After several years of disagreements and some public pinching, two of rap’s biggest superstars, Drake and Kendrick Lamar, have taken to the dialectical weapons with all their artillery. Both bards have exchanged personal disqualifications, insinuations and accusations of inappropriate behavior in viral songs that have become the talk that delights specialized media and fans. We are facing the clash of antlers of music superstars, although others have seen it as a testosterone attempt to adjust the crown of rap, which is a sign of loss of relevance. But what does it matter: few arts in hip hop are as exciting as the “beef”, that is, the confrontation, the rhyming duel of two roosters based on expletives. Billboard magazine has described it as “rap’s civil war.” It can only be one.
History goes back a long way, although it has not always been dysfunctional. In 2012, both rappers collaborated on “Poetic Justice”, Lamar’s song and, after that collaboration, he threw a couple of low-intensity allusions to which Drake responded with sportsmanship. “They’re just songs,” he said. But the disagreement must have been simmering and many followers speculated on the cryptic mutual allusions. Last year, Drake released “First Person Shooter” with J. Cole, a song in which the Canadian rapper proclaimed the holy trinity of the genre in the world: himself, J. Cole and Kendrick himself.
However, just two months ago the duel began, the one from Los Angeles showed off his most boastful streak and laughed at the occurrence. “There is no Big Three, there is only one Big Me,” he proclaimed. And step by step the climb began over the next few weeks. Drake mocked Lamar in his song “Push Ups”, seeing him so tall despite having a “small foot” (a 40), something that was supposed to offend him. The answer came in “Euphoria”, a series of which Drake is a producer and in which he accused him of being a “degenerate” with his actions in “bad taste.” «You are a master of manipulation. N“Or you’re a rap artist, you’re a fraud looking for approval,” he said. «I hate the way you walk, I hate the way you talk, I hate the way you dress. “I hate how you’re not able to say things to your face because if I go looking for problems, I do it face to face.”. Drake reloaded his rifle in “Family Matters”, where the accusations rose in tension: he recalled the accusations of abuse and assault on Lamar from his ex-partner Whitney Alford: “When you raise your hand at your girl, is it self-defense because she’s bigger than you?”. Just a few hours later, Lamar counterattacked in “Meet The Grahams”, where he revealed that Drake is hiding an 11-year-old daughter, accused him of being a bad father and also aired his problems with alcohol and even his use of Ozempic to lose weight. In the midst of a verbal meltdown, Lamar returned to the fray: “Say, Drake, I heard you like young people. You better never go to cell block one. Certified boy lover? Certified pedophiles. It’s war.
