Generals, politicians, businesspeople of all credos will be studying Kendrick Lamar’s decisive victory over Drake for years to come. As the self-proclaimed ‘biggest hater’, Kung Fu Kenny expertly maneuvered his feud to great cultural and commercial success that can already be seen through the tangible rise in his popularity and the accompanying backlash against Drake. In what was labeled a ‘victory lap’, Lamar performed his hit song “Not Like Us” no less than six times during his Juneteenth concert– and in the distance there’s Drake hanging off Camila Cabello’s coattails for any kind of buzz. There can be no doubt as to the victor of the feud, but what were the tactical decisions behind the feud that led to K-Dot’s resounding success?
Why Can’t We Beef Friends?
Hip-hop has a long history with feuds, the most prominent being the East Coast-West Coast beef between Tupac and Biggie. While feuds can potentially raise the public profile of both feuders, they can also escalate to tragic ends. Luckily, both parties seem committed to keeping the beef in check, with Kendrick lamenting the deaths on the streets from feuds and advocating for unity, ‘bringing everyone together’. It’s possible his unity refers only to the Los Angeles crowd he was playing to– leaving no space for a certain Toronto outsider– but judging things as they stand, music fans may rest easy knowing there likely will not be violence as a result of the Kendrick/Drake feud.
The feud arguably originated from J. Cole’s line in “First Person Shooter”, where J. Cole stated the ‘big three’ in hip-hop are him, Drake, and Kendrick. Kendrick’s retaliation in “Like That” was not meek and was not subtle, declaring “m——k the big three/n—a, it’s just big me”. This prompted a stream of diss tracks that revealed the deep animosity Drake and Kendrick have for each other. Drake tried pulling J. Cole into his orbit as an ally– a move which backfired as the New York rapper gracefully bowed out of the beef. Drake released his “Taylor Made Freestyle” taking shots, only to shoot himself in the foot when Tupac’s family sued him over using a Tupac voice AI (“Never interrupt your opponent when he’s the middle of disrespecting a legend,” says Ken Tzu). In this early stage of the beef, Kendrick stayed mum. It was a conflict that could only grow uglier.
The Beef Had No Receipts– But That Didn’t Stop It From Cooking
Drake and Kendrick have both hurled grievous accusations at each other through the course of their feud, culminating in “Family Matters” and “Meet the Grahams”. Drake’s bone of contention is Kendrick’s alleged “performative Pro-black activism and domestic violence”, while Kendrick has stated on several songs that Drake is (among other things) a pedophile. Neither have definitive proof for their claims, though Drake’s texts to Millie Bobby Brown and his cagey response to these allegations certainly do not help his situation (you don’t understand, he’s ‘too famous’ to mess with young girls, just like how OJ Simpson was ‘too famous’ to commit his crimes!). Yet in the arena of public life, in the absence of verifiable truth, the one who presents as the most genuine is the one who inspires confidence in their argument. And Drake the Fake hasn’t been coming off as genuine in a long time.
Not A Colleague, But A Colonizer
One of Kendrick’s more tenable claims is that Drake has been piggybacking off Southern rappers for his hip-hop cred: “You run to Atlanta when you need a check balance… You called Future when you didn’t see the club/Lil Baby helped you get your lingo up/21 [Savage] gave you false street cred” (Not Like Us). Drake has been adept at code-switching for years now, frequently diverging to Jamaican, Southern, Londoner, and Hispanic accents during public appearances. His background as a TV actor tends to come handy.
As you watch this clip, remember that this man was raised by his white mom in Toronto, Canada.
FD Signifier's awesome video essay :)
There was already an audience of people buying into the perspective that Drake is a social chameleon, a willow bending to any wind that could perpetuate his fame. All Kendrick did was vocalize this feeling, in a nutshell calling out Drake as “a master manipulator and habitual liar. Lamar… believes Drake to be a fraud and that he does not understand the struggles Black Americans go through but pretends to”. Armed with the right chord to strike, Kendrick went on the attack.
Meet-The-Grahammies And Not-Like-Uscars
K-Dot’s one-two punch of “Meet the Grahams” and “Not Like Us” solidified his lead in the feud, a fatal blow against Drake that the Canadian artist has yet to adequately recover from. It all started when Drake released his darkest diss, “Family Matters”, which dragged Kendrick’s family into the mix. Less than an hour later, Kendrick spit back with his own dark hit “Meet the Grahams”, accusing Drake of bad parenting, abusing prescription pills, neglecting an alleged daughter, etc. Rather than allowing Drake to release his response, Kendrick displayed conscious control of the conversation by immediately going back on the offensive. Not even a full day later, Kendrick keeps his momentum rolling with a party song, “Not Like Us”. The catchy DJ Mustard beat swiftly took the attention off vitriolic family politics and reflected it into Kendrick’s trademark humor and wordplay, making Drake’s humiliation the dance song of the summer. The natural progression of “Euphoria” to “Meet the Grahams” to “Not Like Us” was a strategically brilliant move, demonstrating significant levels of foresight and intent– all to end the feud with a sudden burst of creative energy.
Drake’s response to Kendrick’s prolific output was the uninspiring and frankly mid single “The Heart Part 6”, which did nothing but harp on earlier allegations about Kendrick’s family with nary a receipt in sight. The contrast between the two songs is laughable; when the music video for “Not Like Us” dropped, it rocketed back to Number 1 on Billboard while “The Heart Part 6” has yet to even sniff at the charts. If there remains any doubt as to who won the feud (as if there could be any reason to doubt J. Cole’s monumental victory!), the songs speak for themselves: one artist’s output produced the party jam of the summer, and the other’s was a bitter rehashing that didn’t even warrant a rebuttal. K-Dot is busy enjoying his six victory laps in LA while Drake is loafing around on Instagram.
With the feud in his rearview, Kendrick has laid out the path for his star to rise higher. It can be hard for established artists to advance in the music industry without selling out to brands or Hollywood. For someone with strong principles like Kendrick Lamar, the fine line of staying true to your ideals and paying the bills may seem impossible to navigate– not to mention how maddening it must be to watch a social chameleon like Drake, whose idea of social justice only extends to a Mr. Beast-style music video, find success year after year. Yet Kung Fu Kenny was able to turn genuine animosity into genuine hype, establishing his dominance in the rap world and navigating the turbulent waters of a feud to unforgettable, undeniable triumph.
Written by Lucas Beverley, @americanskald on Instagram.
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Sources:
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