reason.com: This case arises from perhaps the most infamous rap battle in the genre's history, the vitriolic war of words that erupted between superstar recording artists Aubrey Drake Graham ("Drake") and Kendrick Lamar Duckworth ("Lamar" or "Kendrick Lamar") in the spring of 2024. Over the course of 16 days, the two artists released eight so-called "diss tracks," with increasingly heated rhetoric, loaded accusations, and violent imagery.
5 comments:
It was very interesting to read an article that was about a rap song and a diss track on top of that. It wasn't the longest article, but it is still very unique and refreshing when compared to other articles. Whenever I think of this diss track in question I can only think of when Kendrick performed it live for the super bowl, and that from the start of his performance he kept faking out the audience by making it seem like he was gonna perform it until he final dose. You can even find videos and other articles that dissect the super bowl halftime performance that I referenced, and the many ways that the whole performance was designed to take jabs at Drake. In truth distracts are a part of the rap and R&B community, and for Drake to sue Kendrick over a distract is so hilariously childish and petty. On top of that for the lawsuit to be rejected is the perfect cherry on top of the whole situation for drake that makes him seem so soft and easily offended.
This article made me giggle. I hadn't heard about this lawsuit before, although it doesn't surprise me that Drake's team would be working overtime to try and minimize the spread of Not Like Us, especially given its critical and commercial success. It was also interesting to me as someone who has listened to Not Like Us to try and claim that the reason it was popular was because people were influenced and or bribed into seeing it by a third party and underhanded deals. As someone who has listened to the song, of my own volition, having searched for it on my streaming site of choice, I can say without a doubt that there was nothing that directly influenced me to check it out other than having a video on social media play with the lyrics of the song going. I think it would be silly if that would be considered underhanded and non-fare business practices, when that's just how social media works.
The Kendrick and Drake beef will never not be funny to me, especially when Kendrick played the super bowl and performed “not like us” live. It was interesting to read that they are signed by the same company and both CONTINUE to work with them. It’s especially interesting that Drake still works with them since they had knowledge of “not like us” and the nature of the song before it was released which hurt drakes career. Yes Kendrick absolutely clocked Drake and it hurt his career but it is also so funny that Drake is now trying to sue Kendrick over it. Diss tracks are a part of wrap from what I’ve come to learn and it’s a little ridiculous that it’s come to that. Drake is NOT innocent and I don’t know why he thinks that will solve anything. Drake is just mad that Kendrick got him so good with “not like us”.
This is such an interesting story to hear about, especially after recently learning all of the context associated with these songs. I think it’s really disappointing that Drake engaged in the diss tracks with Kendrick, but then proceeded to try to punish him through the legal system. I thought each of his claims were laughable, but especially the last two. “Not Like Us” does pretty blatantly claim that Drake is a pedophile, but the judge makes a good point that diss tracks do not have a precedent on being a result of “disinterested investigation”. Harassment makes no sense when Drake and Kendrick were going back and forth making songs about each other, but once Lamar had one of the biggest songs of the year, Drake just couldn’t handle it. His third claim is the most baseless to me. Claiming that Lamar secretly incentivized people to stream and promote his diss track is just a really funny concept. There was definitely no clear financial incentive for consumers to listen to his song, even though artists naturally want their songs to have more streams in the first place.
Imagine suing someone for publicly calling you a pedophile and LOSING! I’d never recover. Jokes aside, it's interesting to see a now legal definition of diss-tracks and the distinction that they're not journalistic writing and therefore can't be considered defamation. It’s also funny to me that he sued for harassment in a mutual rap battle in which both sides are participating. I’m glad this case didn’t move forward, though. Lately, I feel like everyone's extremely sue-happy over the smallest thing, even a riff sounding similar to a popular one from over 50 years ago. I feel like this lawsuit loss may have been the nail in the coffin for Drake as not many can say they've lost a rap battle both in the eyes of the public and legally. At the end of the day, this lawsuit was just a scare stunt and ended up making him look even worse than he did before, which is difficult.
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