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Kendrick Lamar and Drake have each released several ruthless diss tracks against each other over the past week, taking jabs at height and style and making allegations about each others’ children and other disturbing accusations. The beef has continued to escalate and amid the drama,a shooting took place at Drake’s home, which is featured on the cover of Kendrick’s diss track “Not Like Us.”
At around 2 a.m. on Tuesday, a security guard outside of Drake’s Toronto house was injured in a shooting and is in the hospital in serious condition.
Inspector Paul Krawczyk with the Toronto Police Service said at a news conference that police “cannot speak to a motive at this time.” He did not say if Drake was at home at the time of the incident but that his team is cooperating with the investigation.
In the wake of the feud, Kendrick’s track “Not Like Us” has broken a streaming record, with the most single-day streams of a hip-hop song in U.S. Spotify history, according to Chart Data, which monitors music streaming charts. The record was previously held by Drake and Lil Baby’s song “Girls Want Girls.”
The back-to-back diss tracks have proven to be fruitful for Kendrick, who saw a 49% spike in streams from May 3 to 6 compared to the previous week, according to Billboard. Drake, however, saw a 4.9% decline in streams during that same time period, but his streaming numbers are still about two times higher than Kendrick’s.
Here is a timeline of the Kendrick and Drake beef and a breakdown of their new diss tracks.
Kendrick featured on “Like That”
Kendrick and Drake started out as cordial collaborators, with Drake featuring Kendrick on his 2011 song “Buried Alive Interlude” on his second studio album “Take Care” – just after Kendrick released his first studio album, “Section.80.”
In 2012, Kendrick opened for Drake during his Club Paradise tour. Drake raps about this on 2016’s “4PM in Calabasas,” saying when he was told to take an R&B singer on tour, “I told ’em no and drew for Kendrick and [A$AP] Rocky.”
But over the years, Kendrick and Drake have taken jabs at each other.
On 2023’s “First Person Shooter,” a collaboration between Drake and J. Cole, Cole calls himself, Drake and Kendrick rap’s “big three.”
But it seems Kendrick doesn’t ascribe to that belief. He was featured on Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That,” released in March, saying there is no big three, “it’s just big me.” That seemed to have sparked what is now a massive feud with back-to-back diss tracks released by both Kendrick and Drake.
Drake’s “Pushups” disses Kendrick’s height and talent
On April 13, Drake, whose real name is Aubrey Drake Graham, released “Pushups,” a diss about Kendrick in which he calls him a “pipsqueak,” and says he wears a size seven men’s shoe.
He also says Kendrick isn’t in the “Big Three,” listing other artists who are better than Kendrick, and referencing Kendrick’s collaborations with Maroon 5 and Taylor Swift. Drake also takes swipes at other artists, like the Weeknd.
Kendrick’s name is not mentioned by Drake, only in the intro by DJ Akademiks. But as the beef heats up, Kendrick and Drake start to get more blatant in their attacks on each other.
Drake releases “Taylor Made”
On April 19, Drake, 37, released a second diss track about Kendrick called “Taylor Made,” again poking fun at Kendrick’s height, talent and closeness to Taylor Swift.
He alleges Kendrick has not released a diss track in response because he was allowing Swift to release her album “The Tortured Poets Department” on April 19 and have the spotlight.
“The first one really only took me an hour or two, The next one is really ’bout to bring out the coward in you, But now we gotta wait a f***ing week ’cause Taylor Swift is your new Top, And if you ’bout to drop, she gotta approve,” Drake raps.
Drake does, however, praise Swift as the “biggest gangster in the music game” and admits he also moved his album release date to allow hers to drop first.
“Taylor Made,” however, featured AI-generated vocals from late rapper Tupac, and after Tupac Shakur’s estate sent Drake a cease-and-desist, Drake removed the song from all platforms, according to Billboard.
Kendrick responds with “Euphoria”
On April 30, Kendrick, 36, responded to Drake’s tracks with “Euphoria.” In it, he takes ruthless jabs at Drake, who is the executive producer of the HBO show “Euphoria.”
Kendrick criticizes Drake’s parenting of his 6-year-old son, Adonis, rapping: “I got a son to raise, but I can see you don’t know nothin’ ’bout that.” He says he teaches his son “morals, integrity, discipline,” but says Drake doesn’t do that for his own son.
