Kendrick Lamar seems to be mocking Drake again with his new music video for his diss track “Not Like Us.”
The two major hip-hop stars were embroiled in a diss track war in April and early May after Lamar publicly called out Drake and J. Cole in a verse on “Like That” for Future and Metro Boomin’s album “We Don’t Trust You” in March.
Neither rapper has released a new diss track since May 5, but Lamar is still fuelling the beef.
On Thursday, the “Not Like Us” video became the first music video Lamar released for his Drake diss tracks.
The video is filled with cameos, including his longtime partner Whitney Alford and their two children.
The video seems to be Lamar’s second victory lap after he performed four of his five diss tracks and rapped “Not Like Us” five times in a row at his Juneteenth concert last month.
At first, hip-hop fans were excited about Lamar and Drake’s rap beef, believing it was a friendly competition between some of the genre’s most notable stars. Rap beef can help artists boost streams and sales and prove they are worthy of acclaim in the hip-hop world.
But Drake and Lamar’s beef soon turned vicious when both stars made unverified allegations of sexual assault, pedophilia, and domestic abuse against each other.
After a week of back-to-back diss tracks, Drake seemed to drop out of the beef after the release of “The Heart Part 6” on May 5. But Lamar just keeps going.
Here are all the moments in the “Not Like Us” music video that seems to reference the rap beef.
Compton Courthouse is shown multiple times.
The “Not Like Us” music video features multiple shots of the Los Angeles County Superior Court in Compton, California, and scenes of Lamar and fans outside the court.
In the first verse of the song, Kendrick calls Drake a pedophile, and showing the courthouse could be a nod to that.
In May, Variety reported that the cover art for “Not Like Us” was an aerial view of Drake’s mansion near Toronto with pins on the building, resembling those used on sex offender maps.
Drake denied the pedophilia allegations in “The Heart Part 6,” saying he’s “too famous” to have sex with underaged women and he would be arrested for it.
Lamar teases a new song at the beginning of the track.
Before the “Not Like Us” beat begins, a new track plays where Lamar raps about reincarnation.
Could this be another track directed at Drake, or is Lamar teasing a song for an upcoming album, indicating that he is moving on from the beef?
Tommy the Clown, DeMar DeRozan, and Black Hippy make cameos in the song.
Tommy the Clown, DeMar DeRozan, and Black Hippy rap group members Ab-Soul, Schoolboy Q, and Jay Rock are some of the many cameos in the music video. They also appeared onstage during Lamar’s Juneteenth concert last month and are figures of the West Coast hip-hop community.
In the diss track “Taylor Made Freestyle,” released in April, Drake uses AI-generated vocals of Snoop Dogg and the late Tupac Shakur to question Lamar’s position as a representative of the West Coast rap scene.
Lamar challenged this idea by getting figures from the West Coast community to publicly support him in the video. Lamar likely filmed “Not Like Us” in Compton landmarks, such as Tam’s Burgers, for a similar reason.
Lamar appears to take a shot at Drake’s label, OVO.
Early in the video, Lamar hits a pinata shaped like an owl, the logo of Drake’s record label, OVO.
A caption at the bottom of a screen reads, “Disclaimer: No OVhoes were harmed in making this video.”
“Ov-ho” is a term Lamar uses in “Not Like Us” to mock Drake and his label.
This scene seems to be a direct reference to Lamar and Drake’s diss track fight.
At the end of the video, Lamar stares at a real-life owl and puts it in a cage, suggesting that Lamar thinks he has defeated Drake.
The cage could symbolize Lamar’s attempt to ostracize Drake from the hip-hop community with the rap beef.
Lamar references Drake’s first diss track, “Push Ups.”
In Drake’s first diss track, “Push-ups,” the rapper uses the exercise as a metaphor to mock Lamar’s alleged deal with his former label, Top Dawg Entertainment (TDE). Drake claimed the label took 50% of profits from Lamar’s songs.
Lamar and TDE never responded to this allegation.
A representative for Lamar and TDE did not immediately respond to a comment request from Business Insider.
In one scene of the “Not Like Us” music video, Lamar is seen doing push-ups on cinder blocks, appearing to reference the track.
Lamar may also be suggesting that Drake should be in prison. The layout of the room, the small bed, and Lamar’s tracksuit outfit all seem to reference a prison cell. At this point of the song, Lamar also makes the pedophile allegations.
TDE CEO Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith and producer Mustard also make cameos.
Partway during the video, Lamar stands next to Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith, the CEO of TDE, and later hugs him. This may be another way of Lamar addressing Drake’s allegations that TDE exploited the “Humble” rapper. When the pair hug, they prove there’s no beef between Lamar and TDE.
Mustard, the producer of “Not Like Us,” makes a cameo alongside Lamar when they drive to Tam’s Burgers.
Lamar appears to address Drake’s allegations about his longtime partner Whitney and their children
Whitney Alford, Lamar’s longtime partner, and their two children are the final major cameo in the “Not Like Us” music video.
In his diss tracks “Family Matters” and “The Heart Part 6,” Drake claims that Lamar domestically abused Alford. Drake also claimed that Dave Free, the cofounder of Lamar’s company PGLang, is the biological father of one of Lamar’s kids.
Lamar has not directly addressed either allegation. But Alford and his two children appear in the music video, and Free got a director credit at the end of the video.
Lamar seems to suggest there is no drama between him and Alford or Free.
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