Kendrick Lamar Drake Dissident “Not Like Us” gets 5

by Junna Base November 8, 2024

Kendrick Lamar’s feud with Drake just brought him back to the Grammys stage.

Lamar is up for seven Grammy nominations at the 2025 awards ceremony, it was announced Friday morning. Lamar received five nominations for his Drake hit “Not Like Us,” including record and song of the year.

Meanwhile, Drake, who has refused to apply to the Grammys in recent years, received no nominations.

The nods cap a turbulent year for the former collaborators, who made serious allegations of mutual abuse. With his nominations, the Recording Academy appears to be supporting Lamar’s path to victory in the mudslinging.

The nominations come after a big year for the Pulitzer Prize winner, who expanded his reach in his now-cooled feud with Drake. The Compton, California native reignited the long-simmering rivalry in March with his guest verse “Like That.” The track rounds out his other two nominations and will also compete with “Not Like Us” in the Best Rap Song and Best Rap Performance categories. This spring he released four more dissident records, two of which entered the Billboard Hot 100 Top 10.

In August, the “Money Trees” rapper was also chosen to be the halftime headliner of the 2025 Super Bowl in New Orleans next February. This move left Drake’s mentor and NOLA native Lil Wayne disappointed.

Earning one of music’s highest honors, the upbeat, West Coast-leaning, DJ Mustard-produced track is the culmination of a year of shots, rumors and taunts, proving that not even the Recording Academy is afraid to wade into the fray to fall.

Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Not Like Us’ Is Nominated for a Grammy: How Drake Beef Began

Years of subliminal recordings of “Like That” followed, in which Lamar rapped, seemingly in reference to Drake, “It’s time for him to prove he’s a problem.”

But the feud officially began when Drake entered the ring in April with full diss tracks against Lamar on “Push Ups” and “Taylor Made Freestyle.”

Lamar responded a little over a week later with his first full dissident track, “Euphoria,” calling the rapper a “fraud.” Lamar followed with “6:16 in LA” in early May. Fourteen hours later, Drake followed up that evening with the dissident track “Family Matters,” which explicitly alleged that Lamar had physically abused his partner Whitney Alford.

Minutes later, Lamar aired Ozempic rumors against Drake on “Meet the Grahams,” including serious allegations of abuse, addiction and a second hidden child. Then on May 4, he released “Not Like Us” and made allegations of grooming girls:

“I heard you like (her) young. You better never go to cell block one,” Lamar rapped. “For any (girl) who talks to him and falls in love, just make sure you hide your (little) sister from him.”

Lamar then performed all five tracks at his star-studded “Pop Out” concert, which was streamed live on Amazon Prime Video on June 16 with 16,000 fans in person.

Kendrick Lamar’s nominations fuel rivalry: Drake vs. the Grammys

Lamar is considered the favorite to win the rap categories, which doesn’t sit well with Drake. Lamar’s history as a Recording Academy darling came under fire earlier this year by the “Jimmy Cooks” rapper when he declared in his diss record “Family Matters”: “Kendrick just opened his mouth, somebody give him a Grammy now .” Lamar has 17 Grammys out of 57 nominations, Drake has five out of 55 nominations.

The move is also likely to increase tensions between the “Her Loss” rapper and the Academy over the Billboard No. 1 record nomination, which essentially labeled him a pedophile.

The Canadian MC has criticized the Recording Academy for its “distance,” including excluding The Weeknd from nominations at the 2021 ceremony. He later withdrew his studio album “Certified Lover Boy” from consideration for the 2022 Grammys.

A dissident rap album receiving a Grammy nomination is nothing new. Drake’s own Meek Mill diss album “Back to Back” was nominated for best rap performance at the 2016 Grammys. (You will never guess Who he lost to: Lamar for his single “To Pimp a Butterfly” and the modern protest anthem “Alright.”

And a bit of rap history: A diss record has already won a Grammy. LL Cool J’s “Mama Said Knock You Out” won best rap performance at the 1991 Grammys. The title is partly aimed at rapper Kool Moe Dee, with whom LL Cool J had a long-standing feud.

Credits: USA TODAY Entertainment staff

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