The moment every rap fan has been waiting for finally happened: on Friday, Kendrick Lamar and Drake’s battle came to a climatic explosion of songs. The day started with Lamar’s “6:16 in LA,” which was followed by Drake’s seven-minute barrage “Family Matters,” which Lamar quickly chased with a six-minute gut-punch called “Meet the Grahams.” The songs gave us rap’s two biggest stars at their most biting, most determined to win and most nasty. The feud has gotten more personal than anticipated, and Kendrick’s execution feels like he landed the most impactful blows. The night would mark one of rap’s most unprecedented moments and a fight we’ll discuss for years. But due to the devastating nature of each rapper’s allegations and lyrics, it’s probably time for the diss records to stop — or at least go back to the type of rhyme battle this started as, if that’s even possible.
We’ve been waiting for Kendrick Lamar and Drake to air out their grievances for a decade, ever since Lamar called out Drake on Big Sean’s “Control” in 2013. The two have been trading subtle jabs since, and it was only a matter of time before we got a full-on battle. The fight would always happen — think Manny Pacquiao versus Floyd Mayweather, which boxing fans demanded for years — the two best in the world circling each other with rap fans anticipating the eventual matchup. But unlike the boxing match, Drake and Kendrick are meeting in their prime. Their jabs are as crisp as ever, and their haymakers are still to be feared.
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At the start of this battle, it was clear Kendrick Lamar had a plan. Each song he dropped left a breadcrumb for a later one and a hint that a big left hook was waiting. Drake’s responses, especially his poorly executed “Taylor Made Freestyle,” which used artificial intelligence to mimic Tupac and Snoop Dogg’s voices, have felt more off-the-cuff and reactive. That tension between calculation and spontaneity played out on Friday as the day started with Kendrick’s “6:16 in LA.” He posted the song to Instagram along with a zoomed-in picture of a pair of Maybach driving gloves and spent three minutes alleging Drake can’t trust his friends and he has leaks in his camp. The song, again, was precise and sent the internet on a scavenger hunt to find hidden meanings: did 6:16 refer to Tupac’s birthday, Father’s Day, the date Euphoria aired, Bible scriptures or any other theory hip-hop Reddit could uncover? The song made it known that Kendrick at least had an idea of what Drake was planning, and it was all because his inner circle wasn’t so inner: “Are you finally ready to play have-you-ever? Let’s see/ Have you ever thought that OVO is workin’ for me?”
“6:16 in LA” dropped days after Kendrick Lamar’s “Euphoria,” making it two records in a row. This flipped Drake’s most famous victory, his 2015 “Back To Back” moment where he released two consecutive songs dissing Meek Mill. Lamar also continued his deep character analysis and deconstruction of Drake. Still, it felt like he was holding something back, promising there was more he wasn’t saying.
As the day went on, it seemed inevitable that we’d hear Drake’s response sooner rather than later. DJ Akademiks, the Brian Windhorst to Drake’s LeBron James, alluded to something happening. And as we crept closer to midnight, the response felt inevitable.
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In Friday’s late hours, Drake unveiled a seven-minute music video called “Family Matters,” where he unloaded on everyone from Rick Ross to The Weeknd and A$AP Rocky. In a vacuum, this song would be one of the strongest diss records of all time as each of those artists caught serious heat from Drizzy (“I ain’t even know you rapped still ’cause they only talkin’ ’bout your ‘fit again,” he hilariously tells Rocky). But those were appetizers. The song would always be made by what he would say to and about Kendrick Lamar.
“Family Matters” is some of the best rapping Drake’s done in his career. He knew he was up against the premier lyricist of our era, and he stepped up tremendously. “They shook about what I’ma say, but textin’ your phone like, ‘We already won,’” he raps with a command of the beat that flexes why he’s more than the singing and dancing pop act Kendrick Lamar has tried to portray him as. The song isn’t without some cringeworthy moments, not the least of which is the line, “Always rappin’ like you ’bout to get the slaves freed,” as a pejorative. It’s just an odd line to employ, especially as many of the jabs aimed at Drake focuses on his relation to Blackness. It’s also reminiscent of his “whipped and chained like Black American slaves” line from last year’s “Slime You Out.”
