Kendrick Lamar has released a diss track attacking fellow rap star Drake, escalating their long-running feud.
Called Euphoria, the song is a response to weeks of taunting by Drake, who has taken pot-shots at Lamar on a series of viral diss tracks.
Over six minutes, Lamar calls Drake a “manipulator and habitual liar”, and criticises his parenting skills.
He also accuses the Canadian star of selling out, saying he only makes music to “pacify” fans.
And he leaves listeners under no illusions about the strength of his feelings towards Drake.
“This ain’t been ’bout critics, not about gimmicks, not about who the greatest,” he raps. “It’s always been about love and hate, now let me say I’m the biggest hater.”
“I hate the way that you walk, the way that you talk, I hate the way that you dress.“
The rappers’ feud dates back to 2013, when Lamar was a relative newcomer.
During a performance at the BET Awards, he boasted that his skills had “tucked a sensitive rapper back in his pyjama clothes”. The line was interpreted as a reference to Drake, whose soul-baring blend of rap and R&B had changed the sound of hip-hop.
The feud simmered for a few years, boiling over again last year, when J Cole and Drake described themselves, along with Lamar, as the “big three” of rap, on the song First Person Shooter.
The seemingly innocuous comment went unremarked for months. Then, in the middle of March, Lamar delivered a fiery verse on Like That, declaring that there was no “big three – it’s just big me”.
In April, Drake released the first of two diss tracks, titled Push Ups, in which he mocked Lamar’s height as well as his collaborations with Maroon 5 and Taylor Swift.
Later that month, Drake dropped another song, Taylor Made Freestyle, in which he taunted Lamar, calling him a coward for failing to respond.
The track controversially used AI technology to imitate the voices of Snoop Dogg and the late Tupac Shakur – one of Lamar’s heroes.
After a complaint from Shakur’s estate, Drake pulled the song off his Instagram.
Lamar’s Euphoria similarly criticises the use of AI, saying it would “make [Tu]pac turn in his grave”.
He also asks “Am I battlin’ ghost or AI?” – a reference to the accusation that Drake has used ghostwriters in the past.
Lamar even addresses the time it took to record a response, with the combative lyric: “Y’all think all of my life is rap? I got a son to raise, but I can see you know nothin’ ’bout that.“
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A former Pulitzer Prize winner for his fourth album, Damn, Lamar uses the song to display the dexterity of his voice, switching between flows and rhythmic meters throughout.
He even appears to be mimicking Drake’s Toronto accent in the closing bars.
However, fans who were hoping for a slam-dunk conclusion to the rap beef were disappointed.
Lamar conceded: “I like Drake with with the melodies, I don’t like Drake when he act tough,” and declined to respond to Drake naming his wife on a previous song.
“We ain’t gotta get personal, this a friendly fade, you should keep it that way,” he rapped.
The rift has drawn in several other rappers over the last few months, with stars such as Kanye West, The Weeknd and Rick Ross releasing songs that reference the fall-out.
Drake responded to Lamar’s latest volley on Instagram, sharing a scene from the 1990s romcom 10 Things I Hate About You, where Julia Stiles’ character recites a poem listing her grievances against Heath Ledger’s “bad boy” character.
It’s presumably intended as a parody of Lamar’s lyrics – but Drake seems to have forgotten how the scene ends.
“I hate the way I don’t hate you,” says Stiles, choking back tears. “Not even close, not even a little bit.”
