welcom to America today with a new article about Drake, Kendrick Lamar diss tracks escalate with ‘Meet the Grahams’ and ‘Family Matters’
Drake and Kendrick Lamar are taking their feud up a notch to be all in the family.
The rappers released dueling diss tracks Friday night, trading barbs about gossip and Ozempic, while also levying serious allegations of abuse, addiction and another hidden child.
Drake took aim at Lamar’s back-to-back diss tracks “Euphoria” and “6:16 in LA” with “Family Matters” and its corresponding lyric video and interlude just before midnight Friday. About 37 minutes later, Lamar had his response: “Meet the Grahams.”
Drake alleges Lamar physically abused his fiancée, that Lamar’s child might not be his and that the California rapper is living a double life full of infidelity. Lamar claims Drake has a secret daughter, gambling and drug addictions, and that he has predators on his label’s payroll and should be in a “cell” with Harvey Weinstein.
Kendrick Lamar hit back at Drake with “Meet the Grahams,” alleging the Canadian rapper has fathered another secret child.
‘Meet the Grahams’ lyrics: Kendrick Lamar speaks directly to Adonis, Drake’s mom Sandra
The more than 6-minute response sees Lamar talking to Drake’s family: his 6-year-old son, Adonis; mom Sandra Graham; dad Dennis Graham; and an alleged daughter, whom Drake has not claimed publicly.
To Adonis, Lamar raps: “I’m sorry that that man is your father, let me be honest / It takes a man to be a man, your dad is not responsive,” claiming Drake takes Ozempic and hires escorts, and alluding to the rapper getting a Brazilian butt lift (otherwise known as a BBL).
To Drake’s parents, Lamar tells his mother that Drake “got some habits” and tells his father “you gave birth to a master manipulator.”
Drake performs during Drake Live From The Apollo Theater For SiriusXM and Sound 42 on Jan. 22, 2023, in New York City.
“I’m blamin’ you for all his gamblin’ addictions / Psychopath intuition, the man that like to play victim,” Lamar raps. “Him and Weinstein should” be “in a cell for the rest they life,” Lamar says, adding: “He hates Black women, hypersexualizes ’em with kinks of a nympho fetish / Grew facial hair because he understood bein’ a beard just fit him better / He got sex offenders” on record label OVO “that he keep on a monthly allowance.”
Lamar’s final dagger: that Drake allegedly has an 11-year-old daughter. “Dear baby girl / I’m sorry that your father not active inside your world,” Lamar raps, later adding, “Should be teachin’ you time tables or watchin’ ‘Frozen’ with you / Or at your 11th birthday, singin’ poems with you / Instead, he be in Turks, payin’ for sex and poppin’ Percs.”
Drake rebutted on his Instagram story Saturday: “Hold on can someone find my hidden daughter pls and send her to me…these guys are in shambles,” with laughing emojis.
On “Euphoria,” Lamar invoked the Toronto-born rapper’s 2019 feud with Pusha T, who revealed Drake had a child, unbeknownst to the public at the time.
Lamar ends “Meet the Grahams” with a litany of things he says Drake “lied” about: “You lied about your son, you lied about your daughter, huh / You lied about them other kids that’s out there hopin’ that you come.”
Drake alleges Kendrick Lamar abuse, takes aim at A$AP Rocky and Rick Ross in ‘Family Matters’: Lyrics
Broken into three sections, “Family Matters” clocks in at 7 minutes and 37 seconds. “I’ve emptied the clip over friendlier jabs / You mentioned my seed, now deal with his dad / I gotta go bad, I gotta go bad,” Drake raps at the top of the track, which picks up where his earlier diss track “Push Ups” left off.
Drake attends a game between the Houston Rockets and the Cleveland Cavaliers at Toyota Center on March 16, 2024, in Houston.
Drake questions Lamar’s street cred (“But you civilian gang, in real life, you PC”) and invokes J. Cole’s involvement in the beef: “Cole losin’ sleep on this, it ain’t me.”
“Always rappin’ like you ’bout to get the slaves freed / You just actin’ like an activist, it’s make believe,” Drake raps. “Don’t even go back to your hood and plant no money trees,” alluding to Lamar’s song “Money Trees.”
The lyric video also shows the van from the cover art of Lamar’s “good kid, m.A.A.d city” album (which featured Drake on “Poetic Justice”) being crushed in a compactor, and features Drake eating at the Toronto restaurant New Ho King, which Lamar rapped about in “Euphoria.”
Kendrick Lamar performs during the 2023 Governors Ball Music Festival at Flushing Meadows Corona Park in New York City on June 11, 2023.
“You the Black messiah wifin’ up a mixed queen / And hit vanilla cream to help out with your self-esteem,” Drake alleges. “We could’ve left the kids out of this, don’t blame me / You a dog and you know it, you just play sweet / Your baby mama captions always screamin’, ‘Save me.'”
Drake more explicitly claims Lamar physically abuses fiancée Whitney Alford. “When you put your hands on your girl, is it self-defense ’cause she bigger than you?”
“Why did you move to New York? Is it ’cause you livin’ that bachelor life? / Proposed in 2015, but don’t wanna make her your actual wife,” Drake raps, later adding, “They hired a crisis management team to clean up the fact that you beat on your queen.”
