Drake and Kendrick Lamar have been two of the biggest names in hip-hop for over a decade.
They started as collaborators, but their relationship slowly became one of rap history’s most intense rivalries. Their feud, which had been simmering for years, exploded in 2024 with a series of diss tracks, public insults, and even legal battles.
This is the full story of how their relationship changed from mutual respect to an all-out war.
Key Takeaways
- Drake and Kendrick Lamar’s relationship started with collaborations but turned into a rivalry after Kendrick’s 2013 Control verse, where he called out Drake and other rappers.
- The feud escalated in 2024 after Kendrick dissed Drake on Like That, leading to diss tracks like Push Ups, Euphoria, and Not Like Us, which reached No. 1 and won multiple Grammys.
- Drake sued Universal Music Group, claiming they inflated Kendrick’s streams and allowed defamatory lyrics, but Kendrick’s Super Bowl performance and chart dominance secured his victory.
Drake and Kendrick: From Friends to Rivals (2011-2013)
In 2011, Drake was already a major star after the success of his debut album, Thank Me Later.
As he prepared to release his second album, Take Care, he featured Kendrick Lamar on “Buried Alive Interlude.” At the time, Kendrick was an emerging rapper from Compton who had gained attention with his album Section.80.
A few months later, in early 2012, Drake took Kendrick on his Club Paradise Tour, giving him a platform to perform in front of larger audiences. At that point, their relationship seemed strong.
Later that year, they collaborated again on two major songs: A$AP Rocky’s F**kin’ Problems and Kendrick’s Poetic Justice from Good Kid, m.A.A.d City. Both songs became hits, and fans expected more music from them. However, this would be the last time they worked together.
In August 2013, Kendrick changed the tone of their relationship when he dropped a verse on Big Sean’s song Control. In it, he called out multiple rappers, including Drake, J. Cole, and Meek Mill, challenging them directly:
“I got love for you all, but I’m tryna murder you n**s.”
The verse shook the rap world. While some rappers saw it as competition, Drake seemed unimpressed. In an interview with Billboard, he brushed it off, saying, “I know good and well that he’s not murdering me on any platform.”
A few months later, Kendrick performed a verse at the BET Hip-Hop Awards, taking another shot at Drake:
“Nothing’s been the same since they dropped ‘Control’ / And tucked a sensitive rapper back in his pajama clothes.”
Drake responded in a VIBE interview, saying he stood his ground but wasn’t interested in continuing the back-and-forth. Still, from that moment on, their relationship was no longer friendly.
Years of Subtle Disses (2014-2023)
For the next several years, Kendrick and Drake avoided directly mentioning each other, but they continued to throw subliminal jabs in their music.
In 2015, Kendrick’s King Kunta seemed to aim for Drake’s ghostwriting controversy, rapping: “I can dig rapping / But a rapper with a ghostwriter? What the f**k happened?”
That same year, Drake responded to The Game’s song 100, suggesting that he could have dominated Kendrick’s fanbase if he had focused on “conscious rap.”
In 2016, Kendrick fired more shots on Dr. Dre’s Compton album, particularly Darkside/Gone and Deep Water. Meanwhile, Drake continued to dominate the charts with hit songs and successful albums.
The tension remained but never reached a breaking point—until 2023 when J. Cole unintentionally reignited the feud.
The Big Three Falls Apart: Kendrick Takes the First Shot (March 2024)
In October 2023, Drake and J. Cole released First Person Shooter, where Cole rapped:
“Love when they argue the hardest MC / Is it K-Dot? Is it Aubrey? Or me? / We the big three like we started a league.”
This didn’t sit well with Kendrick.
On March 22, 2024, Future and Metro Boomin released We Don’t Trust You, an album that included an uncredited verse from Kendrick on the song Like That. In it, Kendrick dismissed the idea of the “Big Three,” rapping:
“Motherfk the Big Three, na, it’s just Big Me.”*
The diss set off a chain reaction, and two days later, Drake addressed the situation at a concert in Sunrise, Florida, saying:
“I know that no matter what, there’s not a na on this earth that could ever fk with me in my life!”*
At first, it seemed like Drake wouldn’t respond to music. But in April, that changed.
The Diss Track War Begins (April-May 2024)
On April 5, 2024, Drake released Push Ups, in which he mocked Kendrick’s height, past business deals, and reputation as a “controlled” artist.
Kendrick responded on April 30 with Euphoria, a six-minute diss track where he called Drake a liar and a manipulator.
Less than 72 hours later, Kendrick dropped 6:16 in LA, suggesting that someone in Drake’s camp was secretly feeding him information.
Drake fired back on May 3 with Family Matters, where he questioned Kendrick’s relationship with his fiancée, Whitney Alford.
Within minutes, Kendrick responded with Meet the Grahams, accusing Drake of hiding a second child. But Kendrick’s most damaging attack came the next day with Not Like Us.
Produced by Mustard, Not Like Us was a direct attack on Drake, accusing him of inappropriate relationships with young women. The song went viral and became a summer anthem. It reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, the biggest diss track in years.
Drake tried to respond with The Heart Pt. 6, denying the accusations and claiming that he had tricked Kendrick into believing false rumors about his personal life. But by then, the momentum was against him.
Lawsuits, Grammys, and the Super Bowl (June 2024-February 2025)
Kendrick’s dominance continued as Not Like Us became one of the most-streamed rap songs of all time. It won five Grammy Awards, including Song of the Year and Best Rap Performance.
In June 2024, Kendrick performed Not Like Us five times at his Pop Out concert in Los Angeles, symbolizing his victory in the feud.
Meanwhile, Drake took legal action. In November 2024, he sued Universal Music Group (UMG), accusing them of using bots to inflate Kendrick’s streaming numbers. UMG denied the allegations, calling them “absurd.”
The biggest moment came at the 2025 Super Bowl. Kendrick headlined the halftime show and teased the audience by pretending he wouldn’t perform Not Like Us before finally delivering it with the entire stadium rapping along.
He even had Serena Williams—a rumored former Drake love interest—join him on stage.
Where Does the Feud Stand Now?
After the Super Bowl, Drake tried to regain momentum by releasing $ome $exy $ongs 4 U, a joint album with PartyNextDoor. On the track Gimme a Hug, he threw more jabs at Kendrick.
Despite this, Kendrick seemed to have moved on. His surprise album GNX, released in November 2024, contained a song called Wacced Out Murals, where he rapped: “I never peaced it up, that s**t don’t sit well with me / Before I take a truce, I’ll take ’em to Hell with me.”
In January 2025, Drake filed another lawsuit against UMG, this time for defamation, claiming that they allowed Kendrick to release Not Like Us, which labeled him a “sex offender.”
At this point, the legal battles are still ongoing, but Kendrick Lamar won in the court of public opinion.
