Drake versus Kendrick Lamar: How abuse accusations are souring ...

The first weekend of May was the ultimate gift to rap fans. After more than a month of subliminal barbs and third-party interference, Drake and Kendrick Lamar went back-to-back with heavyweight diss tracks. Over the course of 72 hours, they created an amount of mayhem that hasn’t been seen in hip-hop since Drake was last accused of hiding a child. (There’s allegedly another one, per Lamar on “Meet The Grahams.”)

As of May 8, it seems like the bulk of this rap war has already been fought. On May 4, Lamar delivered what seemed like a knockout blow with the catchy, DJ Mustard-produced diss track “Not Like Us.” Since then, videos of the song being enjoyed by club-goers — while Drake’s music has been booed — have gone viral. By the time Drake released “The Heart Part 6” on Sunday, a notably limp voice note of a track brushing off Lamar’s diss, the world had already chosen a victor.

This weeks-long debacle has many layers, but Drake and Lamar’s choice of ammunition is arguably the most striking part. On his three-act diss “Family Matters,” Drake made bombshell claims that Lamar is a domestic abuser. Meanwhile, Lamar uses the years-long rumors surrounding Drake’s alleged relationships with underage girls as a cudgel on “Meet the Grahams” and “Not Like Us.”

The rappers each accused the other of misogyny, attempting to weaponize a post-Me Too culture against one another. As is the out-of-pocket nature of rap beef, both callouts were shocking. Still, it’s hard to completely revel in this moment with such serious claims floating around. In both cases, we’re looking at weighty allegations, and dropping them in a diss track seemed clunky and insensitive. Is this truly an exciting moment in hip-hop when it comes at the expense of women? Or are fans just enabling a disturbing status quo within the genre?

Drake and Lamar calling out each other’s misogyny isn’t noble. It’s hypocritical. Drake at the premiere of HBO’s Euphoria at the Cinerama Dome on June 4, 2019, in Los Angeles, California. Kevin Winter/Getty Images

While social media users are mostly enjoying the drama playing out between Drake and Lamar, others have pointed out the glaring hypocrisy in hearing two men — both of whom have demonstrated sexist attitudes in their music and supported abusers in the industry — attempt to expose each other’s mistreatment of women. Knowing that this is all an effort to win the internet’s favor makes these claims feel even more shallow.

On his first diss track, “Euphoria,” Lamar comes out swinging by questioning Drake’s combative relationships with women, flat-out stating that he “doesn’t believe [he] likes” them. It’s hard to disagree with the general sentiment that Drake might be a misogynist, as it’s become harder to dispute — or more accurately, ignore — in recent years. In addition to his unprompted jabs at Rihanna and Megan Thee Stallion, his raps have gradually become the stuff of incel subreddits. His once-endearing loverboy persona has regressed to that of a petulant, scorned teenager.

But listening more closely, the delivery of Kendrick’s accusation is ... well, a little misogynist itself. There’s a tinge of homophobia to this bar, including saying Drake can “pop ass” with women and sees them as competition, explicitly comparing him to glasses-wearing rapper Sexxy Redd. That said, this characterization of Drake as an “Instagram baddie” who’s gotten plastic surgery — Lamar even references those BBL rumors, at one point — has become its own meme in recent years. From the mouth of an ardently Christian straight guy in the middle of a vicious feud, it doesn’t have the same light-heartedness.

It has certainly benefited Lamar that Drake’s transgressions against women have generated more public backlash and is fresher in listeners’ minds. That’s maybe why fans generally seem less curious about the domestic abuse claims Drake makes on “Family Matters” against Lamar. To be fair, Drake goes about dropping these accusations in a frivolous way, which undermines any supposed concern on his end. In one line, he couples this allegation with a joke about Lamar’s short height. He uses the song to tout a rumor that Lamar’s fianceé Whitney Alford birthed a child outside of their relationship, suggesting these claims have equal weight.

