Strange Hours

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

DRAKE AKA THE BOY AKA THE 6 GOD AKA THE TEFLON DON AKA CHAMPAGNE PAPI AKA WHEELCHAIR JIMMY

Aubrey Drake Graham is a rapper and actor from Toronto, Canada who I first became acquainted with from the television show Degrassi, where he played Jimmy Brooks, a hot headed jock who was later targeted in a school shooting and was paralyzed from the waist down. Everyone was skeptical when he started rapping in the 2010s, but he was a talented enough musician and business man--especially in his ability to chase and hop on trends--that he has become a very powerful figure in the music industry. One of his earliest massive hits is YOLO, a song that was inescapable when I was in college.

Drake has long had a reputation for being soft, firstly because he used to make music that women really fucked with (Hold On, We're Going Home is a great example, as is the video for Nice For What), and also because, well, he is a rapper from Canada who got his start on fucking Degrassi. This has very obviously bothered him throughout his career.

KENDRICK LAMAR DUCKWORTH AKA KENNY AKA KDOT AKA THE SECOND MOST PETTY PULITZER PRIZE WINNER

Kendrick is so different from Drake in almost every capacity. Kendrick is a rapper from Compton and from the start he was showered with critical acclaim for his technical skill but not necessarily the same kind of fame and success as Drake did. KDot has rapped a lot about his experiences as a gang member, and in many track reminds the listener that he has killed someone. His albums Good Kid M.A.A.D. City and To Pimp A Butterfly are considered modern day hip hop classics. They're really both incredible albums tbh but very very dense and emotionally effecting. Kendrick also won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for music for his album DAMN. in 2018.

On top of that, Kendrick really holds it down for the culture--his song I and Alright became spontaneous protest chants during the George Floyd protests in 2020. I actually sort of can't listen to those songs anymore because I associate them with that movement so strongly!

PROLOGUE

It wasn't always beef between Drake and Kendrick. In fact, Drake had Kendrick open for him on tour in 2012 and Drake featured on the Kendrick single Poetic Justice. The only evidence of animosity between the two occurred after Kendrick's infamous verse on Big Sean's song Control, where Kendrick essentially named a bunch of rappers and said he was coming for them to be the greatest rapper of all time. Drake was one of the people he named.

Many people interpreted this as a diss, but Kendrick didn't respond to anyone iirc. At the 2013 BET Awards, Kendrick's verse in the cypher referenced Drake's album Nothing Was The Same, and talked about tucking a "sensitive rapper" back in his pajamas. Drake insisted there was no real issue. HM!!!!!!

SIDEBAR: THE STORY OF ADIDON

Kendrick is not the only person that fucking hates Drake. In 2018, the rapper feuded with one of his idols, Pusha T. If you don't know Pusha T, actually, yes you do: he is one half of Clipse, which had the smash hit Grindin'. If you have been in a public school where kids are slamming that beat out on the lunch tables you and I come from a shared heritage.

I don't want to get into the weeds here, but Drake and Pusha went back and forth until Pusha dropped The Story of Adidon, where Pusha revealed that Drake had secretly fathered a child with an a sex worker in France. At first Drake denied it but then like a year later he claimed his son as his own. He was shamed into caring for his son through rap beef. For years, I have maintained that the hardest bar in rap music is "You are hiding a child!"

This is important to note because this is the first time beef with Drake like, stuck. He has beefed with other people before, but usually he just pumped out a pop radio hit and dominated the airwaves, basically neutralizing whatever response he was gonna get. Drake would blame Kanye for this and then start beefing with Ye but that's a whole other thing.

LIKE THAT

This is where the current beef starts. In March, rapper Future, a former Drake collaborator, released an album produced by Metro Boomin called We Don't Trust You. Kendrick has a surprise feature on Like That where he says "motherfuck the big three, nigga it's just big me." This is a reference to the J. Cole and Drake song First Person Shooter, where the two refer to themselves and Kendrick as the big three of rap. Kendrick doesn't want Drake to speak his name even as a compliment.

