Kendrick Lamar’s big 2025 Grammy wins were the cherry on top of a big year for the rapper’s Drake diss track “Not Like Us,” but the Recording Academy of the United States just made a big change to footage of one of Kendrick’s acceptances.
Throughout the evening, Kendrick’s song was awarded the top honor in five categories: Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Rap Performance, Best Rap Song, and Best Music Video.
As the Pulitzer prize-winning rapper took the stage to accept his Grammy for Record of the Year, “Not Like Us” played throughout the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles and the whole crowd could be heard singing along. Hot New Hip-Hop reports that this portion of the footage has been removed from YouTube.
In the clip, which you can see below, Miley Cyrus announces Kendrick as the winner, and then the footage cuts to his acceptance speech, leaving out his walk to the stage when the big sing-along moment happened.
The Grammys have not explained why they made the change, but it’s presumed that this is related to Drake’s numerous lawsuits over the song, which you can read more about here, here, and here.
Kendrick and Drake’s Beef previously Included J. Cole
Kendrick and Drake’s beef started when Kendrick took some shots at Drake and J. Cole on Future and Metro Boomin’s song “Like That.” After J. Cole bowed out of the beef, Kendrick and Drake began trading shots back and forth over several diss tracks, one of which was the song “Not Like Us.” The track went on to be one of the biggest songs of 2024.
“My intent from day one was to keep the nature of it as a sport,” Kung-Fu Kenny later explained during a new Apple Music interview, discussing his decision to engage in the beef. “I don’t care how motherfuckers look at it as far as like a collaborative effort. That’s cool too, but I love when artists grit they teeth.”
Kendrick Lamar Says Drake Beef Was Just ‘Sport’
“I still watch battle raps, I still watch Smack URL, from Murda Mook to Lux to Tay Roc, my bro Daylyt. This always been the core definition of who I am,” he added. “It’s been that way since day one so I don’t think it was a thing for this year. It was always a continuum.”
Kendrick then offered, “What I will say about this year is that it was more from a space where I think a lot of people was putting rap to the back and you didn’t see that grit, you didn’t see that bite anymore.”
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