Over the weekend, Kendrick Lamar appeared on a track from the new Future and Metro Boomin album WE DON’T TRUST YOU. During his verse on the song he sparked an absolute tidal wave through rap fandoms when he took shots at both Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole. Given the history that the trio have together many are expecting some kind of formal response in song. Though Drake already took the chance to address things during a recent live show, he’s yet to drop any music covering it. But new comments from DJ Akademiks claim that he’s in no rush to drop a response.
During a recent livestream, Ak explained why he think Drake is operating without a time limit when it comes to responding to the diss. He claimed that by dropping just a few lyrics on a verse on somebody else’s song, Kendrick hasn’t raised the stakes as high as they can possibly go. Ak explains that the situation will be very different once either artist drops an entire song dedicated to taking shots at one another. Until that happens though, he thinks that there’s no pressure for Drake to respond with any urgency. Check out his explanation for those statements below.
Since Kendrick’s diss dropped, dozens of figures in the rap industry have reacted to his claims and debated who the real “big 3” is. Drake’s own dad weighed in on people who try to call his son out. He made a joke about people needing to sell more copies of their music so they call out Drake to try and boost sales.
In his initial response to the shots, Akademiks claimed that he thought Drake would beat Kendrick when all is said and done. What do you think of DJ Akademiks’ claim that Drake has no time limit for responding to Kendrick Lamar’s recent diss? Do you think Drake should drop a full song in response? Let us know in the comment section below.
Over the weekend, rap fans have been picking sides. That’s because of a song from Future and Metro Boomin’s new album WE DON’T TRUST YOU. The track features a verse from Kendrick Lamar where he takes shots at both J. Cole and Drake. The beef has divided fans as they wait for all of their favorite rappers to weigh in on the beef. One person with pretty strong connections to both Drake and Metro Boomin is 21 Savage. But he hasn’t exactly had the rap beef on his mind recently.
In a newly shared picture we got to see what Savage has been up to. He’s sporting some hilarious wizard Mickey Mouse ears in a selfie from Disneyland Hong Kong. In the comments, fans react to the hilarious imagery. “n*gga scaring the children” one of the top comments on a post of the picture reads. “Oh he won’t no parts of this future n Drake beef” and “Bro just enjoying his freedom to travel” two other comments claim. Check out the new selfie shared of his Disneyland vacation below.
Last month, 21 Savage announced a new tour of his own going on this year. Last year, he joined Drake for an extended run on the It’s All A Blur Tour. Later this year he will take off to support his new record american dream on a tour of his own. Along the way he will be joined by JID, Nardo Wick, and 21 Lil Harold as opening acts on the tour.
Savage brought some of the songs from his new record to thd SNL stage last month. For one performance he was joined on stage by Summer Walker for their recent collaboration “prove it.” What do you think of 21 Savage hanging out at Disneyland Hong Kong while Kendrick takes shots at Drake and 21 Savage in his new song? Do you think Savage should come out and take a side in the emerging beef? Let us know in the comment section below.
Drake and Future proved themselves to be an unstoppable duo over the course of their careers. They have an extensive history of collaborating, including a full-length album and countless guest features. The two even co-headlined arena shows across North America on their Summer Sixteen Tour. In the booth and on stage, Drake and Future bring the best out of one another. Their working relationship has been championed by fans, encouraging their prolific output as collaborators. The alliance between Drake’s OVO Sound and Future’s Freebandz supposedly ended recently following subliminal disses and rumors. In 2023, N.O.R.E. suggested that Future was upset with Drake teaming up with 21 Savage for their Her Loss project. These unconfirmed rumors coincided with fans noticing tension between Drake and Metro Boomin, with whom Future recently released We Don’t Trust You.
Despite denying any beef between them, Kendrick Lamar’s vicious verse on “Like That” has sparked further discussion about their relationship. Lamar sent shots at Drizzy and J. Cole’s “First Person Shooter” collab and dismissed the notion of them as “The Big Three.” With the hip hop community in a frenzy, both Drake and Future’s respective camps are shrugging off rumors and shutting down any potential beef. With Drake walking out to a Future song at a recent show, it appears that any sort of feud is already underway. Whether or not they are actually beefing, we have gotten a sizable amount of legendary music from Drake and Future. Today, we are looking at their history of collaborations.
