‘Not Like Us’: Kendrick Lamar’s anthem that will blow up the Super Bowl LIX
What was born as a diss track against Drake is now an anthem denouncing appropriation and ‘cultural colonialism’
According to betting sites, the odds are very high that Kendrick Lamar, the Super Bowl LIX halftime show host, will perform his biggest hit of 2024, Not Like Us. Although the song emerged as a diss track from a fight between the songwriter and Canadian rapper Drake, it is now considered a socially conscious anthem that fits perfectly with the competitive spirit of the final game of the NFL season. So high has been its impact that Drake tried to sue the record label in charge of releasing it to prevent the spread of accusations that it includes, among which are pedophilia and sexual abuse.
Drake and Kendrick Lamar
The two rappers began their relationship on good terms. In 2011 and 2012 they collaborated together on several songs, such as Poetic Justice, which is part of Lamar’s second studio album Good Kid, M.A.A.D City, and Drake even invited Lamar to be his opening act on his 2012 tour.
However, in 2013 something changed: on Big Sean’s track Control, Lamar dropped a verse against Drake and 10 other rappers —including big names like J Cole, Pusha T and Tyler, the Creator— in which he said, “I got love for you all, but I wanna murder you all... Tryna make sure your core fans never heard of you... They don’t want to hear not one more noun or verbs from you.” In the song he proclaims himself as the “King of New York” and the “King of the (West) Coast.” The verse was met with criticism, to which the Compton rapper responded that he was only doing it as “friendly competition,” which aligned with his goal of becoming the best rapper in America.
In the following years, Lamar and Drake released several tracks in which they appeared to insult each other. Despite constant speculation from fans and hip-hop experts, they denied that this was the case. However, they never collaborated again.
By 2023, the two rappers were considered among the best in the industry along with J. Cole, who decided to invite Drake to participate in a track called First Person Shooter, in which Cole claims that he, Drake and Lamar are the “big three” of modern hip-hop. In fact, the rapper tried to get Kendrick to participate in the track, but he refused.
Despite the fact that the song was not a direct attack on Lamar, in March 2024 Kendrick released a track alongside Future and Metro Boomin in which he claims that he is the only great one, plus he criticized Drake’s work and compared his rivalry to that of Michael Jackson and Prince, with the following statement, “Prince outlived Mike Jack.”
J. Cole, offended by the verse, responded with the track 7 Minute Drill, however, soon after he apologized for the song and removed it from streaming services, an act that many fans consider brave and reasonable, especially for what came next.
The beef
Drake, who until this point had been silent, released two diss tracks directed at Lamar: Push Ups and Taylor Made Freestyle. In the first, he mocks him, particularly for his stature and questions his musical authenticity, especially for having collaborated with Taylor Swift. He also references the “big three” comment and claims that SZA, Travis Scott and 21 Savage are better than him.
In the second song, Drake used artificial intelligence to mimic the voices of the late Tupac Shakur and Snoop Dogg (both West Coast), both of whom “criticize” Lamar for not responding to the attacks. In the end, Drake suggests that he didn’t because he doesn’t want to be overshadowed by Taylor Swift’s most recent release. The track received negative comments for using Tupac’s voice, and even Shakur’s family asked for the song to be removed due to personality rights. Drake later removed it from all of his platforms.
Although it seemed that Kendrick would remain silent, on April 30, 2024, he released his response: Euphoria, which was well received by critics for its humorous tone, Lamar’s versatility and the complexity of his lyrics. After being released, it broke the record for plays of a hip-hop song in a single day. At this point, the fight between the two was already a rap battle in the classic sense, like those experienced in the 90s with figures such as Tupac and Biggie Smalls.
Euphoria begins as a light-hearted track in which Lamar jokingly suggests that he is a phony and that everything said about him is true. But in the second part he attacks Drake without mentioning him directly, calling him “paranoid,” “pathetic” and a “master manipulator who makes up stories about other people’s families.” Lamar also released 6:16 in LA, where he continued the attacks towards the Canadian.
Drake was waiting for the timing of that response to release his strongest punch, Family Matters, which arrived on May 3. Accompanied by a music video, the song includes attacks on Kanye West, Pharrell Williams and The Weeknd, and in it Drake accuses Lamar of beating his partner and cheating on her with white women, and claims that his business partner Dave Free is the father of one of his children. The music video includes visual references to those accusations.
