A series of diss tracks from hip-hop’s two biggest stars, Drake and Kendrick Lamar, has animated the most high-profile rap beef in a generation, drawing global attention and an avalanche of online discussion and dissection. The songs have been blasted from car stereos on the streets of New York City, played by DJs at nightclubs across the US. Drake also involved rapper J. Cole, rapper Rick Ross, and producer Metro Boomin. The two men’s status in the rap world transcends that of the typical artist: Drake owns a record label and has collaborated with the Toronto Raptors and Nike, while Lamar was the first rapper to win a Pulitzer Prize for his level of artistry and produced an award-winning record for the Marvel film Black Panther. Metro also produced an album for the Marvel film Spider-Man: Across the Spider Verse. The rap rivals have released nine solo diss tracks aimed at one another in fewer than four weeks, but there are other collaborations and songs produced by other artists that stretch back to Drake and North Carolina rapper J. Cole’s collaboration on the track First Person Shooter in October 2023. J. Cole said on First Person Shooter that he, Drake and Lamar were the “big three” of hip hop. Lamar would reject that idea by rapping that “it’s just big me” on record producer Metro Boomin and rapper Future’s collaboration on the song Like That. Metro just recently released a track called “BBL Drizzy” and posted it online stating that whoever could drop the best rap on the beat would receive 10k and their feature on the beat while the runner up would get a beat as well.. “BBL Drizzy” is a reference to Rick Ross’ repeated claims about Drake allegedly going under the knife for cosmetic surgery to improve his look.