That line was buried, though, by so many of the other noteworthy moments in the song. Drake used “Family Matters” to levy some major accusations at Kendrick, namely that he abuses his partner and that his child’s father is supposedly Kendrick’s long-time collaborator and business partner, Dave Free. The song had everything that a knockout blow in 2024 requires, for better or worse: accusations, tea, lyricism, wittiness and vitriol. The song should have been the talk of the weekend.
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But, again, Kendrick Lamar was ready. Mere minutes after “Family Matters” dropped, Lamar released his second diss record of the day with “Meet the Grahams.” This time, the album art is the same as “6:16 In LA,” but the image is zoomed out to show alleged prescriptions to Ozempic and other medications in Drake’s name. The song features a haunting beat by Alchemist (the producer supposedly sent it to Kendrick without knowing what it’d be used for) that has the Compton MC in a near-whisper taking turns addressing everyone in Drake’s family, from his son to his mother, his father, and an alleged 11-year-old daughter Drake kept a secret.
The song is not enjoyable to listen to and doesn’t feel like it was intended to be.
Hearing “Meet the Grahams” feels like listening to a terrifying voice note meant for one person to consume. Kendrick opens the song, talking to Drake’s son Adonis telling the 6-year-old, “Dear Adonis, I’m sorry that that man is your father, let me be honest, It takes a man to be a man, your dad is not responsive.”
Kendrick follows with more revelations and accusations, this time claiming Drake and his label, OVO Sound, are involved in sex trafficking. He even compares Drake to Harvey Weinstein. This was it. This was everything Kendrick had been alluding to in his previous songs, and it was uncomfortable to hear. The sheer power and viciousness of “Meet the Grahams” and the timing — adding to the belief that Kendrick had access to people in Drake’s camp — overshadowed Drake’s release.
And it felt like the definitive victory for Kendrick Lamar.
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The adrenaline from Friday — rap’s biggest luminaries trading diss records in real time — was exhilarating. It was one of the most exciting nights in rap. But we’ll be left with some tough realities when that rush wears off. The allegations the two men levied at each other — domestic violence, sex trafficking, general mistreatment of women — are severe. And it’s even more troubling to address when each man’s feigned concern for women falls apart under interrogation. Drake raps like he’s appalled by Kendrick allegedly beating women in the same song he shouts out Chris Brown and after years of defending Tory Lanez, who shot Megan Thee Stallion. Kendrick Lamar can talk about his concern for women, but that falls flat when he used his last album as a way to platform Kodak Black, who had been accused of raping a high school girl before pleading guilty to a lesser charge of first-degree assault and battery in 2021.
Neither man has any moral high ground when it comes to this issue. They just sound like they’re parading out Black women’s trauma to one-up each other in a hypermasculine rap feud. And it will only serve to have rabid fans digging up dirt on the women who get name-checked in each song while also looking up clues to identify an unnamed 11-year-old girl who may or may not exist.
This is how rap feuds go, of course, with women as props for male rappers to insult one another. And it’s a trope that’s as tiresome as it is unnecessary; childish and harmful for no reason. Tupac did it to Faith Evans when he dissed Biggie. Jay-Z did it to Carmen Bryan when he went at Nas. And Pusha T did it to Sophie Brussaux when he dissed Drake. Rappers sling mud, reveal dark secrets, and go for the proverbial death blow, with women being both the nuclear bomb and the collateral damage.
If this is the final stage of this feud, then we’ve seen enough. It’s over, and it’s time to call it anyway. Kendrick Lamar out-rapped and out-executed Drake from beginning to end — that’s hard to debate. But we’ve also veered so far away from what we came here for — a battle of lyrics and wit — that there’s no point in continuing.
We’ve had our heavyweight fight. We’ve had a night we won’t forget. If Drake and Kendrick Lamar want to return to show who can rap better, let’s do it. But we may have strayed too far into something else, something too personal entirely, and it doesn’t feel like the next moves will be fun.
David Dennis Jr. is a senior writer at Andscape, and the author of the award-winning book “The Movement Made Us: A Father, a Son, and the Legacy of a Freedom Ride.” David is a graduate of Davidson College.
