Kendrick Lamar and Drake rap beef: What makes this music feud so significant?

The rap beef between hip-hop stars Drake and Kendrick Lamar has ignited an internet frenzy and infiltrated into realms outside of hip-hop and average social media chatter. While music feuds are not new to the industry, this one seems to be moving into the world of politics and beyond.

The feud has birthed a load of memes, catchy hooks and social media banter. Simultaneously, it has promoted controversy and worry among fans, who argue the beef may have gone too far.

In either case, it has begged the question: What makes this beef so culturally significant and impactful?

History of Drake vs. Kendrick Lamar beef

As USA Today’s Taijuan Moorman laid out in her recent detailed blow-by-blow account, the roots of Lamar and Drake's feud go back more than a decade to 2013, though things quickly intensified this past spring.

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The first shot fired came from Lamar when he appeared on Future and Metro Boomin's "Like That," song, released March 22, where he rejected the idea of a a "big three" in rap, declaring on the track, "It's just big me." The lyric was a response to J. Cole referring to himself, Drake and Lamar as the "big three" on Drake's October 2023 track "First Person Shooter."

Drake officially entered the ring with a full diss track against Lamar (and other artists including Rick Ross and The Weeknd) in "Push Ups" on April 19, where offered bars about Lamar's small shoe size, record deal contract and collaborations with Maroon 5 and Taylor Swift.

Drake fired back again with "Taylor Made Freestyle" on the same day, which featured artificial intelligence impersonations of Snoop Dogg and Tupac which got the Toronto-born rapper in hot water with Tupac's estate (and was subsequently pulled from streaming services.)

Lamar responded with his first full diss track, "Euphoria," just over a week later on April 30, where he called Drake -- who is a producer on the HBO series “Euphoria -- a "pathetic master manipulator" and a "habitual liar" who is "not a rap artist" but "a scam artist." A few days later, Lamar then released "6:16 in LA" taking further shots at Drake's label and team, and calling Drake a "fake bully."

Mere hours later Drake followed up with the diss track of his own, "Family Matters" where he upped the rhetoric accusing Lamar of physically abusing fiancée Whitney Alford.

Almost immediately after Drake’s "Family Matters" dropped, Lamar laid out his own series of allegations about Drake’s abuse, addictions and a second hidden child in "Meet the Grahams." Lamar's allegations went even further and he seemingly alluded to previous allegations of grooming against Drake on follow-up track, "Not Like Us."

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On May 5, Drake shot back releasing the somber diss "The Heart Part 6," a reference to Lamar's track series, including 2022's "The Heart Part 5." In it, Drake alludes to familial accusations of sexual assault against Lamar.

The head-spinning back and forth concluded with partisans of Lamar – the more critically acclaimed and respected rapper – claiming he had won the war of words, with Drake fans refusing to accept defeat.

What makes the feud marketable?

Memphis freelance journalist and music critic Justin Davis has been closely watching the beef.

"Something I have been asking myself is whether we'll ever see like a feud between mainstream parties play out this way again," Davis said. "(And) I don't think we will, because Kendrick and Drake are both are so much bigger than themselves. It's just turned into this really complicated, and I think, in a lot of ways, gross spectacle."

Regardless of what each rapper's fanbase thinks, the real judge may be listening numbers. Music industry publication Billboard reported that Lamar’s steaming number “significantly increased since the simmering feud reached its recent boiling point.”

A.D. Carson, associate professor of hip hop at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, says, "if someone were to ask who's winning the battle, I would say that the winners are more likely, Spotify, YouTube and all of the places that are using the conflict for clickbait much more than any of the artists stand to gain."

According to Billboard, from May 3 through 6, Lamar’s discography totaled 50.62 million streams – a 49% increase from the previous tracking period, while Drake’s overall catalog was actually down 5% during the same period.

"The two of them are so big at this point that I don't think that they would need that kind of publicity stunt to just to boost their numbers. At the same time, I think (their) camps are aware that this kind of spectacle does something for them financially (and) they're appealing directly to their fan bases in the process of this," Davis adds.

And he says a lot of the attention comes from the current social media ecosystem.

"When you think about it, there's this whole economy of reaction. People are not just going to listen to these tracks themselves. But, (there) are all of these people whose job is to react to the beef, right? Whether that's music reactors on YouTube, that's streamers, media personalities, there's this whole economy around these kinds of stories that is benefiting from this," says Davis.

"And, in turn, that's going to draw more attention back to them, and whatever they do next," he added.

Wider implications of Drake vs. Kendrick Lamar disses

The hip-hop scene is no stranger to music rivalries, but Carson says the Drake-Kendrick Lamar beef seems to be larger in scale.

"People understand rap battles as being something that folks have engaged in, of course, throughout hip-hop history... so I think you have that still. It's just that the magnitude seems so much greater, because these guys are as famous as they are. And so a person who was going through the history of this might be able to bring up battles from the past, but all of those remained kind of localized," he says.

He added, "Because the people who were in those places knew about them, or the regions that were being represented the towns that those artists were from probably know about them like the infamous battles that happened in the '70s, or in the '80s, like, in particular places--whether it be New York, Chicago, or LA. But now it's happening online in front of this huge audience. And then you have these huge corporations like Spotify talking about hip hop as a competitive sport."

Carson noted the beef has made headlines and spilled into politics and other realms, saying "so, now, that brings the thing that's happening in the world of rap into the global sphere.

"That may be the most dramatic difference between what's happening now and what happened in the '90s, or in the early 2000s," Carson said. "Hip hop was still on the upward trajectory during those times. So, when you heard about it (on the news), it was incredibly tragic or incredibly spectacular...and it was because these kinds of things were part of the myth-making process of the artists during those times."

However, despite entities and industries benefiting from the rap battle. Caron and Davis both agree the beef warns of real consequences.

"I think it's going to take a little bit of time for us to really get a sense of what the fallout is going to look like. Because we've seen really big rap artists survive pretty heinous allegations. But there's also this question as things progress (and) if more information comes out about the claims that have been made during this beef, do brands start seeing either one of these artists as (a) mortal liability? Does the legacy of these beefs follow them around when they put out new music in the future?" Davis said.

Carson takes it a step further, saying "what I'm really worried about are the women who are used as casual punch lines and pawns, and footstools for these guys to show their dominance. Or the folks who are harmed by casual homophobia or transphobia that rappers are lobbing at one another."

He adds, "I I think about all of the vulnerable people who are listening to their friends and their family, and (those) ignoring or carrying on some of these absolutely heinous things that have been said by these artists to one another, but it's all passed off as like, sort of in good fun."

Additional reporting by Taijuan Moorman of USA Today.

Caché McClay covers Beyoncé Knowles-Carter for The Tennessean and USA Today. She can be reached at cmcclay@nashvill.gannett.com. Bob Mehr covers music at The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached at bob.mehr@commercialappeal.com.