He also questions whether one of Lamar’s children is actually fathered by Dave Free, the former president of Lamar’s record label, Top Dog Entertainment. “I heard that one of them little kids might be Dave Free,” Drake raps. “Don’t make it Dave Free’s / ‘Cause if your GM is your BM secret BD / Then this is all makin’ plenty (expletive) sense to me.”
Drake also has smoke for A$AP Rocky, who is currently dating and has two children with Rihanna, Drake’s ex.
Rihanna and A$AP Rocky in the PUMA Paddock at the inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix on Nov. 18, 2023.
“Gassed ’cause you hit my BM first,” Drake raps, asking “do the math, who I was hittin’ then? / I ain’t even know you rapped still ’cause they only talkin’ ’bout your ‘fit again / Probably gotta have a kid again ‘fore you think of droppin’ any (expletive) again / Even when you do drop, they gon’ say you should’ve modeled ’cause it’s mid again,” adding he’s “smokin’ Fenty ’bout it.”
More Ozempic claims are sent at Rick Ross, as Drake raps “Ozempic got a side effect of jealousy” and points to Ross’ past as a correctional officer: “Rick readin’ my Miranda rights.”
America today has reached out to Drake and Lamar’s reps for comment on the allegations.
Listen to ‘Family Matters’
Listen to Drake’s “Family Matters” on YouTube and stream on Spotify.
Kendrick Lamar and Drake feud, explained
Lamar and Drake’s feud goes back more than a decade to 2013, when Lamar rapped on the Big Sean song “Control” about how he wanted to “murder” Drake and other prominent rappers.
Earlier this year, Lamar appeared on Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That” and rejected the idea of there being a “big three” in rap, declaring on the track, “It’s just big me.” The lyric was a response to J. Cole referring to himself, Drake and Lamar as the “big three” on Drake’s 2023 track “First Person Shooter.”
Rapper Future performs in concert during the Nobody Safe tour at Aaron’s Amphitheater at Lakewood in Atlanta.
J. Cole responded to Lamar on the song “7 Minute Drill” in April, rapping, “He still doing shows but fell off like ‘The Simpsons.” He also rapped that Lamar is past his “prime.” But shortly after releasing the song, Cole apologized and said it was “lame” and “goofy” of him to do so.
“I ain’t gonna lie to y’all the past two days felt terrible,” he told the audience at the Dreamville Festival days later, going on to call Lamar as “one of the greatest.”
Drake subsequently fired back with two diss tracks directed at Lamar, “Push Ups” and “Taylor Made Freestyle,” the latter which was pulled from streaming services after Shakur’s estate threated to sue. (On “Family Matters,” Drake claims Lamar “called the Tupac estate and begged ’em to sue me.”)
Lamar references this on his follow-up “Euphoria” by rapping that Shakur is turning “in his grave.”
Lamar continues on “Euphoria”: “How many more fairytale stories about your life ’til we’ve had enough? How many more Black features ’til you finally feel that you’re Black enough?”
In “Euphoria,” Lamar compliments Drake’s track “Back To Back” saying he “liked that record.” The 2015 single was a diss track aimed at rapper Meek Mill, and was Drake’s follow-up to his first diss, “Charged Up.”
Then, Lamar released a back-to-back of his own with “6:16 in LA.” Lamar took a shot at Drake’s label and team, rapping, “Have you ever thought OVO is working for me?” before calling Drake a “fake bully.” He continues: “I hate bullies / You must be a terrible person / Everyone inside your team whispering that you deserve it.”
The title had fans going down a rabbit hole to collect all the Easter eggs about the Lamar’s Canadian adversary. The song title is an obvious reference to a timestamp song format Drake has popularized, but also could refer to June 16, which marks Father’s Day, Tupac Shakur’s birthday, the date of HBO’s “Euphoria” series premiere and a Lamar concert in Drake’s hometown of Toronto.
Drake and Kendrick Lamar Diss Tracks
Much like that verse, both of the tracks of Drake and Kendrick Lamar released in early 2017 have been met with almost instantaneous complementary rock, but in between the comments, a lot of people are celebrating the healthy competition in what has always been a highly competitive music genre. Lamar is fresh off adding another two Grammys to his collection at this year’s awards show, bringing his total to seven, including the holy grails of Best Rap Album and the highly sought after Best Rap Performance.
His latest record, 2017’s DAMN., went platinum in less than two months, and fans have proclaimed his verse in Big Sean’s track to be one of the greatest of 2010. Drake, however, sold double the amount of copies of his 2016 album Views than what Lamar’s 2015 To Pimp a Butterfly was able to do, and was about to win Best Rap Album at the Grammy’s with his 2013 record Take Care, the year after Lamar’s m.A.A.d city was snubbed from the show.
Drake and Kendrick Lamar are two of the biggest rappers from the new school of hip-hop. They were both budding stars before they paired up with the likes of Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, and Dr. Dre. They turned themselves into international superstars with their own base of fans. Two tracks released in quick succession towards the end of March and beginning of April 2017 have sent them back in competition again, but it was in 2013 that they took the rap game by storm when Big Sean’s track “Control” was leaked online with a verse by Lamar where he proclaims himself the new king of New York and calls out many rappers, including Drake. Lamar’s verse set off a series of responses, many of which were photoshopped and put into video form on the internet by fans within hours of the rappers dissing each other. The track was intended to be a Big Sean song promoting his Hall of Fame album, but Kendrick Lamar’s verse completely overshadowed it, and it became the talk of the town for months after its release.