Drake is known as one of the most popular rappers of this generation. Hailing from Canada, he’s had a stronghold on the music industry since his rap career took off 19 years ago, in 2006, with the release of his mixtape “Room for Improvement.” He followed up with several more mixtapes before signing with Young Money Entertainment, a record label formed by Lil Wayne in 2005.
As a writer, you have to give a beginning, middle, and end. So let’s pretend everyone who reads this knows about the back-and-forth beef between rappers Drake and Kendrick Lamar.
Drake has been known to keep his foot on the necks of rappers who go against him. Until now, there has only been one formidable opponent, Pusha-T, formerly of the Clipse. Their feud began when Pusha-T exposed Drake had a baby with a porn star that no one knew about. He revealed this as a well-placed punchline on his record “The Story Of Adidon.”
Even though Pusha’s flow is immaculate and concise with details you can fact-check, it was not enough to knock Drake off his throne and the battle ended before it could get started.
J. Prince, CEO of Rap A Lot Records, brought Kanye and Drake together for a concert to benefit incarcerated former gang leader, Larry Hoover. This is significant because Pusha-T was signed to Kanye West’s label, “Good Music.” It created competition unlike what Drake did to Meek Mill by forcing him to submit to friendship. That was a short-lived battle and Drake taught Meek the lesson it’s better to stick with me than go against me. Meek has not been the same since.
Fast forward to now. Kendrick Lamar. What can I say? That boy is bad. I like songs from each of his albums, and to be honest, I was not a fan when I saw him on his first BET Cypher. I was not impressed at all, to be fair, let’s say I wasn’t ready.
Now Kendrick Lamar is hands down one of the best rappers of this generation. He has been nominated for 57 Grammy Awards and won 22, plus, he won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Music becoming the first artist to do so in the hip-hop genre. Wow. That’s an honor I think most aspiring artists and musicians would love to receive.
Now to the Drake and Kendrick Lamar beef. For the past year, Kendrick has been very quiet but there is an ugly question in Hip-Hop that loves to rear its head from time to time, “Who is the best rapper in the game right now? For a long time, people had a three-headed monster to deal with, J. Cole, Drake, or Kendrick. This seemed like an unfair fight when J. Cole and Drake teamed up to diss Kendrick.
If it wasn’t a diss towards Kendrick, it woke the beast. However, he didn’t go as hard as you would think he would, which I realize was a chess move. With each diss record, it got worse and worse for Drake.
Moving along, this brings us to “Not Like Us,” which smashed Drake every time it was played. It referenced Drake allegedly likes young girls and disparaging remarks were made about his entourage. It also calls out Drake for using Atlanta artists to keep himself hot. The song has gotten so much traction that Kendrick was invited to perform at Super Bowl LIX. This did not fair well for Drake who in return sued his record label Universal Music Group, for defamation, harassment, and for helping spread false narratives about him. Drake is the first rapper to ever sue over a diss battle.
It simply does not look good for Drake in the public eye. You lose a rap battle, come back until you can’t anymore. Look at others who took their losses in rap battles like JaRule, Cannibus, Mc Shan, and the list goes on and on. No one sued. This makes Drake look weak in my opinion. Let us know what you think about it.
Drake and PARTYNEXTDOOR dropped a new album on Valentine’s Day, “$ome $exy $ongs 4 U.”
I’m sure fans want to know what’s on Drake’s mind. I wonder if he will have the support he once had now that he’s tasted what he dealt out over the years. I guess we will have to revisit that in a few weeks to see if it makes a difference, or nah.
Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl LIX halftime performance
