“Family Matters,” “Meet the Grahams,” “The Heart Part 6”—where do we stand after the craziest weekend of the Drake-Kendrick beef? A new episode of ‘Dissect’ breaks it all down.
Kendrick Lamar won. Drake lost. At least that’s the takeaway of a new episode of Dissect, which features host Cole Cuchna breaking down the wildest weekend in recent music history with The Ringer’s Charles Holmes and Justin Sayles. The trio talk “Not Like Us,” “Family Matters,” “Meet the Grahams,” and more—plus try to pick their favorite songs of the beef and place the battle in historical context.
In this excerpt from the episode, Cole, Charles, and Justin break down the brilliant strategy of Kendrick’s “Not Like Us.” To hear the full episode on their instant reactions, listen here. To hear a nearly two-hour bonus episode in which Cole breaks down Kendrick’s “Euphoria” line by line, click here.
Cole Cuchna: This is what I think strategy-wise actually trumps even “Meet the Grahams” At 4:52 p.m. “Not Like Us” drops with the DJ Mustard. In terms what Kendrick’s saying, it hits the pedophilia angle directly, where it was alluded to in the tracks leading to this point. This is the main angle. He responds to Drake’s claims in “Family Matters” very briefly and just says, “Drake, the audience is not slow. We see that you’re just trying to shape a narrative. We’re not buying it. Let’s dance.” And he responds directly to Drake’s line about Kendrick rapping like he’s about to get the slaves free. He does this whole fourth verse about Atlanta artists and punches with this, I think, pretty effective, “You’re not a …” What does he say?
Charles Holmes: “You’re not a colleague, you’re a colonizer.”
Cuchna: Yeah, “You’re not a colleague, you’re a colonizer.” Thank you, Charles. I think it has some of the most memorable lines from the entire beef. In terms of strategy, I would say just as a fan, witnessing this entire thing shaking out, this was a much-needed palate cleanser.
Holmes: The West was won that day. It happened. Here’s the thing, it got dark that Friday night, when “Meet the Grahams” and “Family Matters” dropped. And literally the DJ just turned this on and everybody’s like, “It’s fun again.”
Cuchna: Justin, what were your initial thoughts on this song?
Justin Sayles: I can’t help but think that one of the most damning things that Nas said about Jay-Z in “Ether” was, “I still whoop your ass, you’re 36 in a karate class.” And now we’re like, “Yeah, but he really hit on the pedophilia angle.” The terms of engagement are so different here.
Cuchna: We should acknowledge at some point that Pusha T just set a new bar, or I guess, lowered the bar or whatever you want to call it. I think the shadow of Pusha T and “The Story of Adidon” has loomed large over this beef, where this is where we’re at now, but Justin, continue.
Sayles: Charles pointed this out to me: One of the actual brilliant things about “Meet the Grahams” in hindsight was it did all the heavy lifting on all the, God, all the really nasty things that Kendrick was saying about Drake. So that way when he calls Drake freaky on “Not Like Us,” we already know the backstory. We already have the lore. It’s a callback, right? It’s not something he has to set up here. So it just clears out of the way. First of all, can I also say this might be Kendrick’s best club record ever? I’m trying to think of what goes up against it. It’s like “m.A.A.d. city,” “Alright,” and “King Kunta” and—
Holmes: Maybe “Swimming Pools”?
Sayles: “Swimming Pools”—those songs are all great and they have gone off in the clubs. But nothing like this. And it’s wild the lines that he gets off in this song. The stuff about Atlanta, I think is stuff that’s been percolating about Drake for a long time. He just comes in and sucks people’s life force and then gets a hit out of them and then just throws them away. And I think of BlocBoy JB and I think of Makonnen—all these people that he’s done this.
Cuchna: D.R.A.M.?
Sayles: I mean, D.R.A.M.—[Drake] just stole that whole vibe. Drake has long been a tourist in many different facets of rap culture, and that’s OK to an extent if you’re also paying it forward and paying the proper respect. The Atlanta stuff in this song specifically hits on all that. Also, the fact that it’s Kendrick Lamar, the only person that can challenge Drake for the title of most influential rapper of the past 15 years—the fact he’s saying it on possibly what could be his biggest hit record ever—this has the chance to change how we think of Drake forever.
Holmes: You want to know how this is a successful diss record? Because when I went to bed, no one was calling Drake R. Kelly, and the minute I woke up, every meme was just treating Drake like he was the next R. Kelly. And once again, none of this stuff is corroborated. None of this shit is sourced. None of the stuff that Kendrick’s—we haven’t seen anything besides what Kendrick has said. But he does the Drake thing so well: Think about the “A-minor” part. That’s stuff that Drake does. Drake tried to do it with the Dave Free shit. But Kendrick just takes it, and now you see videos of people in a club yelling “A-minor” the day it drops. Saying “OV-ho,” I’m like, “This is the corniest shit ever.” But I’m like, “People will say this forever now.” I did not expect Kendrick to be this good at making a hit record, and the fact that this was the second of the beef from him? “Like That” was the first one. People were like, “That was a Future and Metro Boomin record.” And I’m just like, “Hey, you can’t take anything away from this one. That was just Kendrick all alone, him and Mustard, so not looking great.”
Cuchna: He outdid Drake at what Drake was supposed to do in this battle, which is make a hit that is also a diss following “Back to Back.” And he out-Draked Drake, he beat him at his own game in this round of the battle. And I remember when I first saw that Kendrick dropped again, I was like, “What the …?” I was not excited to listen to it, but the moment it came on, it neutralized the night before, and I just had to hand it to him in terms of strategy because it was perfectly executed.
Sayles: And it’s a very regional record too. I would be remiss if I got on this podcast and did not mention that he used the flow that was invented by Drakeo the Ruler, and he did it over a Mustard beat, which is very interesting if you know the history between Drakeo and Mustard. But it’s a very regional record. The best diss songs function not only on a rap level, not only on a “I’m going to ether this guy” level. They function on a level where they just rattle around in your brain forever, and this one will. The strategy behind it was genius. It is honestly one of the best diss records that you will ever hear, and that’s even before you consider the stakes of this battle, because this battle is among the biggest that we’re ever going to see, if not the biggest.
Cuchna: Yeah. Well, we’ll get to that at the end of the episode, but let’s move on to the final … Well, hopefully the final song in the beef.
Holmes: Oh, do we have to? This fucking crazy record.
This transcript has been edited for clarity and length. Listen to the full episode discussing our instant reactions to “Not Like Us,” “Family Matters,” and more here. To hear Cole’s episode dissecting “Euphoria” line by line, click here.
Hosts: Cole Cuchna, Charles Holmes, Justin Sayles
Producer: Cole Cuchna
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