It was, of course, not lost on anyone that Kendrick Lamar’s five Grammy wins for “Not Like Us” at this year’s ceremony was the final coup de grâce in terms of winning the already “no contest” rap battle between him and Drake. And it’s a feud that’s been brewing since as early as 2009 (as Lamar references in the song). The year Lamar burst onto the scene with his self-titled EP, tacitly promising to resuscitate West Coast rap. And it’s on “Determined,” the final track (a bonus one) of that album during which Lamar says, “She listenin’ to Drake and all I can say is,/‘Damn, these niggas that much better than me, baby?’” Clearly, the answer is no. So it was that Lamar set a certain tone for the feud to come. A feud that has, of late, proven itself to be perhaps even more Shakespearean than the one between Taylor Swift and Kanye West (or Ye, if you must). And yes, like that feud, this one has an irrefutable winner as well—while the loser keeps making himself look even more that way just by his pathetic responses and bids for attention (what’s more, Swift also ends up being involved in this one too via Drake’s catastrophic “Taylor Made Freestyle”).
Ironically, the tone Lamar set regarding his feelings toward Drake on “Determined” continued on the first track they collaborated on for Drake’s 2011 album, Take Care. A little “interlude” called “Buried Alive” (an eerily appropriate title in hindsight). And burying Drake alive is exactly what Lamar has done in the short span of time since “Not Like Us” was unleashed on May 4, 2024. Never mind the slew of other diss tracks aimed at Drake that preceded it: “Like That” with Future and Metro Boomin, “Euphoria,” “6:16 in LA” and “Meet the Grahams.” But all four of those would be outshined by “Not Like Us,” yet another diss of even more epic proportions. The kind of “diss opus” that would make everyone forget that Drake had started this whole thing (with “First Person Shooter”)/what he had said at all about Lamar because it was so flaccid in comparison to the latter’s razor-sharp vitriol.
With too many highlights to make mention of, Lamar sent listeners on “holy shit” overload with his various barbs, ranging from, “B-Rad stands for bitch and you Malibu most wanted” and “To any bitch that talk to him and they in love/Just make sure you hide your lil’ sister from him” (which could also allude to the fact that Drake was spotted on a date with Latto’s younger sister in March of ‘24). And then, of course, the most direct references to Drake and his “crew” being a den of pedos: “Certified Lover Boy? Certified pedophiles” and “Tryna strike a chord and it’s probably A minor.” As for the incorporation of one of Drake’s own album titles into the insult, said insult gave back to Lamar tenfold when listeners asking Siri to play Certified Lover Boy would end up first hearing “Not Like Us” due to the app using lyrics in addition to titles to find the musical content being requested.
Which brings us back to “Buried Alive,” a song that now has new meaning when one hears Drake sing, “Lookin’ in the mirror I’m embarrassed” and “React like an infant whenever you are mentioned.” And yes, an “infant” is what Drake has perfectly embodied in terms of his “lil’ bitch” reactions to the unmitigated, unstoppable success of “Not Like Us,” which has placed Lamar even higher up in the ranks of being among the greatest rappers of all time. Case in point regarding such “lil’ bitchery” is that, after Drake’s failed attempt at filing a lawsuit that claimed Universal Music Group (UMG) and Spotify conspired to “artificially boost streams” of “Not Like Us” as a means to make the song seem more popular than it is, he instead took a more ironclad approach: suing UMG for defamation. And also for harassment. After all, Drake has been plenty harassed/mocked by people in the months since the song came out. A person turned into a target for Lamar’s own amusement/revenge. This result being a form of “poetic justice” (yes, the name of another song the two collaborated on for good kid, m.A.A.d city) for Lamar after Drake’s “too far” response to all the back-and-forth shade that had been going on between them in the 2012-2013 era (it was, thus, no coincidence that the last collaboration Drake and Lamar ever worked on together was A$AP Rocky’s 2013 single, “Fuckin’ Problems”).
And it was more than likely one of Drake’s verses on Future’s remix of 2013’s “$h!t” that really soured Lamar on the Degrassi alum. Mainly for referring to having Lamar as an opening act for him on the Club Paradise Tour. Of which Drake remarks, “Took niggas out the hood like I’m from there/So you know it’s all good when I come there/I hear you talk about your city like you run that/And I brought my tour to your city, you my son there, nigga.”
As the years went on, the references continued to go back and forth, but never to any great effect in terms invoking such a major flare-up. Even back in 2013, when Lamar was the one to really throw down the gauntlet with a verse on Big Sean’s “Control” that asserted of his rap competition, “I got love for you all, but I’m trying to murder you niggas/Trying to make sure your core fans never heard of you niggas/They don’t want to hear not one more noun or verb from you niggas,” Drake wasn’t sweating it much. Indeed, he told Billboard magazine (in a cover story released the same month that the song came out), “I didn’t really have anything to say about it. It just sounded like an ambitious thought to me. That’s all it was. I know good and well that [Kendrick’s] not murdering me, at all, in any platform. So when that day presents itself, I guess we can revisit the topic.”
And so, apparently, it must now be revisited. For the floor has been so markedly wiped with Drake’s ass before it was then handed back to him. All in such a pointed, measured display of contempt (complete with that Canadian tuxedo he wore to the Grammys for extra shade-throwing purposes) that it’s truly inspiring to those who have so often been told to “just let it go” and “move on.” In short, to “kill ‘em with kindness” or to “love thy neighbor as thyself.” But as listeners have heard and seen here, Lamar has killed instead with masterful strokes (we’re talking Renaissance painting-level) of pettiness and has reminded, to boot, that Drake is hardly his fuckin’ neighbor to love as himself. And Drake likely feels the same more than ever thanks to the bad blood being further fortified between the U.S. and Canada due to a certain Orange Creature.
