t specifically mention Drake’s name; however, some lines are clearly aimed at the Toronto rapper.
In the opening verse, there are a few lines that could pertain to Lamar and Kendrick’s beef. Straight out of the gate, Kendrick says, “I think it’s time to watch the party die,” which feels like a homage to the ongoing beef between the two rappers, as on his diss ‘Meet The Grahams’, Kendrick announces he is “crashing the party.”
Also, in the first verse, Kendrick seems to elude to the fact that he and Drake will never be able to patch things up. He raps, “This shit done got too wicked to apologise,” which is likely a reference to the personal bars that both rappers dropped throughout their beef.
As Drake and Kendrick both took shots at each other’s families, talking about their kids and significant others, Lamar says, “It’s different; get him whacked and disqualified.” Lamar also infers that Drake shouldn’t be in the conversation when it comes to discussing who the greatest of all time is.
The song doesn’t only take shots at Drake, though. Kendrick Lamar expands upon what he said in his disses ‘Euphoria’ and ‘Not Like Us’, criticising the rap game for allowing Drake to take over and taking fans of hip-hop to task. He implies that he hates what the genre has become as he disses the industry as a whole.
“Why argue with these clowns if the circus is well at work,” Kendrick asks, “Just walk that man down, that’ll do everyone a solid. It’s love but tough love, sometimes gotta result in violence.”