Tallying the Ws and Ls of Kendrick and Drake's Explosive 4-Track Diss Run

The unsung heroes of Kendrick and Drake’s beef that went nuclear over the weekend were undoubtedly the social page managers and DJs who worked overtime trying to keep up. In other news today:

• Billboard Hot 100 📈 

• The Ws and Ls of Kendrick and Drake’s 4-track run 🏆️ 

• How heartbreak made 4batz a villain and a st4r 💔 

• Industry Insights 🔎 

Billboard Hot 100

The above chart shows Billboard’s Hot 100 ranking for this week. The Hot 100 ranks songs based on streaming activity, radio airplay audience impressions, and sales data—all measured by Luminate.

Tommy Richman’s viral song “Million Dollar Baby” debuts at #2, marking his first Top 10 hit. Kendrick’s “Euphoria” diss track debuts at #11 with only three eligible days of streaming, and Drake’s “Push Ups” rises from #19 to #17.

The Wins & Losses of Kendrick & Drake’s Explosive 4-Track Diss Run

Last week was the definition of “I don’t want peace I want problems.” Kendrick Lamar dropped “Euphoria” on Tuesday and doubled down with “6:16 In LA” on Friday. Drake fired back with “Family Matters” on Friday night. Before you could catch your breath, Kendrick responded within THE HOUR on “Meet The Grahams.” 

But K-Dot wasn’t done and dropped “Not Like Us” on Saturday. Drake replied on Sunday with “The Heart Pt 6,” and you’re finally caught up (for now).

Four diss tracks within 48 hours are the rap equivalent of the NBA finals. It was game 7, and each song was a new quarter. History books could be written about this war if someone tried to recap all the different ways to hate (the beef even has its own Wikipedia page).

We’ll give you the TLDR as if this were an East (Team Drake) vs. West (Team Kendrick) championship series faceoff, highlighting each round's losses and wins and the recurring allegations plaguing each side.

Game 1, First Half: “Family Matters”

Drake took the lead by dropping “Family Matters” first but wasted too many minutes on defense—not just against Kendrick but Rick Ross, The Weeknd, A$AP Rocky, Future, and Metro Boomin. His offense, however, was strong in beat selection and cadence.

Kendrick’s infidelity and alleged physical abuse of his partner

One of the main themes Drake relies on is picking apart Kendrick’s holier-than-thou persona. He mentions Kendrick’s infidelity towards his longtime girlfriend Whitney Alford and suggests their home is not as happy as it seems.

He accuses Kendrick’s right-hand man and pgLang partner, Dave Free, of fathering one of his children and insinuates that Kendrick has laid hands on Whitney before and hired a crisis team to cover it up.

Kendrick’s hypocrisy

Drake suggests that Kendrick’s “rapping for the slaves” and black “activist” persona isn’t in line with how he lives his life, drawing attention to the fact that Kendrick’s girlfriend is mixed-race. 

He questions why Kendrick doesn’t publicly embrace his son, hinting at the Dave Free scandal because Kendrick’s son is lighter-skinned. He hypothesizes that a light-skinned son conflicts with Kendrick’s strong alignment to black heritage.

Game 1, Second Half: “Meet The Grahams”

Over the ominous Alchemist beat, Kendrick addresses each of Drake’s family members and doubles down on the “pacify” bar from “Euphoria,” officially calling out Drake’s alleged preference for underage girls. 

If the 11-year-old daughter reveal were proven to be true, it would have been a “Story of Adidon” beef-ending track. Skipping over those bars, it seems Drake planted that information, and Kendrick took the bait, which was his L in game 1.

Drake’s deadbeat dad tendencies

Kendrick pleads with Adonis not to grow up like his father, using Ozempic and surgeries to cut corners, picking up gambling and substance abuse addictions, and engaging with escorts.

Tapping on the deadbeat father allegations, he says Drake’s an absent father because his father’s absence modeled that behavior to him.

Drake’s underage skeletons

Speaking to Drake’s parents, Kendrick exposes their son's similarity to Harvey Weinstein for preying on minors. He suggests Drake’s Toronto home is used to hide various sex crimes and highlights a “sex offender” on the OVO payroll, which may be Baka Not Nice, who was charged with prostituting a 22-year-old woman in 2014.

Mentioning Kat Williams’ explosive truth-telling interview, Kendrick warns Drake’s reckoning will come with his home being raided and investigated like Diddy. He advises athletes like LeBron and Curry to keep their kids away.

Game 1 Winner: Drake, Loser: Kendrick

“Family Matters” aside from the D bar (“It’s only big D, and there’s video proof), is a good song that’s already being played outside. The beat switches go hard, and Kendrick takes the L simply because “Meet The Grahams” didn’t reveal a larger family tree as intended.

