Anushka Dole || Online Editor
Prominent rapper Drake’s clash with Kendrick Lamar and subsequent legal actions, most recently filing a lawsuit against his and Kendrick’s shared record label Universal Music Group (UMG), has prompted discussion in the AHS community.
The feud between rappers Drake and Kendrick began long before the most recent legal escalation. Since 2013, a series of jabs through rap lyrics and songs has grown into a full-fledged rivalry, as evidenced by the series of diss tracks released by both artists in 2024. After Lamar’s “Not Like Us” won five Grammy awards this year, Drake filed suit against UMG for defamation. On March 17, 2025, UMG responded by filing a motion to dismiss the case, denigrating it as “nothing but an attempt to save face” after Drake “lost the rap battle.”
AHS students have a varying range of opinions about the increasingly hostile sequence of events and the lore that accompanies them. The “beef” has opened up a wide range of discussion, from disputes over who won the battle, to corruption in the music industry, to the fundamental nature of the hip hop diss track.
Junior Noor Bhatti completely opposed the idea that Drake lost the battle, arguing, “Kendrick won the battle, but Drake won the war.”
The most streamed rapper every single month of 2024, excluding November, was Drake. If that doesn’t tell you anything, I don’t know what will,” Bhatti said. “Nobody cared about Kendrick [since 2015], until he got involved with Drake. Drake made Kendrick.”
Senior Shriya Bala, who primarily listens to R&B, disagreed. “Kendrick’s…song[s] aren’t only about hating on Drake. [He sings] a lot about racism and…there are many other meanings in his songs,” Bala said.
Senior Felicia Yin, who doesn’t follow rap but agreed to listen to a snippet of Drake’s latest work, agreed with Bala in that Drake’s songs and various diss tracks published against Kendrick were “really weird…not something [she] would ever listen to unless…[she] had to on the radio.”
The battle also raised questions in the AHS community about the corruption present in the industry, and how this might affect teenage listeners.
Bala said she believes that Drake, to some extent, deserved the humiliation due to his immaturity and poor online conduct.
“There’s artists that only make music but in current days…artists [have] become influencers as well,” Bala said. “So now it’s part of [their] job to keep up [their] good name. It matters what you say to the public, and how you act.”
Junior Vignesha Jayakumar’s opinion was somewhere in the middle. Jayakumar, who primarily listens to J.Cole, who was part of the beef, yet backed out because he felt “conflicted” on the matter. Jayakumar asserted that Drake had a legal basis for his actions, yet there is little to be gained from such an endeavor.
“Kendrick’s basically creating songs without proof that [Drake] is a pedophile…because of that sensationalism, it became very famous. So I think he does have some standing there. But I’m not sure how much… or whether he [can] really prove anything,” said Jayakumar.
Drake’s original lawsuit, which was against Spotify and UMG, was aimed at both companies for “artificially boosting” streams of “Not Like Us.” Bhatti had strong opinions on this, and believes it speaks to the corruption of the industry.
“If you play a Drake song and just put your playlist on shuffle and the playlist ends, then the automatic next song is always “Not Like Us”…and Spotify has added millions of fake streams onto Kendrick’s account,” Bhatti suggested. The effects of said alleged corruption have created a kind of cancel culture surrounding Drake.
“I think a lot of rappers will think a little bit more before trying to mess with Kendrick…they made it look like Drake’s lawsuit of the company was him being a sore loser, even if he had legal standing,” Jayakumar said.
