After 11 years, the feud between Kendrick Lamar and Drake is still making waves. Maybe Labour and the Tories need to release their own ‘diss tracks’
God knows I don’t want to pick sides in the bitter rivalry between Kendrick Lamar and Drake. The rappers’ feud has been going on for way too long (11 years!) for the casual observer to be able to adjudicate. I’m also mindful that even though rappers, like Aslan, seem to work to some deeper laws than those handed down by humans, I am still a regular mortal and as such covered by the rules of defamation.
But here is the situation as it stands: on Saturday, Lamar released his fourth diss track (a record in which mean things are said) about Drake – his third in 48 hours. The accusations in Not Like Us are many and wild – “Oof, he’s sailing a little close to the wind,” you might think about lines such as: “Say, Drake, I hear you like ’em young / You better not ever go to cell block one.” Has he really thought about the legal ramifications? Because it sounds a tiny bit like he’s calling Drake a … oh, here it is, in the next verse: “Certified lover boy [a reference to Drake’s 2021 album, Certified Lover Boy]? / Certified paedophiles.”
Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
