How Kendrick Lamar Reached the Highest Rap Peak of the Past 25 Years

While it’s hard to remember that the battle was initially competitive, subsequent acts played out with the same sense of drama. A few weeks later, Drake countered with “Push Ups,” a virtuosic turn that saw the 6ix God disarm and dismember enemies with all the icy precision of The Equalizer. His follow-up, the questionable, if funny, “Taylor Made Freestyle,” saw Drake use 2Pac and Snoop Dogg AI effects to subject Kendrick to a condescending lecture from his own West Coast heroes. Two weeks later, Kendrick clapped back with “Euphoria,” only to follow up with “6:16 in LA” a few days later. Shifting between playful and pensive, Kendrick warned Drake to keep things light. With his ferocious Kendrick diss, “Family Matters,” Drake ignored Kenny’s advice. And then, as the sky turned pitch black, Kendrick grew darker, still.

Moments after Drake’s diabolical assassination attempt, Kendrick responded with “Meet The Grahams,” a soul-skinning exorcism that could only come from the hearts of the truly sinister. Wielding trembling vocals and ill intent, Kendrick painted Drake as an alcoholic sex addict without the upbringing to be a good father, framing the first verse as a letter to Drake’s son Adonis. Then he left letters to Drake’s parents. And then, a daughter that likely doesn’t exist. This wasn’t below the belt as much as it was beneath the Earth. This wasn’t a critique; it was cosmic condemnation. Then, Kendrick decided it was time to party.

Released less than a full day after “Meet The Grahams,” “Not Like Us” was the real-life version of, “I’ll kill you, commit suicide, then kill you again.” It was Alex Murphy getting shot the fuck up in Robocop. It was gruesome as gruesome gets. It was also an undeniable and indestructible slap — modernized Cali bounce Kendrick turns into a funhouse. Each succeeding couplet is more searing than the next, and the twitchy cadences make calling Drake a pedophile a phonetic adventure. Kamala Harris used it at one of her campaign rallies. Black grandmas rapped it at family cookouts. White grandmas, too.

To date, it’s got over 1 billion Spotify streams. It debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. It did numbers. Aside from that, it proved a nearly inconceivable mastery of craft. Nominally, “Meet The Grahams” and “Not Like Us” are both rap songs. But shifting from Alchemist production to a Mustard soundscape — from long-winded personal messages to jumpy Instagram captions — Kendrick might as well have been operating in two completely different genres. He made The Godfather and Top Gun: Maverick. He created them both just days apart.

And somehow, those elements might not even be the most impressive parts of the songs. The true success of “Not Like Us” lies in its existential irritation. The hook is symbolic enough to be appropriated by anyone who wants to call another Drake — their Drake, your Drake, my Drake, Kendrick’s Drake — a culture vulture. As the world, and veteran Drake enemy Pusha T note, it was enough to spur some unprecedented legal action that was… well, unprecedented.

“I think what Kendrick was doing was really talking to his soul,” Push explained to Ari Melber. “I believe that would cause you to tap out, that would cause you to sue, that would cause you to do a lot of things. It’s crazy.”

As Push alludes to, Drake ended up filing a lawsuit against Universal Music Group, accusing the label, which remains home to himself and Kendrick, of using bots to artificially inflate numbers for “Not Like Us.” Drake might never say he lost this battle, but the lawsuit is more emphatic than any hollow concessions. Not only did he lose badly in the actual battle. He was also a poor sport. He was the worst sport. We all laughed about Drake turning Meek into a meme. But Kendrick accomplished something even more extraordinary: He turned Drake into a Karen.

That feat of alchemy only punctuated one chapter of his world-conquering saga, which, of course, carried through the rest of 2024 and beyond. His L.A. Pop Out concert turned a Drizzy funeral into a gang peace summit. “Not Like Us” basically made JAY-Z give Kendrick a slot as the Super Bowl halftime show headliner. Then Kendrick dropped the best rap album of the year.

Released in November, GNXsaw Kenny triple-down on the bangers, an underrated specialty his opponents somehow suggested he wasn’t capable of. For “Hey Now,” Kendrick threads classic hyphy with Drakeo The Ruler-inspired vocal inflections and a hook that’s simultaneously playful and menacing. This wasn’t a ready-made anthem, either. Mustard told People he made the beat five years ago, and he offered it to YG and Quavo long before Kendrick even knew it existed. But Kendrick made it a top-five single. Ditto for the Debbie Deb-sampling “Squabble Up” and “TV Off,” the latter of which is like a “Not Like Us” part two. They went No. 1 and No. 2 on the Hot 100 respectively. Every song on the LP landed on the chart, giving local acts like Jody6, Hitta J3, AzChike Hot 100 placements they could have never dreamed about. Critics like me loved the album, too. For Variety, I gave it a 92/100. According to music review aggregator Metacritic, the LP sits at an average score of 87, indicating universal acclaim. All that. Kendrick won big — bigger than any other rapper has in 25 years.