Rap beef is as common as inflation in 2024, but one in particular stands out right now.
And that’s everybody versus Drake.
Drake has feuds that are decades long, but it was Future and Metro Boomin’s “We Don’t Trust You” album that fanned the flames.
Kendrick Lamar’s verse on their “Like That” track got the most attention. The Compton rapper called out Drake’s previous sneak disses and crowned himself the top dog over Drake and collaborator J. Cole, rapping, “motherf**k the big three, n***a, it’s just big me.”
Drizzy responded with his own diss, “Push Ups.” Along with Kendrick, Future and Metro, he fired shots at Rick Ross, The Weeknd and NBA player Ja Morant.
Ross responded with his own diss, “Champagne Moments,” and social media trolling. A rumored second diss track from Kendrick may also be on the way. Even Uma Thurman chimed in on the beef and offered up the suit she wore in “Kill Bill.”
It feels like everyone is teaming up against Drake right now. Good.
It’s not clear where this rap civil war is going, but what I do know is that Drake has had it coming for a while now.
Many fans have criticized the top-selling rapper for his stunted growth as an artist. On this week’s episode of “I Know That’s Right,” I chat with host and hip-hop aficionado Jacques Morel about one aspect of Drake’s stagnation: his misogyny.
Though his music has never been without misogyny, Drake went from making music for women to getting a rise out of disrespecting them.
“At some point in the line, someone or something broke Drake’s heart, and he’s been fighting over that ever since,” Morel said of a noticeable shift in his music.
“It’s very indicative of what happens to a lot of really rich and successful people. They grow more and more insular, they surround themselves with more and more ‘yes men,’ and then therefore they grow more and more paranoid,” Morel said. “They start lashing out at the things they cannot control, and that is other people. And that’s possibly the women in his life.”
On “Circo Loco,” Drake threw a subliminal line at Megan Thee Stallion, many believe, suggesting that she lied about Tory Lanez shooting her in the foot in 2020. Megan fired her own subliminal at Drizzy on “Hiss,” accusing him of getting plastic surgery.
The “Circo Loco” line itself was unnecessary and fed into the harmful narrative of Black women’s pain being hard to believe. But there’s also a hint of sexism in Drake omitting Megan in “Push Ups,” since he made it a catch-all diss. It feels like he’s picking and choosing who a worthy opponent is, and God forbid a female rapper fit that criteria in 2024.
There’s also Drake’s constant need to weaponize the women involved with his adversaries. He did this during his 2018 feud with Pusha T. In “Duppy Freestyle” — Drake name-dropped Pusha’s then-fiancée, Virginia Williams, to diss him. And he just did it again calling out Kendrick wife, Whitney Alford, in his latest song.
No one can predict where Drake’s current beefs will go, or who will win. But one thing is for sure: he needs to get called out on his shit a lot more than he is now.
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