KENDRICK LAMAR TOOK home multiple Grammys for his song “Not Like Us,” including the coveted Record of the Year and Song of the Year awards during the 2025 ceremony on February 2. He also won Best Music Video, Best Rap Song, and Best Rap Performance.
As Lamar took the stage to give his acceptance speech for Record of the Year, the crowd could be heard cheering and singing along to the tune—a testament to its immense popularity.
“I can’t give enough thanks, you know, to these places that I rolled around since high school,” he said in his speech. “And most importantly, the people and the families out in the Palisades and Altadena. This is a true testament that we can continue to restore this city. And yeah, we gonna keep rocking.”
For those unfamiliar, Lamar’s track was among many in a series of 2024 diss tracks about fellow rapper Drake. “Not Like Us” became the standout of the releases, with Lamar’s song debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
In the song, Lamar comes full-throttle at Drake, attacking his persona as well as continually making claims of and references toward alleged sexual misconduct. Some lyrics in the song include the wordplay “Tryna strike a chord / And it’s probably A minor,” and the more explicit line “certified lover boy, certified pedophiles,” referencing Drake’s album Certified Lover Boy.
As Lamar is set to take the stage of the Super Bowl Halftime Show in New Orleans, where he’s likely to play the hit, here’s everything to know so far about his continued tension with Drake.
Why did Drake and Kendrick Lamar make diss tracks?
After Drake released “First Person Shooter,” a collaboration with J. Cole, in 2023, Lamar responded with a guest verse on Future’s song “Like That” in March 2024, rejecting the duo’s claim that the three of them were the “big three” of rap.
Lamar and Drake then exchanged lyrical jabs over several months. The latter dropped “Taylor Made Freestyle,” “Family Matters,” and more, and the former released songs including “Euphoria” and “Not Like Us.” J. Cole would also put out an April 2024 diss track about Lamar called “7 Minute Drill.” He then immediately expressed his regret for doing so and stepped away from the feud.
On Drake’s “Family Matters” from May 2024, he accused Lamar of domestic abuse (“They hired a crisis management team / To clean up the fact that you beat on your queen.”) and claimed that Lamar’s close friend Dave Free was the real father to one of the two children he shares with his fiancée, Whitney Alford. (“I heard that one of ’em little kids might be Dave Free.”)
Shortly after Drake released that, Lamar dropped “Meet the Grahams” and opened the track by directly addressing Drake’s son, Adonis. Later in the song, Lamar alleged that Drake has a secret daughter and is inactive in her life (something Drake later claimed came from fake intel that his own camp leaked). In his lyrics, he also continued to accuse the Canadian rapper of interacting with underage women and compared Drake to Harvey Weinstein.
What have other artists said about Drake and Kendrick Lamar’s feud?
Given the intensity of Drake and Kendrick Lamar’s headline-making feud, a few other artists gave their thoughts.
“Back in the day, you do a diss record, but it would stay kinda somewhat in the hip-hop community,” Ice Cube said in a May 2024 interview with CTV’s Etalk (via Us Weekly). “Now, it’s all over the world. All walks of life know what’s going on and you know, some people can’t really take that kind of humiliation.”
“Nobody won the war,” Questlove shared on Instagram on May 7. “This wasn’t about skill. This was a wrestling match level mudslinging and takedown by any means necessary — women & children (& actual facts) be damned. Same audience wanting blood will soon put up ‘RIP’ posts like they weren’t part of the problem. Hip-hop is truly dead.”
However, other rappers took clear sides in the feud. During Lamar’s Los Angeles concert in June 2024, Dr. Dre joined him on stage to perform “Not Like Us” together.
Why did Drake file a lawsuit?
Drake filed a lawsuit against Universal Music Group last month, claiming defamation and harassment from boosting the promotion of Lamar’s “Not Like Us.” According to Today.com, the lawsuit alleges UMG “approved, published, and launched a campaign to create a viral hit out of a rap track that falsely accuses Drake of being a pedophile and calls for violent retribution against him.”
Notably, Drake and Lamar are both signed to UMG, but are within different company divisions. Drake is seeking compensation “including general, actual, consequential, and special damages, in an amount to be determined at trial.”
According to NBC News, a UMG spokesperson denied Drake’s claims. “We have invested massively in his music and our employees around the world have worked tirelessly for many years to help him achieve historic commercial and personal financial success,” they said.
Drake is not suing Lamar directly at the moment.