He also takes jabs at Drake’s crew – OVO, or October’s Very Own – and criticizes Drake, who is half white, for appropriating Black culture.
Kendrick’s “6:16 in LA” produced by Jack Antonoff
Drake famously has several songs with times in the title, including “9AM in Dallas,” “4pm in Calabasas,” and “6PM in New York.” The song’s title is a direct reference to these Drake tracks and the inclusion of producer Jack Antonoff appears to be a direct response to Drake’s “Taylor Made” song.
Antonoff is a frequent collaborator of Swift’s, producing “Reputation,” “Lover,” “Folklore,” “Evermore,” “Midnights” and her newest album “The Tortured Poets Department.”
Kendrick was featured on Swift’s 2014 song “Bad Blood,” which was on her “1989” album.
On May 3, Kendrick, who is also known as K.Dot, released “6:16 in LA” on social media. In the song, he alleges people who work for Drake’s OVO record label and apparel company dislike Drake and may be secretly working for Kendrick.
Drake goes deeper with “Family Matters”
The same day Kendrick dropped “6:16 in LA,” Drake released “Family Matters,” a nearly eight-minute song in which he alleges one of Kendrick’s children with longtime girlfriend Whitney Alford was actually fathered by his manager, Dave Free.
He also alleges Kendrick alerted Tupac’s estate about Drake’s usage of an AI-generated Tupac verse. And, in another scathing line, he alleges Kendrick pays for sex.
He also takes a jab at the Weeknd again and at rapper Rick Ross, saying that using Ozempic gave him a side effect of jealousy.
“Meet the Grahams” alleges Drake has a secret child
In what is one of the more scathing tracks in the back-and-forth disses, Kendrick addresses Drake’s family members in “Meet the Grahams,” released later on May 3. He raps to Drake’s son, saying, “Dear Adonis, I’m sorry that man is your father.”
He gives Adonis advice and raps: “And you nothing like him, you’ll carry yourself as king, can’t understand me right now? Just play this when you 18.”
He also has verses that address Drake’s mother and father. “Dear Sandra, Your son got some habits, I hope you don’t undermine them,” he raps. “Dear Dennis, you gave birth to a master manipulator,” he says.
In the most surprising verse, Kendrick starts off with the line “Dear baby girl,” alleging Drake had a daughter 11 years ago and kept her hidden from the world. He gives the alleged daughter advice and describes Drake as a deadbeat dad who allegedly pays for sex.
“I wanna tell you that you’re loved, you’re brave, you’re kind, you got a gift to change the world, and could change your father’s mind,” he raps to Drake’s alleged daughter.
He also has a verse addressing Drake, making more scathing allegations about Drake’s alleged gambling and drinking habits and saying he responded this way because Drake spoke about his family.
Kendrick releases “Not Like Us”
In a May 4 drop, “Not Like Us,” Kendrick makes disturbing accusations about Drake allegedly having inappropriate conduct with minors. He also makes similar allegations about Drake’s friends and continues to question Drake’s talent.
In his newest diss track, Drake denied these allegations, as well as allegations about having a daughter.
Drake responds to allegations in “The Heart Part 6”
In his most recent album, 2022’s “Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers,” Kendrick has a track called “The Heart Part 5.” Drake’s newest track, which dropped on May 5, plays on this title and in the song, he responds to Kendrick’s bombshell allegations.
“The Pulitzer Prize winner is definitely spiralin,'” he starts, referring to Kendrick, who in 2017 became the first rapper to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music.
The cover art on the track is a social media comment from Dave Free, the man Drake alleges is the actual father of one of Kendrick’s children, with two heart emojis.
In the song, Drake says the people Kendrick is getting his information about Drake from are “clowns,” and that Drake’s team planted fake stories about an 11-year-old daughter to see if Kendrick would take the bait.
He also directly addressed the allegations that he had inappropriate conduct with minors. “I never been with no one underage, but now I understand why this the angle that you really mess with,” he raps, saying he would’ve been arrested if the allegations were true.
Fans are now awaiting more surprise tracks from Kendrick, a 17-time Grammy winner from the Compton neighborhood of Los Angeles and Drake, a five-time Grammy winner from Toronto, Canada.
