The feud between Kendrick Lamar and Drake continues to grow at a rapid pace, with each rapper releasing diss tracks directed at the other last night (May 3). The flurry of activity followed Lamar having dropped the song “6:16 in L.A.” earlier in the day, furthering a weeks-long dispute.
Drake’s “Family Matters” arrived first, with the artist warning that he now has “gotta go bad” with his message since the back-and-forth has become increasingly heated. From there, he skewers Lamar’s relationship with fiancee Whitney Alford, questions the parentage of one of Lamar’s children and then openly accuses Lamar of calling the Tupac Shakur estate on Drake for copyright infringement.
But perhaps the line that will sting the most is aimed squarely at Lamar’s reputation as a critic’s darling: “Kendrick just opened his mouth / Someone go hand him a Grammy right now.”
Lamar took a more creative tact on his response track, “Meet the Grahams,” on which a different member of Drake’s family is addressed in each subsequent verse. “I’m sorry that man is your father,” he tells Drake’s six-year-old son, Adonis, before then moving on to Drake’s parents Sandra and Dennis and then referencing a “baby girl” who is implied to having been kept a secret by Drake.
“Should be teachin’ you timetables or watchin’ ‘Frozen’ with you / Or at your 11th birthday, singin’ poems with you / Instead, he be in Turks, payin’ for sex and poppin’ Percs,” Lamar raps.
The artists have been taking shots at each other in song since earlier this year, ironically stemming from Drake’s 2023 track “First Person Shooter,” on which J. Cole proclaimed himself, Lamar and Drake to be the “Big Three” of hip-hop. Lamar responded in late March with “Like That,” his first new song in two years. A number of other rappers have become embroiled in the disses, including J. Cole and Rick Ross.
Listen to both new songs below.