Rap moguls Drake and Kendrick Lamar’s long-running dispute broke out over the weekend into accusations of pedophilia, abuse, and adultery, shocking the hip-hop community and beyond.
In a music industry that has long been renowned for glorifying and becoming fixated on feuds between its top musicians, Drake, the highest-grossing rapper in the world last year, and Kendrick Lamar, the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, have been embroiled in an increasingly heated verbal duel.
Though the two have previously sparred about things like which man is a larger celebrity, the lyrics of songs both artists have released in the last few days go much beyond these typical jabs.
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“Say, Drake, I hear you like ’em young / You better not ever go to cell block one,” said Lamar in his track “Not Like Us,” in which he specifically raps about “certified pedophiles.”
Los Angeles-born Lamar’s lyrics accuse Drake, who is from Canada and is of biracial heritage, of being “not a colleague” but a “colonizer” of Black American culture.
And in another song released this weekend, “Meet the Grahams,” Lamar alleges that Drake — whose real name is Aubrey Graham — has a secret daughter.
For his part, Drake dropped a track entitled “Family Matters,” which suggested infidelity and even abuse in Lamar’s relationship with fiancee and high-school sweetheart Whitney Alford.
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And Drake denied allegations about underage girls in another track “The Heart Part 6,” released Sunday, in which he rapped “I’d never look twice at no teenager.”
The barbs have drawn attention among audiences well beyond the usual rap and hip hop devotees.
The feud was the subject of a “Saturday Night Live” sketch this weekend, and detailed chronologies of the duo’s insults have been published by mainstream US outlets like the New York Times and CNN.