On Lamar’s back-to-back responses, “Meet the Grahams” and “Not Like Us,” he unleashes the darker intel he teases about Drake in his earlier diss tracks, mainly the accusation that Drake sleeps with underage girls. On “Meet the Grahams,” he calls Drake a “sick man,” suggesting that “him and Weinstein should get fucked up in cell for the rest of their lives.” On “Not Like Us,” he’s a bit more direct, calling Drake a “certified pedophile.” There’s also the triple entendre, “tryna strike a chord, and it’s A-minor,” that’s become a standout bar from this feud. Nevertheless, it’s an uncomfortable subject matter to hear over an up-tempo, West Coast rap beat.

Drake, in his last rejoinder “The Heart Part 6,” weakly defends himself against these deadly serious accusations, but none of it feels deeply considered. He hits back against sexual assault claims by saying he “would’ve been arrested” if they were true. (Out of every 1,000 reported rapes, only 50 will lead to an arrest or conviction, according to the National Organization for Women NYC.) He also adds that he is “way too famous for the shit [Lamar] suggested,” as though the Me Too movement wasn’t devoted to exposing famous, powerful men for such offenses. He also goes out of his way to deny years-old rumors of an inappropriate relationship between him and Stranger Things actress Millie Bobby Brown when she was a teenager. Despite Lamar not even mentioning her, he forced her name into part of a public, complicated tiff.

Kendrick Lamar at Life Is Beautiful 2023 on September 23, 2023, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Christopher Polk/Billboard via Getty Images

On Lamar’s tracks, he does a better job of at least articulating the severity of misogyny and the systematic ways abusers are protected by powerful men in the industry. Undermining these sentiments, however, is his failure to explore such matters in his previous music, where he frequently addresses social inequality from the limited perspective of straight, cis Black men. There were also some controversial moments on his most recent album, Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers. The track “Silent Hill” features rapper Kodak Black, who took a plea deal in 2021 for an alleged sexual assault case and pleaded guilty to a lesser battery charge. Lamar was also accused of transmisogyny by some members of the LGBTQ+ community for the song “Auntie Diaries,” where he misgenders his uncle while grappling with his uncle’s trans identity.

These diss tracks don’t display a concern about misogyny, but they acknowledge a cultural shift

By all evidence, it seems like Drake and Lamar were relying on the power of what problematic men would inadequately label “cancel culture” to handle their issues with each other. Nor does it feel like Lamar’s main gripe with Drake is whatever seedy behavior he’s allegedly partaking in behind the scenes. Lamar overall just seems irritated by who Drake is, seeing him as a fraud — a biracial, Canadian child actor with no street cred who’s unjustly become the face of modern hip-hop while cosplaying different parts of Black American culture.

Lamar’s mention of Harvey Weinstein on “Meet the Grahams” was a timely reminder that the Me Too movement never really took hold in the hip-hop and R&B world the way it did (however momentarily) in Hollywood. While R. Kelly became the poster boy for abusive behavior, rappers such as Kodak Black, Lil Uzi Vert, and XXXTenacion, as well as R&B stars like Trey Songz and Chris Brown, continued to rack up allegations of gendered violence while scoring No. 1 hits and maintaining support from their colleagues.

Following a series of lawsuits against Diddy— and now a federal investigation of sex-trafficking claims — however, the rap world has become starkly aware of the ways these behaviors can catch up to even the most powerful human beings. While a legal outcome has yet to be determined, the idea that Diddy, who has charmed his way out of decades of unsavory rumors while building a billion-dollar empire, would ever be confronted with consequences seemed unlikely. But his reckoning, along with Tory Lanez’s conviction in 2022, has signaled the beginning of some sort of sea change — or at least disrupted the notion that men get away with everything, even if they get away with most things.

Drake’s and Lamar’s claims of misogyny feel entirely born out of convenience, with seemingly no regard for the women they’ve pulled into the crossfire. It wouldn’t be the first time women have become casualties of rappers’ feuding, but it should be the last.