Kendrick Lamar drops brutal Drake diss track 'Euphoria' amid feud: Listen
Kendrick Lamar is taking aim at Drake in a brutal new diss track.
The rapper, 36, on Tuesday tore into Drake on his new song "Euphoria," marking the latest escalation of their ongoing feud. It's a response to Drake's own songs directed at Lamar, who in March rejected the idea that he and Drake are on the same level as rappers.
If the lyrics didn't already make it clear enough that the song's subject was Drake, the title itself is a not-so-subtle reference to the "First Person Shooter" rapper, who is a producer on the HBO series "Euphoria."
'Euphoria' lyrics: Kendrick Lamar raps Drake is a 'scam artist' in diss track
In the song, Lamar raps about how the "famous actor we once knew is looking paranoid and now spiraling." Drake famously began his career as an actor on "Degrassi: The Next Generation."
Lamar goes on to call the subject of the track a "pathetic master manipulator" and a "habitual liar" who is "not a rap artist" but "a scam artist." He says that he makes music "to electrify 'em," while Drake makes music "to pacify 'em."
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"I'm the biggest hater. I hate the way that you walk, the way that you talk," he continues. "I hate the way that you dress. I hate the way that you sneak diss."
"How many more fairytale stories about your life 'til we've had enough?" Lamar raps. "How many more Black features 'til you finally feel that you're Black enough?"
Drake, who is biracial, was previously called out by Pusha T in a similarly vicious feud for a photo featuring him in blackface. After Pusha T used the picture as the cover for his diss track "The Story of Adidon," Drake said the blackface photo was from 2007 when he was working on a "project that was about young black actors struggling to get roles, being stereotyped and type cast." Pusha T also revealed Drake had a child, unbeknownst to the public at the time.
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Lamar also seems to take a shot at Drake's relationship with his son, Adonis. "I got a son to raise, but I can see you don't know nothing about that," he raps.
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Lamar and Drake's feud goes back more than a decade to 2013, when Lamar rapped on the Big Sean song "Control" about how he wanted to "murder" Drake and other prominent rappers.
Earlier this year, Lamar appeared on Future and Metro Boomin's "Like That" and rejected the idea of there being 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 2023 track "First Person Shooter."
Drake subsequently fired back with two diss tracks directed at Lamar, "Push Ups" and "Taylor Made Freestyle." "Taylor Made Freestyle" was later pulled from streaming services after Tupac Shakur's estate threatened to sue over the use of a AI voice imitation. "The unauthorized, equally dismaying use of Tupac's voice against Kendrick Lamar, a good friend to the Estate who has given nothing but respect to Tupac and his legacy publicly and privately, compounds the insult," a cease-and-desist from the estate obtained by USA TODAY said.
Lamar references this on "Euphoria" by rapping that Shakur is turning "in his grave."
J. Cole also responded to Lamar on the song "7 Minute Drill" in April, rapping, "He still doing shows but fell off like 'The Simpsons." He also rapped that Lamar is past his "prime." But shortly after releasing the song, Cole apologized and said it was "lame" and "goofy" of him to do so.
"I ain't gonna lie to y'all the past two days felt terrible," he told the audience at the Dreamville Festival days later, going on to call Lamar as "one of the greatest."
Listen to Kendrick Lamar's Drake diss track 'Euphoria'
Kendrick Lamar's Drake diss track "Euphoria" is available to stream on YouTube, where the display photo shows the dictionary definition of the title word.
Contributing: Naledi Ushe and KiMi Robinson, USA TODAY
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