Building Their Collaborative Chemistry
Drake and Future first teamed up in 2011 when Drizzy hopped on the remix of Future’s breakout hit, “Tony Montana.” While it opened the door for more music, it also foreshadowed any bubbling tension between the two as Future was upset with Drake for not showing up to the song’s video shoot. Many of their other collaborations in their early careers were featured on other artists’ songs. Both artists appeared on DJ Drama’s “We In This Bitch 1.5,” Lil Wayne’s “Love Me,” and Preme’s “DnF.” Besides “Tony Montana,” Drake jumped on some of Future’s other early projects, including FBG: The Movie, on the song “Fo Real.” He was also on the “Sh!t Remix” and “Never Satisfied” from 2014’s Honest.
What A Time To Be Alive & Creative Winning Streak
After building their collaborative chemistry for a few years, Drake and Future’s rapport culminated in a creative winning streak. This musical peak started in 2015 when Drake served as the lone guest feature on “Where Ya At” from Future’s DS2, which Metro Boomin primarily produced. The song foreshadowed what was to come from their full-length collaboration, What A Time To Be Alive. The project arrived the same year, boasting major hits like “Jumpman.” With Metro Boomin executive producing, the album displayed the magic of their musical partnership. Their commercial and creative streak continued into 2016, with Future appearing on “Grammys” and co-writing “Feel No Ways” from Views. Following the conclusion of their Summer Sixteen Tour, they released “Used To This,” a standalone single affirming the alliance between OVO and FBG. Additionally, Future provided background vocals on “Blue Tint” from Drake’s Scorpion.
The Supposed End Of An Era
Before any tension arose between them, Drake and Future started the 2020s with a run of major collaborations. Ten days into 2020, they unleashed “Life Is Good,” a two-part song where each had their own moment to shine. Not too long after, they reconnected for the toxic anthem “Desires” and “D4L,” which also featured Young Thug. Both of these tracks appeared on Drake’s Dark Lane Demo Tapes, a compilation of previously released and leaked songs. Going into 2021, Future guested twice on Drake’s Certified Lover Boy, contributing vocals to “N 2 Deep” and the hit single “Way 2 Sexy.” Like “D4L,” the latter also featured Young Thug.
As of now, Drake and Future’s final collaborations were both on 2022’s I Never Liked You. Drake rapped on “I’m On One” and sang on “Wait For U,” which sampled Tems’s “Higher.” The latter won the Grammy Award for Best Melodic Rap Performance. If Drake and Future’s supposed beef continues, they certainly ended their musical run on a commercial high note, winning a Grammy and securing a No. 1 single.
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“Rap is fun again” was a common sentiment that appeared on social media in the wake of the release of Future and Metro Boomin’s new album, We Don’t Trust You. Unfortunately, fans asserting as much were referring less to the album itself than to one of its features. On the song “Like That,” Kendrick Lamar makes an unlikely appearance with a fiery verse seemingly calling out the two rappers he’s most commonly compared to, Drake and J. Cole.
That’s kind of a shame. Not only has rap been fun for a really long time outside this album and any attendant potential “beef,” but the album itself deserves more than being overshadowed by the shade K. Dot directed at his ostensible rivals. The reason We Don’t Trust You was so heavily anticipated in the first place was the track record of quality chemistry between its principals. Future and Metro have collaborated frequently in the past, and the results have often been stellar, delivering some of the biggest standouts in the rapper’s catalog (the producer’s is another story).
Take “Mask Off.” Aside from being Future’s highest-charting single from 2017-2020 (peaking at No. 5 on the Hot 100), it’s become nearly ubiquitous in popular culture; its titular catchphrase was used as recently as a couple of weeks ago as the title of a profile of Tierra Whack for Vulture. Incidentally, it’s also still Future’s highest-charting solo single; it was supplanted in 2020 by “Life Is Good,” which peaked at No. 2, “Way 2 Sexy” in 2021, and “Wait For U” in 2022. The latter two both hit No. 1; all three songs feature Drake, which is… interesting, in light of recent developments.
Meanwhile, “Superhero (Heroes & Villains)” from Metro’s last official solo album, 2022’s Heroes & Villains, was the second highest-charting song from the album despite not being released as an official single like “Creepin’,” the only better-performing song from the album. Both were the only two songs from Heroes & Villains to appear in the top ten (“Superhero” at No. 8, “Creepin’” at No. 3). It seems safe enough to say that among Metro’s most prolific partnerships, Future is the one that gets people going the most — aside from Drake, who now appears to be on the outs with both.