Within 20 minutes of the track’s release, Lamar posted Meet the Grahams on YouTube, which multiple commenters pointed to as the diss track that gave him the win in the rap battle. In it, Lamar addresses several members of Drake’s family, starting with his son Adonis, who was not recognized by the Canadian rapper until Pusha T revealed his existence to the world in another rap battle. Lamar accuses Drake of using Ozempic, sexualizing Black women, and being part of an “escort” business. Similarly, he blames Drake’s parents for not raising him properly, and addresses another possible unacknowledged daughter. The track ends with him telling Drake, “Fuck this rap battle, this is a lifelong battle with yourself.”
Throughout his answers, Kendrick Lamar suggests that someone on Drake’s team gives him information about their activities and release plans, which would explain how Kendrick had a ready response to the attacks involving his family, and why it was released 20 minutes after Drake’s “strongest punch.”
Not Like Us
Less than 20 hours after the release of Meet the Grahams, Lamar unveiled Not Like Us, a track that was accompanied by a cover featuring Drake’s house as seen from Google Maps, with several red symbols suggesting sexual predators in that residence. Produced by Mustard as a classic West Coast hip-hop track with a sample of a Ray Charles song, the song is characterized by its high energy and simple structure in which Lamar repeats some of his accusations, particularly those of pedophilia and sex crimes. He also criticizes his cultural identity and his relationship with rappers based in Atlanta, Georgia.
“Say Drake, I hear you like ‘em young. You better never go to cell block one,” he says while referring to the space where pedophiles are usually locked up, then adds: “Aren’t you tired? Tryna’ strike a chord and it’s probably A Minor.” That line has become one of the most recognizable parts of the song and has been repeated by several crowds.
In the music video, which was filmed in Compton with people from the neighborhood, the song is edited to let the scream of the participants be heard. Similarly, shortly after the release Kendrick did a pop-out concert where he performed the song five times in a row, and each time the audience screamed the line. And most recently, as he took the stage to receive his Grammy Award for Song of the Year, the audience at the Crypto.com arena (which included several members of the music industry) repeated the phrase.
In the video Lamar took the opportunity to deny Drake’s accusations, as he appears with his partner Whitney Alford and their children. The project was directed by Dave Free, who Drake pointed out as the father of one of Lamar’s children. Another of the most forceful is: “You’re not a colleague, you’re a fucking colonizer.”
Drake responded the next day with The Heart Part 6 (whose title refers to the songs of the same name that Lamar has released since the beginning of his career). The track was not so well accepted by critics, as he sounds less determined and seems to surrender in battle. He claims that the fight was fun, but that Lamar used only lies, and that the information he received from his “infiltrators” was false, which was questioned by commentators. That was Drake’s last song in the battle.
The lawsuit
Kendrick Lamar’s musical style and humoristic tone made Not Like Us an instant hit. It broke several records on Spotify (to date it is the most played diss track) and was the rapper’s fourth song to reach the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100, in addition to spending several weeks on other charts. And while the previous songs had been a spectacle only for fans of both rappers and hip-hop pundits, now the “beef” with Drake had become a familiar theme to millions, who now sympathize with Lamar and his perspective.
In “response,” in November 2024, Drake filed a legal petition against Universal Music Group (UMG), the parent company of Republic Records, and Spotify, accusing them of inflating Not Like Us streams through pay-to-play tactics and bots. The action earned him ridicule and criticism from members of the hip-hop community, and even called into question the future of rap battles, as it would set a precedent for legal action for making statements in songs.
Drake withdrew the petition on January 14, 2025, and the following day filed a defamation lawsuit against UMG for promoting the song, which some saw as an attempt to prevent Lamar from performing the song at Super Bowl LIX, one of the most watched shows around the world. Despite the attempt, the song is expected to be the central focus of the Compton rapper’s performance.
But Not Like Us, like many songs, has taken on a life of its own. While its birth and focus may be attacks on Drake, the track has become an anthem for denouncing issues like cultural appropriation and race issues, particularly on the West Coast. “They not like us” is already a landmark line for pop culture and hip-hop, and the idea also served as the basis for some of the tracks on the album he released a few months later, GNX. A week ago, it became the most decorated song in Grammy history by taking home five awards, including Record of the Year and Song of the Year. In the end, Kendrick Lamar had more than one win.