In recent days there is a back and forth that is keeping all hip-hop fans busy: the one between Kendrick Lamar and Drake. In jargon it is a beefthat is, a feud between rappers made with blows dissingthat is, to quote Treccani, of songs that have the objective “to make fun of, criticize or even insult one or more people, usually belonging to the rap music environment itself”.
Arguments and battles between rappers date back to the origins of hip-hop in the 1970s, and there have been many such clashes since then, even between A-list names: Jay-Z and Nas, Tupac and The Notorious Big, LL Cool J and Kool Moe Dee, or more recently Nicki Minaj and Megan Thee Stallion. The list is long. After all, competition, even fierce, is part of the culture of the genre.
The beef between Kendrick Lamar (African American from Compton, California) and Drake (Canadian, son of an African American and a white woman) is the battle between two heavyweights of contemporary rap, and it has distant roots. Although in 2012 they collaborated on the song Poetic justice, the two artists have not been very friendly for some time and had already thrown digs at each other on several occasions. Things got more sour on March 22, when Lamar recorded some verses for a Future and Metro Boomin track titled Like that. In the piece the rapper from Compton (if I really have to take sides, I’m with him) claimed that he didn’t feel part of the “Big three” (a definition according to which the three best rappers around would be Lamar, Drake and J. Cole) because he simply felt the best: “It’s just big me”. In Like that Lamar also compared himself to Prince, in opposition to Drake who has always defined himself as the Michael Jackson of rap, recalling: “Prince outlived Mike Jack”, Prince lived longer than Michael Jackson.
The feud between the two artists continued on April 13 with Drake’s response, contained in the single Push ups: The Canadian rapper accused Lamar of not being up to him and mocked him for collaborating with pop artists like Maroon 5 and Taylor Swift. On April 19, while still waiting for his opponent’s response, Drake made another surprise move: He posted a song titled Taylor made freestyle, in which Tupac and Snoop Dogg, or rather the voices of Tupac and Snoop Dogg recreated by artificial intelligence, mocked Lamar. This was the first low blow, given that the Compton rapper has always considered Tupac his point of reference. Drake was later forced to remove the song at the request of Tupac’s estate.
It didn’t stop there. As I write, a total of nine songs have been released in which the two rappers target each other and get increasingly personal, bringing up their wives, children and managers. In the piece euphoria Lamar also questioned Drake’s “blackness,” banning him from using the word “nigga” to address him, something only African-Americans can usually do when speaking to other African-Americans. In Not like us, one of the most aggressive pieces released in recent days, Lamar defined Drake as “a pedophile”, alluding to his passion for minors (never experienced, but often brought up by gossip sites, especially following the publication on the internet of a video from 2010 in which Drake, then twenty-three years old, repeatedly kissed a seventeen-year-old on stage). Lamar also brought up an old story regarding an illegitimate (but later legally recognized) son of the Canadian rapper and in the song Meet the Grahams he even declared that Drake would have a second illegitimate daughter (an accusation, apparently, without foundation). In turn, Drake has insinuated (there is no evidence of this either) that Lamar committed domestic violence against his wife and that the father of one of his children is actually manager Dave Free. In short, they did not spare themselves.
How do you explain the feud between Lamar and Drake? From many points of view what happened is surprising. Honestly, I didn’t expect it to go so far and for the tones to become so harsh, also because in theory neither one nor the other needs to advertise themselves: Drake has set various sales records, Lamar hasn’t reached his levels but he is considered the most “cultured” rapper of his generation, at least among the most successful ones, and even won a Pulitzer Prize for the album Damn. This beef, fueled disproportionately by social networks, is certainly entertaining for those who follow rap, and the fact that even the general media have covered it, not only in the United States, makes it clear that from a media point of view the operation she managed. But both contenders, at times, have allowed themselves a few too many low blows, and it is strange to see a poet like Kendrick Lamar dragged into this dispute, who from a musical point of view perhaps even won, but at the price of a debasement of his artistic profile. Alphonse Pierre on Pitchfork even called the feud between the two artists “The most depressing show in the history of rap.”
At the same time, however, the fact that the two artists have decided to beat each other up in public hides the fact that perhaps, at this moment, the careers of both are not at their best: Drake no longer does the numbers of a time, and the reception given to Lamar’s latest album, Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers (for what it’s worth, I liked it), it wasn’t as triumphant as its author hoped. This battle, however, brought them back to center stage. And the fact that in the latest diss track, The heart part 6, Drake accusing Lamar of exploiting the situation to promote his new album (according to various rumors, arriving by the end of 2024) could be gratuitous malice. But perhaps she hasn’t gone too far from the truth.