I’ve now gone four paragraphs and mentioned Drake three times, which feels instructive of the point I’ve been trying to make. Future and Metro should be the focus, and they’ve let themselves get backburnered on what was expected to be one of the standouts of either artist’s career. Even worse, We Don’t Trust You absolutely clears that benchmark, offering some of the most innovative beat work the St. Louis producer has turned in lately — which should be doubly impressive, considering his recent output includes not only Heroes & Villains but also the excellent and versatile Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse soundtrack and much of Young Thug’s Business Is Business jail album, along with a much-improved deluxe re-sequencing thereof.
Likewise, Future, whose last few solo projects prompted somewhat lukewarm responses (including from this publication), sounds more focused than he has since 2017’s Future/Hndrxx double release. Tracks like the titular intro, “Magic Don Juan (Princess Diana),” and “Everyday Hustle” crackle with the duo’s unique chemistry as Future reels in the more maudlin reflections prominent in his prior work to boast and threaten like a kingpin. “Got that sniff on me, that white shit like I’m Tom Brady,” he gloats on “Magic Don Juan.” “I’ma put a sports car on two wheels like it got hydraulics.”
Even on “Like That,” the beat pulls one hell of a sample — Rodney-O & Joe Cooley’s ’88 Uncle Jamm staple “Everlasting Bass,” in the style of Three 6 Mafia’s “Gotta Touch ‘Em (Pt. 2)” — to bolster Kendrick and Future’s nose-thumbing. “Runnin Outta Time” is cinematic, “Fried (She A Vibe)” lives up to its parenthetical, and “Everyday Hustle” is a masterclass in soulful street rap. (Sidebar: Anyone who says Rick Ross sounds “revitalized” here has missed Rick Ross’ last three projects.)
While the album drags on the backend (trap albums remain too long), and, like much of the overall trap oeuvre, can sound a bit repetitive, it more than lives up to its hype. It just sucks that modern audiences are so inundated with new music that the only thing they’ll get excited for is drama, beef, and gossip. Rap has been exciting — We Don’t Trust You is a fine contribution to that tradition — but if all anyone cares about is who dissed who and only gets fired up for guest rappers hijacking the conversation, then no wonder they’re so bored with the music of late. Maybe when We Still Don’t Trust You drops, the actual music can share the spotlight.
We Don’t Trust You is out now via Freebandz/Boominati/Epic/Republic. Get it here.
Did Drake Respond To Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Like That’ Diss?
Drake had two opportunities on stage to address Lamar’s diss. His and Cole’s It’s All A Blur Tour — Big As The What? staged back-to-back concerts on Saturday, March 23, and Sunday, March 24, at Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise, Florida. Lil Wayne served as the co-headliner for those dates, and the first show only focused on positivity as Drake showered Wayne with praise.
On Sunday, however, Drake had to get something off his chest. Whether it was a direct response to Kendrick (or Future?) is up for interpretation, but this is what Drake said, as circulated on X (formerly Twitter) by Complex:
“A lot of people ask me how I’m feelin’. I’ma let you know how I’m feelin’. Listen, the way I’m feelin’ is the same way I want you to walk out of here feelin’ tonight about your fuckin’ self. ‘Cause you know how I’m feelin’? I’ve got my f*cking head up high. My back straight. I’m ten f*cking toes down in Florida — or anywhere else I go — and I know that, no matter what, there’s not a n***a on this Earth that could ever f*ck with me. And that’s how I want you to talk out of here tonight.”
“I got my f**king head up high, my back straight, I’m ten f**king toes down… and I know no matter what there’s not another n**** on this Earth that could ever f*ck with me… – Drake pic.twitter.com/6VZJtxxKUJ
Drake continuously brags about his loyalty to “all of his dogs” (hence the name of his latest album). However, someone named Kendrick Lamar is ready to clear out the kennel.
Thanks to Lamar’s latest verse on Metro Boomin & Future’s song “Like That” (off of their joint album We Don’t Trust You), a new rap beef is sizzling up fan bases. Now that a few days have passed since Lamar’s fiery bars, fans are expecting a response from Drake any moment now. So, the question is, when is it coming?
Continue below for more speculation.
Will Drake Respond To Kendrick Lamar’s Diss On The ‘It’s All A Blur Tour?’
