As soon as I heard Kendrick Lamar fire shots at Drake and J. Cole on the sixth track of Metro Boomin and Future’s newest album, I took a step back. After years of peace and friendship in the rap game, surely the artist who has dropped one album in the last eight years was not about to ignite a colossal rap beef with himself in the middle. But as he rapped on, concluding; “That’s a K with all these nines, he [Drake] gon’ see Pet Sematary,” referencing Drake’s 2023 album For All the Dogs, he started a war. I am here to tell you why Aubrey “Drake” Graham is clearly on the right side.
The number one thing to see here is that Drake, well, is number one. The most streamed artist of the 2010s on Spotify, 13 Billboard Top 100 number-one hits (tied with Michael Jackson for most by a male solo artist), and the highest certified digital singles artist ever in the US -need I go on? Those were all “best of” or “most” categories, but if you want to hear Future, The Weeknd, Metro Boomin, Kendrick Lamar, and Rick Ross’ stats, here they are: 9 total songs at #1 on the Billboard Top 100, Future at #13 highest certified digital singles artist and The Weeknd eight places off Drake at #9. No one is close to Drake when it comes to making music that everybody wants to listen to, and the numbers back it up.
Notice anything strange about the last argument, comparing Drake’s accolades to his competitors? Well, if it wasn’t immediately clear, Drake is beating out four artists at once, while they are all on the same team with other well-established rappers. In the same diss track as mentioned above, Kendrick Lamar says earlier that by Drake and J. Cole teaming up on “First Person Shooter,” and dissing him, they “can’t be legit.” This is completely hypocritical to the fact he is on an album aimed solely at Drake, in collaboration with Metro Boomin, Future, Rick Ross, The Weeknd, and A$AP Rocky. If Kendrick was the lyrical mastermind that his fans claim he is, why can’t he do his own thing? Actually, I don’t blame him; Rick Ross tried dropping a solo diss on Drake where he said Drake could never afford the houses he could, but later got exposed for owning a cramped mansion in Miami.
If there is one thing to take away from all this beef, it is to not mess with Drake. “Top of the charts, back in their hearts” as he says, there will always be one king of rap in this era. That king is Aubrey “Drizzy Drake” Graham.
