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The original was posted on /r/hobbydrama by /u/ToErrDivine on 2024-07-14 04:28:36+00:00.
Hi, everyone. I’m ToErrDivine, and while you might have seen me commenting here and there and/or posting in the Scuffles, this is my first proper writeup for r/HobbyDrama. Today (with mod approval re the time limit), I’m going to start my analysis of one of the most glorious clusterfucks I’ve seen in quite some time: the 2024 rap feud between Drake and Kendrick Lamar.
…this is going to take a few posts.
Before I start, I have some disclaimers for you:
1: I’m not going to pretend that I’m not a little bit biased here: I’m a fan of Kendrick’s music, but not of Drake’s- I wouldn’t say I’m a Drake hater or anything, but his music just isn’t really my thing. I will try to remain as neutral as possible.
2: I am not a rap expert or rap historian, so I am in all likelihood going to miss and overlook things. Sorry. Feel free to tell me if I missed something or got it incorrect. Also, this is not meant to be the comprehensive guide, covering every single detail- I’m trying to be broad, but I’m not going to hunt down everything they said on every interview over the years.
3: If you’re coming into this expecting a clear, unproblematic hero and obviously shitty villain, don’t. The majority of the people in this writeup have either done something shitty or publicly supported someone who did something shitty. Sometimes it just be like that.
4: As far as I know, as of me writing this, all claims made in the diss tracks regarding anyone committing a crime have not actually been proven, nor has any evidence been offered, so they should be taken with a grain of salt.
5: As anyone who’s read any of my declasses knows, I talk way too much. Also, a good deal of the length of these posts is because I was told that I need to include the lyrics. You wanted lyrical receipts; by God, you’re getting lyrical receipts.
So, with that, let’s start at the beginning, because there is a lot to go through with regard to this subject.
Prelude: Dramatis Personae & Background
Who are Drake and Kendrick Lamar?
(Feel free to skip this part if you’re already familiar with them, I just like to be thorough.)
Drake, full name Aubrey Drake Graham, is a Canadian musician and actor. He was born on the 24th of October, 1986 in Toronto, to Dennis and Sandra Graham. He is a dual citizen of America and Canada, and while he mainly grew up in Toronto, he would also spend each summer in Memphis with his father after his parents divorced when he was five. At 15, he landed a major role on Degrassi: The Next Generation, and has had a fair few minor roles in TV shows and movies. However, his real focus was on music. With the assistance of famous rapper Lil Wayne, who appeared on some of Drake’s early mixtapes, Drake managed to achieve success as a rapper and musician, and founded his own record label, OVO Sound, in 2012. If you’re not familiar with him, you might have heard of his songs ‘Hotline Bling’, ‘Nice For What’ and ‘God’s Plan’. He’s got a whole lot of nicknames, but the relevant one here is ‘Drizzy’, which you might have seen him referred to on occasion.
Kendrick Lamar, full name Kendrick Lamar Duckworth, is an American rapper. He was born on the 17th of June, 1987 in Compton, to Kenneth Duckworth and Paula Oliver. Lamar was raised in Compton and became interested in rap at an early age. He found mainstream success with his second album, Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City, and has won a variety of awards for his works, including being the only musician to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music who wasn’t a classical or jazz artist. He also founded his creative communications company, pgLang, in 2020. If you’re not familiar with him, you might have heard of his songs ‘Swimming Pools (Drank)’, ‘Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe’ and ‘HUMBLE’. His original rap name was ‘K.Dot’ or just ‘Dot’, which he’s still called and uses on occasion.
Before I continue, I want to point something out here- namely that while we are talking about two famous rappers who are quite close in age, if you look at their lives, they couldn’t be more different: Drake is Canadian and Kendrick is American. Kendrick is Black; Drake is mixed-race, born to a Black father and a white mother. Both men grew up poor and had sub-par home lives, but Drake lived in Toronto and in comparatively safer circumstances (though absolutely not ideal), while Kendrick’s family experienced homelessness and he witnessed acts of violence from a young age- he’s talked about seeing a teenage drug dealer shot dead when he was five. To the best of my knowledge, Drake has never been involved with gangs, while Kendrick grew up surrounded by gangs- he isn’t and wasn’t a member of any gang, but he knew a lot of people who were. Kendrick is engaged to his long-time partner, Whitney Alford, and has two children with her; Drake has never been married. (We’ll get to the kids part later, trust me.) Kendrick is solely a rapper; Drake sort of crosses over between rap, pop and hip hop. Kendrick raps about gang violence and social issues; Drake sings about relationships and feelings.
(Disclaimer: there are other differences I could bring up, but I’m not trying to get too personal here, and I am not trying to bring up anything that could start fights in the comments, so if I haven’t mentioned something here, it’s for a reason.)
I’m not bringing this up in order to judge either man, or to play the Misery Olympics- Drake wasn’t raised in a neighbourhood that was surrounded by gangs, but that doesn’t mean that he automatically had an easy life (he’s talked about being the breadwinner for himself and his very ill mother as a teenager). What I am trying to say is that these are two very different men from very different backgrounds who led very different lives and both wound up becoming internationally-famous, wealthy, respected rappers, and those differences impacted heavily on this feud.
Now, let’s get to the background of the actual feud, shall we?
What is a rap feud?
I mean, yeah, this is pretty obvious, but I may as well cover it anyway: rap feuds are what happens when two or more rappers decide that they have an issue with each other, and decide to publicly flay each other alive through diss tracks.
Rap feuds can start for a variety of reasons: maybe the rappers involved just fucking hate each other, or maybe one of them did or said something completely unrelated to the other, but the other one took exception to it anyway. Whatever the reason, they make songs telling everyone involved to go fuck themselves in a variety of creative ways until they either resolve it themselves or one person admits defeat. Aside from the presumed catharsis of being able to publicly release a track telling your nemesis that they need to fuck themselves with a cactus immediately, rap feuds have a couple of other benefits: one, you can make yourself look really cool (provided you don’t screw it up or get defeated), and two, they make for excellent publicity, something all entertainers want.
(I was going to say that also, in this day and age, rap feuds don’t generally involve people getting shot, but unfortunately that’s not the case. RIP, Foolio.)
So, with that, let’s travel back in time to 2011. Drake and Kendrick are friends and collaborators in the early stages of their careers- Drake has just released his second album, Take Care, and Kendrick has just released his first, Section.80. Up until this point, the two are on good terms. Kendrick said in an interview that he met Drake after his first show in Toronto, and called him ‘a real good dude. He got a real genuine soul. We clicked immediately.’ Kendrick does the vocals for one of the songs on Take Care, ‘Buried Alive Interlude’, where he raps about meeting Drake. In that song, he says that Drake gave him a taste of what being rich and famous was like (‘A black Maybach, 40 pulled up Jeep/No doors, all that nigga was missin’ was Aaliyah’), and that he’d previously thought that Drake was going to promise him a future collaboration but not follow t...
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