In 2024, Kendrick Lamar Taught Me How to be a Real Hater
2024 has one clear winner: Kendrick Lamar – a man who drew a line in the sand and defended it. His long-simmering beef with Drake finally boiled over when Lamar used his feature verse on the Metro Boomin and Future track "Like That" to tell the world to stop putting him in the same conversation with Drake and J. Cole as the "Big Three" rappers of their generation. "It's just big me!" Lamar rapped clearly and emphatically, then he went on to prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt, hating on Drake every step of the way. It was bigger than the usual "I'm the greatest!" rapper braggadocio, though. It soon became clear that Lamar believed he was defending his culture from a carpetbagger, and he was honor-bound to reclaim the crown from someone he sees as a usurper.
A whole lot happened after "Like That" dropped. Too much to recap here. (Comedian Josh Johnson has a hilarious summary for anyone who needs background information.) Lamar navigated his way through it all to a clean knock-out: the brutal and eminently danceable diss track "Not Like Us" (which became an international smash hit) and a pop-out concert that streamed live on Amazon to numbers that surely played a part in Lamar being named the solo headliner of the Super Bowl half-time show (the first rapper ever to do so). I wouldn't be surprised if Lamar wins a few Grammys on the back of this. It…
