Drake and Kendrick Lamar's feud: the biggest beef in contemporary rap history, explained

Drake and Kendrick Lamar's ongoing feud escalates with diss tracks and personal attacks, sparking controversy in hip-hop.

In one of the biggest beefs in recent hip-hop history, Drake and Kendrick Lamar are feuding — to the point that police were asked about their feud after a security guard was shot outside Drake's Toronto mansion. But it wasn't always this way.

Over a decade ago, the pair collaborated on a few songs: On Drake's 2011 track “Buried Alive Interlude,” on Lamar's 2012 release “Poetic Justice,” and on A$AP Rocky’s “F****ing Problems" that same year.

That didn't last very long. In 2013, Pulitzer Prize winner Lamar was featured on Big Sean's “Control,” in which he called out a slew of contemporary rappers including Drake, J. Cole, Meek Mill, Pusha T, A$AP Rocky, Big K.R.I.T., Wale, Pusha T and even Big Sean among them.

“I got love for you all, but I’m trying to murder you,” he rapped. “Trying to make sure your core fans never heard of you.”

Drake responded in a Billboard cover story, saying “I know good and well that Kendrick's not murdering me, at all, in any platform.” Shortly afterward, at the 2013 BET Hip-Hop Awards, Lamar took another jab at Drake.

Over the next few years, the rappers launched disses at each other with less frequency. Drake had other beefs with other performers, like Meek Mill in 2015, and most infamously Pusha T in 2018, where the latter rapper dropped "The Story of Adidon,” revealing Drake is a father.

In October 2023, J. Cole perhaps accidentally reignited the beef on “First Person Shooter” with Drake. He rapped “Love when they argue the hardest MC / Is it K-Dot? Is it Aubrey? Or me?" referencing Lamar and Drake's birth name, Aubrey Graham. "We the big three like we started a league / but right now, I feel like Muhammad Ali.”