Drake is no newcomer to the rap feud scene, having left a lasting imprint in the hip hop scene with his prior tiffs, such as his proven victory against Meek Mill, adding Charged Up and Back To Back to the hip hop vocabulary, and his defeat against Pusha-T that pushed him to step up his role as a father.
However, the present competition that originated from ‘First Person Shooter’ brought forward a rather swiftly intensified rivalry between three of the genre’s biggest names: Drake, J. Cole, and Kendrick Lamar. The latter two ended up in a lyrical face-off, escalating the duel to unforeseen heights.
Kendrick’s tracks, particularly ‘Meet The Grahams’, didn’t just settle scores, but evaluated Drake’s personal history. The following club hit painted a rather dark picture, depicting Drake as an exploiter preying on both underage girls and cultures that aren’t inherently his.
Drake’s response with ‘The Heart Pt. 6’ served as a rebuttal, but sadly didn’t manage to quell the storm. Even after Drake called out Kendrick’s claims, it did not stop tracks like ‘Not Like Us’ from topping Spotify and Apple Music or prevent listeners from unraveling all the instances where Drake seemed to have engaged in inappropriate behavior.
While he may have lost the entertainment industry’s jury, he could stand a chance legally, having the possibility to launch a defamation suit against Kendrick. To succeed, Drake would need to establish actual malice as a public figure. This would require him to demonstrate that his rival had knowledge of, or was recklessly indifferent towards, the falsity of the accusations.
However, victory doesn’t seem to be in Drake’s favor. In fact, in ‘Push-Ups,’ his call to producer Metro Boomin to return to the creation of beats instead of taking him on, resulted in one of the most hilariously critical diss tracks to date.
The ensuing responses were as diverse as they were widespread, with diss tracks and even responses in Japanese following suit. Interestingly, a legal issue arose from the underlying music based on an AI program used by @KingWillonius.
One may remember that AI wasn’t a stranger in this rap beef; in ‘Taylor Made,’ Drake experimented using an AI approximation of 2Pac’s voice to provoke Kendrick. This didn’t end well – leading to Drake being forced by 2Pac’s estate to take the record off air.
In these trying times for the Canadian artist, he might be in search for legal representation in light of the current storm surrounding him. Whether this will be a winning case for him is yet to be seen. For a more detailed read, see the complete coverage here.