J Cole dropped a response and then literally three days later apologized and removed it from streaming. What Did He Know??????

DRAKE RESPONDS

On April 13th, a leak of a song goes around Twitter and people think it might be Drake's Kendrick diss. IIRC a few days later it shows up on Spotify as a song called Push-Ups. He also releases a song called Taylor Made Freestyle, where he makes fun of Kendrick by using AI voices of two iconic California rappers, Tupac and Snoop Dogg. He also mentions Taylor Swift, saying that Kendrick is a bitch for moving his release dates around not to conflict with hers, and that his feature on Bad Blood was stupid.

Tupac's estate threatened Drake with a cease and desist and Drake took down the song.

EUPHORIA, 6:16 IN LA

On April 30th, Kendrick releases Euphoria, an extremely fucking mean song. He calls out Drake for being a culture vulture for black American culture, referencing the way that Drake will identify a music trend, go to that scene, and then package it and sell it under his own name. He really does go as far as to change his accent on some of his songs, it's super weird! At the end of the track, Kendrick disses Drake using the regional accent and slang from Toronto, Drake's hometown.

Three days later, Kendrick drops 6:16 In LA, which is much shorter and rougher than Euphoria, though just as nasty. Hilariously, the beat was produced by Jack Antonoff, Taylor Swift's major collaborator and main producer. The song also samples an Al Green song where Drake's uncle played guitar. Check Jack's faves on Twitter--I would love to know what Drake did to piss Taylor off!

FAMILY MATTERS AND A QUICK NOTE

On May 3rd, Drake drops Family Matter. On this track mostly he calls Kendrick short a lot. He also implies, but does not outright say, that Kendrick beats his wife Whitney, who is shown on the cover of Kendrick's album Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers.

Now, I want to mention this because it's a serious allegation but 1) rap beef is not journalism, sometimes these dudes just lie and 2) many of the things that Kendrick will go on to mention can be corroborated by outside sources, but this I haven't been able to. Also the way that Drake says it on the song does not really make me feel like Drake even means it, but is just searching around for something that will provoke and insult Kendrick. You may feel differently.

Not to say that Kendrick is perfect about women and abuse: Mr. Morale has some weird... stuff on it about women; Kendrick is just kind of a hotep; he threatened to take his music off Spotify if they took down R. Kelly's catalogue. No one in this conflict is perfect. I would argue Drake suffers from a much deeper level of sickness.

MEET THE GRAHAMS, NOT LIKE US

So, all this time, people had been wondering where the fuck Kendrick's response was. I thought he might not respond--it's not really his style. About an hour after Family Matters drops, Kendrick releases a song called Meet The Grahams. In previous songs, Kendrick alleged that Drake had a leak in his camp, and that the people around him dislike him so much they're feeding Kendrick dirt. Based on how quick this response came out, I would say that's probably true.

This song.... is fucking nasty. It's addressed to everyone in Drake's family, starting with his son Adonis. In the first verse, he apologizes to Adonis for having such a horrible father, and also says that he wishes Adonis's grandfather had worn a condom. By the time he's addressing Sandra, Drake's mother, he tells Sandra that he wishes men like Drake would die. He then insinuates that Drake is a pedophile.

Now, there have been many, many instances of Drake getting caught talking to underage Instagram models etc etc. The most famous example of this is when Millie Bobby Brown, then 14, said that she was friends with Drake and they text often. Drake at that time was 36. That's not fucking normal behavior.

Kendrick also says that Drake has a secret eleven year old daughter. Turns out the only bar harder than "you are hiding a child" is "you are hiding a second child."

That night--literally, I was brushing my fucking teeth and my husband was already asleep--Kendrick releases Not Like Us. On this track, he repeatedly calls Drake a pedophile over a fucking DJ Mustard beat.

It is a completely bonkers song. It made me feel like I was hallucinating. People have already started playing it in the club. Kendrick successfully used Drake's main tactic of releasing a club banger when there's beef against him. Like no shit, the Dodgers social media referenced the song in a recent tweet, this is a club banger about how Drake is a pedophile.