Both dissed parties, Drake and J. Cole (slighted by association), are currently on the road. Yesterday (March 23), their joint, It’s All A Blur Tour — Big As The What? made a stop at Sunrise, Florida’s Amerant Bank Arena. During the set, attendees expected a response but were deeply disappointed.
Instead of addressing Lamar’s sharp lines, Drake used the stage to show love to his mentor and longtime friend, Lil Wayne. The pair performed “Right Above It” and “She Will.”
Drake was later spotted living in a club in Miami, listening to an audio recording. Fans have speculated that it could be his official response, which they hope drops soon.
In a surprising revelation, Grammy-winning producer Hit-Boy has shed light on the intricate decision-making process that led to Drake and Justin Bieber’s chart-topping single “Right Here.” Originally crafted for a Big Sean and J. Cole collaboration, the beat found its way into the hands of two different camps. This is what ultimately shaped the trajectory of the song and the careers involved. Moreover, taking to Instagram, Hit-Boy shared a captivating video from the studio session where Drake and Bieber worked their magic on the track. In his post, the All-Star producer told the story of how the beat came to be. Moreover, he revealed its initial intended destination on Big Sean’s “24k of Gold,” a track from his Detroit mixtape.
However, in a candid reflection, Hit-Boy described the dilemma he faced in deciding which artist to send the beat to. Despite its alignment with Sean and Cole’s vision, Hit-Boy ultimately made the tough call to offer the track to Drake and Bieber. It was a decision not taken lightly, but one that was endorsed by Sean himself, who recognized the opportunity for Hit-Boy’s career to soar with the collaboration. Acknowledging Sean’s selflessness and support, Hit-Boy expressed his gratitude, recognizing the rapper’s integrity and understanding of the music industry’s dynamics. Furthermore, the gesture speaks volumes about the camaraderie and mutual respect shared among artists. Even in the competitive landscape of hip-hop.
“Crazy story for throwback thursday,” Hit-Boy wrote. “this is a clip of justin bieber and drake working on a beat i produced for their song ‘right here.’ the funny thing is big sean and j cole had a song called ’24k of gold’ over the same beat and i had to choose who to give the beat to. that was TOUGH but sean being the solid dude he is told me to run it with bieber and drake cuz he knew it was a a1 look for me.” “Salute to him for that,” he continued. “I never even knew they caught a vibe to the second beat playing at the end i made that too. Time flies.” Furthermore, he shouted out fellow producer Key Wane. “Shout to bro @keywane for flipping the 24k of gold joint and goin crzy on it.”
Furthermore, Hit-Boy offered glowing praise for both Big Sean and Drake, highlighting their reputations as individuals of character and influence within the industry. Their involvement in the song’s journey only adds to its legacy and significance within the realm of modern music. The story serves as a testament to the power of collaboration, the importance of mentorship, and the unpredictability of success in the world of hip-hop. In sharing this behind-the-scenes glimpse, Hit-Boy invites fans to appreciate the intricate tapestry of decisions, relationships, and moments that shape the songs we know and love, reminding us that sometimes the most impactful stories lie beneath the surface.
Way back in 2017, when I first started working at Uproxx, I wrote a piece called Bringing Drake And Kendrick Lamar To The Brink Of Battle about the longstanding cold war between the two prominent rappers, who fans have interchangeably considered the top of rap’s hierarchy along with J. Cole.
Collectively, they’ve been called hip-hop’s “Big Three,” but on Kendrick Lamar’s new verse on “Like That” from Future and Metro Boomin’s new joint album We Don’t Trust You, the Compton rapper derides the concept, declaring, “Motherf*ck the Big Three / N****, it’s just big me.”
He also spends a significant portion of his verse throwing shade at Drake, which some fans have interepreted as a response to Drake throwing some of his own on his J. Cole collaboration “First Person Shooter” from For All The Dogs.
Now, if you’ve found yourself wondering why these two have spent so much time and energy trying to dim each other’s light, here’s a timeline of their feud to help make sense of it all.
2011: Drake Invites Kendrick Lamar To Collaborate On Take Care
The first official collaboration between Drake and Kendrick appears on Drake’s second album, Take Care. On “Buried Alive,” Drake cedes the stage to Kendrick, who delivers an unbroken stream of consciousness reflecting on his already antagonistic relationship to fame. Even then, it was clear he wasn’t sure what to make of Drake’s extended hand; during the verse, he muses that their association would change him and not necessarily for the better. “So blame it on Mr. OVOXO / The reason why I’m breathin’ all the vanity I know,” he raps, the first sign that things were all hunky-dory despite their initially friendly footing.
