From Studio to Stadium - Kendrick Lamar vs. Drake Explained.

A breakdown of the Rap Beef Multiverse that led to Kendrick Lamar's 5x Grammy Award win for one singular diss track.

To Pimp a Butterfly was released in 2015, its title serving as a metaphor for the systemic exploitation of young Black artists. It reflects how their talents are often commercialized and repackaged for white American entertainment and profit, while the very struggles that inspire their art are reinforced through oppression and self-destruction.

He released the Pulitzer Prize winning record DAMN in 2017, one month after the Canadian rapper, Drake released his fifth mixtape More Life. DAMN explores the spiritual journey of reconciling with free will vs. inevitable fate among the Black American resistance to imposed cycles of violence and oppression. In the song Humble, Kendrick speaks directly against corruption in mainstream commercial rap. He demands that artists who perceive financial gain as success over the integrity of their art need to sit down and be humble rather than gloat.

In More Life, Drake collaborated with producer Metro Boomin, to blend Afrobeat, Caribbean dancehall, UK grunge, and American trap. The record was consumed heavily in the commercial space due to its easy danceability, and simpler content glorifying Drake’s fame, his lifestyle with fame, his aspirations with fame, and his frequently fleeting relationships - allegedly with minors.

In 2022, Metro Boomin blew the whistle on a fallout with Drake, collaborating with Jumpman’s collaborator Future, to release We Don’t Trust You, and We Still Don’t Trust You. Both mixtapes contained a massive cast of speculated Drake-hating music artists including Chris Brown, A$AP Rocky, Lil Baby, and Kendrick Lamar on the track Like That. The mixtapes ruthlessly denounce the systemic corruption of Black American music to favor white fragility for commercial gain. In response, J Cole who was on tour with Drake at the time, released his own diss track against Kendrick titled 7 Minute Drill. Two days later he issued an apology for the song stating “That’s the lamest shit I ever did in my fucking life”.

Kendrick took this as a personal invitation to release singles 6:16 in LA, and Euphoria, titled in reference toward Drake’s involvement in the teen drama which resulted in a tv series riddled with unnecessary nudity, and detailed erotica in a storyline centered around highschoolers.

Both tracks serve as warning for Drake and artists like him that thrive on manipulation and sexual exploitation in order to appear as socially elite. In Euphoria he raps “Them superpowers getting neutralized, I can only watch in silence/The famous actor we once knew is lookin' paranoid and now spiralin’”. Ending the opening verse with a chilling “Know you a master manipulator and habitual liar too/But don't tell no lie about me and I won't tell truths 'bout you” seemed like a pretty open and shut message. Most people would stop right there.

Aubrey Graham isn’t most people. He proceeded to respond with a diss track of his own against Kendrick. Titled Family Matters, Drake accuses Kendrick of beating his wife Whitney Alford, and claims that Kendrick’s daughter is actually the result of an affair between Whitney and pgLang co-founder Dave Free. (This has been proven as falsified rumors allegedly leaked to Drake by an OVO mole). He states that Kendrick must have been sexually assaulted as a child for him to care so much about the exploitation of minors under Drake’s umbrella of power, and that Kendrick is still trying to “set the slaves free”.

In the wake of Drake revealing his true colors – He hasn’t a shred of empathy or understanding for the reality of the Black American, despite amassing enormous monetary success through the projection of Black American culture and exploitation of young American women – Kendrick released Meet the Grahams within the hour.

Meet the Grahams is a scathing address to Drake’s family. Kendrick first apologizes to Drake’s son, Adonis, for the flaws in Drake’s failure as a role-model. He then addresses Drake’s mother for enabling the image Drake projects, his father for the abandonment that initiated Drake’s cycle of habitual abuse toward women, and to the shock of listeners everywhere, Drake’s daughter, whose existence had remained unknown to the public until now.

The following day Kendrick released the explosive Not Like Us, which outed Drake as a pedophile who had been utilizing his OVO Label, to harbor sexual offenders and lure victims into his home for sexual abuse. This claim has been corroborated by numerous sexual assault claims from various victims throughout the years, as well as his very public grooming attempt toward the then 12-year-old Millie Bobby Brown, after her first season playing Eleven in Netflix’s Stranger Things reached commercial success.

Effortlessly catchy, Not Like Us immediately took the #1 seat on Billboards Hot 100 chart within hours, and remained there for two weeks. The 2025 Grammy Awards awarded the song with five Grammys, including Song Of The Year, Record Of The Year, Best Rap Performance, Best Rap Song, and Best Music Video. His Superbowl Halftime performance of Not Like Us surpassed Michael Jackson with over 135 million digital streams beyond the packed out stadium of physical attendees.