The Kendrick Lamar and Drake drama, undoubtedly music’s highest profile feud last year, has resulted in a Grammy-award winning diss track, a national cultural discourse on gatekeeping in hip-hop, and even an outlandish lawsuit.
Now all eyes are on Kendrick, who was deemed the clear winner of the beef, as he leads the Super Bowl halftime show this Sunday, February 9, at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans.
Folks will be tuning in to see the artist perform hits from his critically acclaimed surprise album GNX, of course, but…there’s obviously a lot of curiosity around how the Pulitzer Prize-winning emcee might continue his beef with the former Degrassi: The Next Generation star as well.
But, why are Drake and Kendrick Lamar fighting? Before you watch, it might help to have more context. So here’s how we got here.
The Kendrick Lamar and Drake drama, explained
Both Drake and Kendrick did their best to eviscerate each other throughout 2024: Kendrick first fired shots at Drake on “Like That,” his song with Future and Metro Boomin, while Drake used AI to emulate the voices of the late Tupac Shakur and Snoop Dogg to get under the Compton native’s skin on his track “Taylor Made Freestyle.” More back and forth continued until Kendrick released his Mustard-produced hit “Not Like Us,” which trolled the hell out of Drake and had the world singing along in the process.
The thing is, the two men weren’t always foes. In fact, Kendrick and Drake were collaborators at the beginning of their respective careers. Kendrick appeared on Drake’s 2011 sophomore project Take Care, and Drake made a cameo on Kendrick’s 2012 album Good Kid, M.A.A.D City. Kendrick, along with A$AP Rocky, even served as the opening act for Drake’s 2012 Club Paradise Tour. Both artists were also featured on A$AP Rocky’s single “Fuckin’ Problems” that same year.