2013: Kendrick Lamar’s Verse On Big Sean’s “Control” Sets The Rap World On Fire
It’s funny; the origin of Kendrick Lamar’s big break from the industry as a whole came on a song that isn’t even technically commercially available. For a while, K. Dot played the game, collaborating with Drake twice more (on his Good Kid, MAAD City single “Poetic Justice” and on ASAP Rocky’s “F*ckin’ Problems”) but when given the opportunity to collab with fellow rising star Big Sean on his second album Hall Of Fame, Kendrick instead went full scorched earth on “Control,” inviting the entire rap world to catch his fade. The song, which was released as a promotional single but ultimately cut from the album over sample clearance issues, brought an immediate response from dozens of rappers — but not the one he seemingly most wanted to react.
“I didn’t really have anything to say about it,” Drake told Billboard in August of that year. “It just sounded like an ambitious thought to me. That’s all it was. I know good and well that [Lamar]’s not murdering me, at all, in any platform. So when that day presents itself, I guess we can revisit the topic.”
2013: Kendrick Calls Out Drake On The BET Hip-Hop Awards
Revisit the topic Kendrick did, referencing Drake’s non-response in his Cypher verse at the 2013 BET Hip-Hop Awards. “Nothing’s been the same since they dropped ‘Control,’” he flexed. “And tucked a sensitive rapper back in his pajama clothes.” Unfortunately, despite name-checking Drake’s album, he failed to elicit a direct response, although some cited Drake’s verse on Future’s “Sh!t” as an indirect one: F*ck n****s gon’ be f*ck n****s / That’s why we never gave a f*ck when a f*ck n**** switched up.”
Since then, the two have exchanged a handful of subliminal potential disses, but never anything that either seemed to think was worth escalating the conflict over. A few examples include:
2013: Drake’s “The Language”
Nothing Was The Same was allegedly littered with references to Kendrick, none overt. However, it’s hard to overlook the first verse from “The Language” in which he decries “any n****s that’s talkin’ that sh*t just to get a reaction / F*ck going platinum, I looked at my wrist and it’s already platinum” — a subtle nod to Good Kid, MAAD City reaching the million-sold milestone two years after its release (by comparison, it took Drake’s debut album, Thank Me Later, just a month to accomplish).
2015: Kendrick Lamar’s “King Kunta”
When Kendrick incredulously wonders, “I can dig rapping / But a rapper with a ghost writer? What the f*ck happened?” many retroactively took it as a pointed reference to Drake’s “ghost writer” controversy, which was kicked off by Meek Mill later that year when he detailed being surprised that Drake asked him for a verse on a nearly completed reference song. After the scandal broke (and Drake cooked Meek with the onslaught of “Charged Up” and “Back To Back”), fans pointed to Kendrick’s bar as an example of foreshadowing… even though he never mentions Drake on the track.
2015: Drake’s Verse From The Game’s “100”
“I would have all of your fans / If I didn’t go pop and I stayed on some conscious shit,” has long been construed as a gloating shot at Kendrick for being unable to match Drake in commercial success. Another example of a line that could be about K. Dot: “I’m in the club every time that they play the competition If they even play the competition and I seen the response they get.”
2015: Kendrick’s Verse From Dr. Dre’s “Deep Water”
“Motherf*cker know I started from the bottom” begins the verse, calling back to one of Drake’s best-known but most scrutinized hits. (“I don’t give a f*ck about your whereabouts” could also be seen as a reference to the Canadian rapper’s tendency to release songs titled with timestamps and locations, such as…)
2016: Drake’s “4PM In Calabasas”
Less of a diss and more of a reminder, Drake made it a point to take credit for taking the risk of backing Kendrick and ASAP Rocky in 2011, eschewing the advice to bring R&B singers on his tour. “When they told me take an R&B n**** on the road and I told ’em no and drew for Kendrick and Rocky / I tried to make the right choices with the world watching.” Might have bit him in the backside.
