As Kendrick Lamar recently pointed out, genuine feeling is the only thing that can save a rap feud.
The rapper from Los Angeles responded to Drake’s continuing fight this morning with a six-minute tirade that targeted Drizzy not just as a musician but also, and maybe more significantly, as a person.
“Euphoria” conveys not just Drake’s connection to the blockbuster drama series “Euphoria” on MAX, but also the degree of happiness Lamar probably feels once he’s finally able to let these things out. In the history of animosity between the two rap legends regarded as part of hip-hop’s millennial Mount Rushmore, Kendrick Lamar’s song represents the most recent development. This history spans more than ten years, and it was just rekindled in early 2024 with a flurry of clumsy diss recordings, both real and fake.
In the first line, Lamar delivers the song in a cold, collected, and menacing manner, saying, “Know you a master manipulator, and habitual liar, too / But don’t tell no lie ’bout me, and I won’t tell truths ’bout you.”
However, his poems rapidly explode into the most profound, blood-curdling, tunnel-visioned contempt. Lamar rips out Drake for not being a good father to his baby, makes fun of his Toronto lingo, makes fun of his alleged cosmetic surgery, suggests that he is a snitch, brings up old feuds that Drake hasn’t spoken about, and even goes so far as to cast doubt on Drake’s Black identity.
Even if they are insulting, these poetic pictures aren’t all that dramatic. In actuality, rap fans are already familiar with these charges against Drizzy because to disses from Rick Ross, Megan Thee Stallion, and Pusha T. However, K.Dot departs from his typical lyrical approach around 3:10, listing every aspect of the streaming-era celebrity that he finds intolerable.
This kind of callout, delivered quickly after one another, is so genuine and emotional that it’s precisely what this rap feud has been lacking. Rap fans and music journalists alike have found a lot of this well-publicized hip-hop spat to be strange. artificial, sticky, and lackluster. Even the verbal sparring between Drake, J. Cole, and Kendrick Lamar (along with a few others) has been characterized in this era of manufactured everything by its disengagement from the creative idea of a rap feud, which is to showcase one’s abilities, raise the stakes, and humiliate one’s opponent into submission.
March 26 marks one month when Lamar launched the first blow in the protracted spat between him and his sub on the Future and Metro Boomin song “Like That”: “Motherf*** the big three, n****, it’s just big me.”
J. Cole withdrew his diss and declared in public that he was bowing out of the fight entirely when performing at his label’s annual Dreamville Fest on April 5, after the release of the tune “7 Minute Drill” on April 5 in response to “Like That.” Cole said that his heart wasn’t in the battle.
After much anticipation, Drake responded to Kendrick Lamar officially on April 19 with “Push Ups,” ridiculing the pop-leaning characteristics of the rapper in the past and his “pip-squeak” stature. He also named-checked “Like That” producer Metro Boomin in the process. However, the manner in which “Push Ups” was released led to a new level of misunderstanding among rap fans in the Internet Age.
When the low-quality internet leak originally surfaced, several people believed it to be an AI-generated front and not Drake. Although live streamer DJ Akademiks verified the authenticity of “Push Ups” and finally made it to DSPs, Drake was able to profit from the extra layer of Internet conversation that was produced by the confusion. Only a few days later, Drake doubled down on his rebuttal to Lamar with another tune, “Taylor Made Freestyle,” demonstrating that he was drawing ideas from social media timelines.
This time, however, he opened the song with artificial intelligence-generated lines by Snoop Dogg and the late Tupac Shakur.
The effort to annoy Lamar by manipulating the voices of two West Coast icons was a very 2024-style tactic, but in the end, it diminished the song’s impact. The song was swiftly removed from social media after the Toronto rapper received a stop and desist letter from the Shakur estate for “unauthorized use of Tupac’s voice and personality.”
Taking a break on a Tuesday morning and returning with a song as raw and passionate as “Euphoria” on YouTube is seen as a throwback vibe in the age of limitless distribution channels and a chess move that always goes back to the original source. This song is overflowing with K.Dot’s obvious long-standing, simmering animosity toward Drake.
Fundamentally, “Euphoria” is driven by K.Dot’s resentful, worn-out, and emotional baggage, which has only become heavier over time and is impossible to replicate or fake. It is devoid of ChatGPT, media personalities, gimmicks, and gatekeeping. Either this conflict has ended or it has just begun. This time, for real.
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