Game 2, First Half: “Not Like Us”

Out of Kendrick’s four-song run last week, this was the one. He pulled a Drake on Drake, responding with a club banger that has everyone bopping to “wop, wop, wop, wop,” and chanting “OV-Hoe” while the disses slap just as hard as the beat (which Mustard bodied).

Drake’s relationship with minors

K-Dot flexed his pen, passing on Drake’s underage girls like he’s NBA player John Stockton (who holds the record for most assists). His most clever jaw-dropping bar was, “Why you trollin’ like a bitch? Ain’t you tired? / Tryna strike a chord, and it’s probably A minor.” 

But that’s not the only cash shot Kendrick makes, flipping the word fan into the acronym “freaky ass n*gga, he a 69 god” and asking listeners to “Lemme hear you say, “OV-Ho / Say “OV-Ho / Then step this way, step that way.” Witty and hilarious—no notes.

Those lines garnered the biggest reactions—see the video below—and will be heard for months outside.

Drake’s OVO crew

Calling Drake’s crew a pack of predators moving like a flock that needs to be placed on neighborhood watch, Kendrick spits what the cover art illustrates. He addresses Chubbs, Partynextdoor, and Baka Not Nice directly for their transgressions and flips Certified Lover Boy into Certified pedophiles for another meme-worthy shot.

Drake’s colonizer tendencies 

The only new angle Kendrick takes is by giving a history lesson on Atlanta, which was built on the back of black slaves employed by white colonizers. He accuses Drake of using Future for club credit, borrowing slang from Lil Baby, and getting street cred from Young Thug, Quavo, and 2 Chainz. 

The punchline comes when he says Drake’s not a colleague to these rappers but a colonizer—using them to appropriate black culture.

Game 2 Winner: Kendrick, Loser: Drake

Sparing you the airballs Drake makes on “The Heart Pt 6,” Kendrick is the clear winner of the two tracks. In the WNBA, the Chicago Sky DJ played “Not Like Us” to echo the team’s win at the end of the game yesterday.

TNT played it during the NBA playoffs' halftime, the MLB used it as a walk-up song, and it broke the all-time record for single-day streams of a hip-hop song on Spotify (previously held by Drake’s “Girls Want Girls”). 

“Not Like Us” has won over the culture, and its prolific use in sports media speaks to the song’s winning energy in a competitive atmosphere.

How Heartbreak Made 4batz a Villain & a Star

The mystery surrounding 4batz, the shiesty and grillz pitched-up crooning artist, is starting to dissipate. After months of everyone being confused about whether he’s a rapper or an R&B singer, the 20-year-old Dallas native just released his debut EP, U Made Me a St4r*, featuring Kanye. 

Before the EP’s release, he reached the level of virality that sparks industry plant allegations, and if you tried to Google where he’s from or what his real voice sounds like…you reached a dead end—until now. 

He did a voice reveal on Adin Ross’ stream—surprise he doesn’t sound like his music—and pulled back the curtain on his origin story, which doubles as his villain arc. Find every question you’ve had about the mysterious artist answered below.

On the industry plant allegations:

“I think it’s kind of cool,” 4batz tells GQ in a new cover story about all the intrigue. It’s like I’m the boogeyman. [Then] people are going to meet me and be like, Oh, this is a regular hood n-gga.”

On where his name comes from:

The “4” is an homage to the part of Dallas he’s from and “Batz” is an endearing nickname he got for always holding it down. “You know—when you bat [someone] the fuck outta here,” he says in his own words.

On the heartbreak that changed his career:

4batz’s villain arc starts the way most do…with a girl. He was down bad over a Chicago shorty who would come visit him often. They did long distance for three years and he was considering moving in together. But as he was planning on taking his first flight ever to see her…

“Then she called my phone,” he says, “and she said, ‘Batz, I don't want to be with you no more. I'm just not f*cking with you.’ Around that same time, literally a month before that, my pops died.”

“So I said, ‘All right, well, if you do that, I'm going to blow the f*ck up. I'm going to be on all these interviews, I'm going to be on all these blogs, I'm going to be on all these motherfucking…. I'm going to be everywhere, and I'm going to shit on you. I'm going to make you feel bad.’”

The next morning, his ex was already posting with her new man. Adding insult to injury, her new bf was the co-worker she told 4batz not to worry about when they were dating. 

The whole backstory can be found in GQ’s interview with 4batz (worth a read if you’re interested), but TLDR is he hit rock bottom, picked himself back up, and used his heartbreak as the inspiration for “Stickerz ‘99,” his first official song.

On being petty:

As if making good on his promise to become a star, be in interviews (his ex was a fan of Adin Ross’ stream), and blow the f*ck up wasn’t enough, he named his EP as a tribute to his ex and drew an X over her photo on the cover art. 

Taking it to a level of petty Drake would be proud of, he named his upcoming tour Thank You Jada. Hear more about his shamelessly petty tactics in his new interview with Complex.

complexmusic

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