What started as just a petition is now a lawsuit over the controversial lyrics in Pulitzer Prize winner Kendrick Lamar’s Grammy winning hit, “Not Like Us.” For multiple reasons, popular music artist Drake has filed a lawsuit against Lamar and his music record, Universal Music Group. This led to him filing another petition in Bexar County, Texas, against another music label for apparently receiving illegal payments to boost Lamar’s diss track.
Drake going to these lengths to end a feud he encouraged not only displays hypocrisy but also the lengths artists will go to to drum up publicity — something the original dispute was never about. This clearly shows Drake’s rush to cover up a drama he indulged in, an embarrassing move on his part. While the entirety of this feud is mostly unnecessary, Drake’s response to it all has lost him a huge chunk of his credibility.
After the song’s five Grammy awards, as well as its performance at the 2025 Super Bowl, “Not Like Us” has gained an immense number of streams. On Spotify alone, the song has racked up over one billion streams. The single, released May 4, 2024, mentions several allegations against the best-selling artist — the most infamous being that Graham is a pedophile. Drake did not respond in this long music beef until January when he petitioned against UMG for defamation.
UMG, who Graham is also signed under, stated that he “sued his own record label in a misguided attempt to solve his wounds” and is dismissing the lawsuit completely. Graham, seemingly surprised by the immense amounts of popularity received on the diss track about him, resorted to legal action to end this long beef once and for all. This is not an inherently bad route to take, but when both sides of this argument continued the public display of hatred toward one another through music, this ending gives Drake a pathetic appearance. If a somewhat exaggerated beef not ending in the way that was expected is what causes an attack on a music label, Drake should not be surprised when even that fails.
What the world needs to realize is that neither side had an actual passion to insult each other personally, mainly doing so for publicity in the media. They both created these singles to see who could say something worse than the other through insults, or in Lamar’s case, illegal accusations. Not only partaking in feuds but egging it on further, only to end up bitter enough by the results to pursue legal action simply gives Graham a bad look. There is no actual winner as a result of this, only strong opinions from fans witnessing it through a lens that is social media.
Graham and Lamar’s lengthy battle with each other was a highlight of 2024 pop culture, but with all the routes Graham could have chosen to respond to the “Not Like Us” single, he surely went down the worst one. Knowing this drama, one expects it cannot be long before the other does something else to take the public eye away once again.
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