2017: Kendrick’s “The Heart Part 4”
Ahead of releasing the Pulitzer-winning DAMN., Kendrick made it a point to tell Drake: “Jay-Z Hall of Fame, sit your punk ass down / So that means you ain’t bigger than rapping.” After taking some parting shots on “Element,” (the linked article is about a potential Big Sean diss, but fans have interpreted the target of the third verse to be Drake) he went so long without dropping new music, that it seemed their feud had ended by virtue of sheer boredom on either rapper’s part.
2023: Drake’s “First Person Shooter” Verse
Despite taking in one of Kendrick’s Big Steppers tour stops (after Kendrick expressed confusion at Drake and Kanye squashing their own feud on that album), Drake seemingly couldn’t resist getting in some digs at Kendrick on his J. Cole collaboration, nor slighting him during his own tour, telling fans he wouldn’t disappear on them for years at a time (suggesting that’s what Kendrick did between 2017’s DAMN. and 2022’s Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers).
2024: Kendrick Lamar’s “Like That” Verse
And here we are, full circle — sorta. Truthfully, this feels more liek is should be an intermission, although it’s also the first time in over 10 years Kendrick openly baited Drake with an invitation to throw down. We’ll see if the time Drake predicted all those years ago finally comes to pass, or if Kendrick’s craving for conflict continues to go unsatisfied.
Everybody is talking about Kendrick Lamar’s appearance on the new Future and Metro Boomin album. That seems to be by design as he uses the opportunity to take shots at two of the biggest stars in all of rap music, Drake and J. Cole. He makes specific lyrical references to the pair’s collaboration “First Person Shooter” and the album it landed on Drake’s For All The Dogs. But he also compares him and Drake to another pair of popular artists.
As a part of his diss Kendrick conjures the career-long beef between Michael Jackson and Prince. Drake is no stranger to comparing himself to Michael. With “First Person Shooter” he tied the king of pop’s all time record for number one hits. Clearly Kendrick sees himself as the Prince to Drake’s Michael as he works the lyric “Prince outlived Mike Jack’” into his verse. Now, Freddie Gibbs has shared his hilarious reaction to the verse. In the hilarious way that only he can, Gibbs dodged taking a side in the situation at all. “First of all Mike ain’t dead,” his hilarious tweet reads. Check out the post and the fan responses to it below.
Last month, Freddie Gibbs found another hilarious way to avoid a beef entirely. JPEGMAFIA started taking shots at Gibbs online, but you wouldn’t know it from Freddie’s feed. He basically ignored the beef entirely creating a hilarious dichotomy as he shared pictures of food he was eating while Peggy continued attacking him.
One person he was willing to take shots at was DJ Akademiks. Gibbs appeared on the recently released ScHoolboy Q album and in his verse didn’t hold back against the controversial streamer. What do you think of Freddie Gibbs reaction to Kendrick Lamar’s Drake diss? Do you think he was deliberately trying to avoid taking a side in the beef? Let us know in the comment section below.
In case you’re just logging on and wondering what all the fuss is about, it looks like one of rap’s longest-running cold wars heated back up today. Drake and Kendrick Lamar have had a somewhat icy relationship for years (seriously, I wrote about this way back when I first started at Uproxx) and although it seemed as though they might be warming up to each other in recent years, fans think they might have put the thought of peace talks to the side on their most recent releases, starting with Drake’s J. Cole collab, “First Person Shooter.”
In Kendrick Lamar’s verse on Future and Metro Boomin’s newly released album We Don’t Trust You. The verse, which appears on the song “Like That,” finds Kendrick Lamar throwing some really obvious shots at Drake while refuting the concept of a “Big Three” in hip-hop. “It’s just big me,” he declares.
While some fans thought this attack came unprovoked and out-of-the-blue, others detected provocation on Drake’s part tucked inside his verse on “First Person Shooter.” “Hate how the game got away from the bars, man, this shit like a prison escape,” he rhymes. “Everybody steppers? Well, f*ck it, then everybody breakfast and I’m ’bout to clear up my plate” Some have interpreted this line to be a reference to Kendrick Lamar’s 2022 album Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers — which, for the record, received “mixed” reviews from fans and critics — and concluded that Kendrick’s verse on “Like That” is a response to that.
While it remains to be seen if Drake or J. Cole will respond to Kendrick’s outright declaration of hostilities, those of us who remember when all three actually made engaging music look forward to the releases of J. Cole’s long-awaited album The Fall Off and Kendrick’s rumored joint project with Baby Keem to see if any of them still have that old magic or if we’re just checking for them out of habit.
(@FreddieGibbs) 