Almost everyone remembers what they were doing when Kendrick Lamar dropped "Not Like Us."
Today, the music video on YouTube has over 145 million views and the Spotify track has more than 800 million streams. It's not just an iconic moment ingrained into the memory of hip-hop fans, but a cultural phenomenon that has caught the attention of anyone who is even remotely familiar with rap.
We know Kendrick won, we know Drake made bad diss tracks — but what separates the two as artists?
"The art of emceeing is a combat sport," said Matt Kirkpatrick, a part-time professor at the School of Music, Dance and Theatre. "Beef is ingrained in this culture because iron sharpens iron."
The dispute started with a similar tone, with Kendrick and Drake taking tiny digs at each other using sneak disses, but it has since morphed into something that has flipped the trajectory of hip-hop culture and forced fans to take sides.
What makes this specific "beef" different is the fact that it occurred during a time when hip-hop has become less regional due to the internet, thinks Marlon Loria, the face behind YouTube channel MarLoria, who made a video about the controversy with over 900 thousand views.
"Drake has 100 gigs out right now, which he keeps updating, which is pretty cool, actually," Kirkpatrick said. "Drake's approach is more (that) he loves hip-hop so much, he wants to include all of the new genres and everything that's new and bubbling hot right now."
With five Grammys and over 300 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 under his belt in his career, many would call Drake successful.
According to Kirkpatrick, Drake comes across as a skilled fan of the genre who is very receptive to the newest sounds in hip-hop.
"I did appreciate some of the hooks, some of the flows, but I think because of the weight and how big of a scale this whole beef was, you couldn't help but pick a side, really," Loria said. "I need a certain level of bias to communicate my point. And yeah, Kendrick completely obliterated Drake."
A lot of what happened between Drake and Kendrick was up to fans to decode. They were sent down the rabbit hole of the history between them, and why everything Kendrick accused Drake of made more sense than what Drake said about Kendrick.
"(Kendrick is) an artist's artist," Kirkpatrick said. "He doesn't do the art for commerce, he doesn't do the art for fame, he doesn't do the art for money. He does it because there's a calling inside him to do the art that he does."
Almost all the music put out by Kendrick has an underlying meaning. Fans are often forced to thoroughly analyze his music to understand it, a key reason why he manages to stay relevant in the industry despite his infrequent releases.
"I feel like one great point of difference between Kendrick and Drake is the amount of heart that they put into their lyrics," Mariah Champion, a freshman studying tourism said.
In his video, Loria also dissects how differently both rappers conducted themselves. While Kendrick went on to systematically use the things we already knew about Drake against him, Drake just threw accusations at him and did not directly respond to any of the things Kendrick said or implied, except what was being discussed online.
"Both 'Euphoria' and 'meet the grahams' are six to seven-minute songs that are really delving into how Drake acts and what he does," Champion said. "When (Kendrick) wrote 'euphoria,' he was really trying to drive into the audience, like 'Look, Drake is not a good person, and I need you guys to listen to what I'm saying instead of just the beat of the song.'"
Drake uses "Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers" against Kendrick in "The Heart Part 6", his last diss track to date, and Loria argued that the shadow of the album looms over this entire beef.
Loria said that Kendrick being upfront and vulnerable on this album gave him a "line of attack" that he wouldn't have had otherwise. When Kendrick was rapping on "meet the grahams" about ineffective fathering and identity issues, Loria was immediately reminded of Mr. Morale, where Kendrick talks about going to therapy to overcome those barriers.
By the end of the battle, it was obvious to fans that Kendrick had won, but Kirkpatrick said that it does not mean Drake's career is over.
"I just think that it's much like Jay and Nas: they had their tussle, and they kept releasing music, and that's what it's going to be with Drake and Kendrick Lamar," Kirkpatrick said. "Anybody who's surprised by what happened should not be surprised, because this thing has been bubbling under the scenes for many, many years."
It certainly won't be the last time there will be tension between the two, but for now, the truth is what Kendrick makes it.
Edited by Andrew Dirst, Abigail Beck, Tiya Talwar and Natalia Jarrett.
Reach the reporter at ktale@asu.edu and follow @KasturiTale on X.
Like The State Press on Facebook and follow @statepress on X.
Kasturi is a sophomore studying journalism. This is her second semester with The State Press. She has her own blog and has worked in creative writing.
