As the dust appears to have settled on Drake and Kendrick Lamar’s rap beef, a clear victor has emerged. On Tuesday morning, Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” a diss track rolled into a rollicking, booty-shaking West Coast anthem, debuted atop the Billboard Hot 100 — the fourth No. 1 recording by the Compton rapper.
Drake, too, benefited from their lyrical showdown over the past week: “Family Matters,” a sprawling, 7½-minute takedown of Lamar, debuted on the Hot 100 at No. 7. But hip-hop’s perennial hitmaker suffered a comprehensive loss on the charts to Lamar, who has feuded with Drake for at least a decade.
Two more songs from Lamar’s Drake-hating oeuvre landed on the Top 10: “Euphoria,” which rose to No. 3, and “Like That,” Lamar’s collaboration with Future and Metro Boomin, which came in at No. 6, up two spots from the week before.
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End of carouselThe numbers won’t surprise anyone who had been tuning in to the faceoff between the two rappers over the past week, when streaming numbers and fan buzz tipped heavily in Lamar’s favor, with TikTokers posting “Not Like Us” dances and tennis stars hopping on Team Kendrick in Rome.
The Pulitzer-winning rapper dominated Spotify’s U.S. Top 10 over the past week, with four songs taking down his rival, while only Drake’s “Family Matters” cracked the platform’s Top 10. Lamar was similarly commanding on YouTube, where “Not Like Us” has notched at least 39 million views, compared with 22 million for “Family Matters.”
Lamar even bested Drake on his home turf: outperforming his Toronto-based rival on Spotify Canada’s Top 10.
According to Luminate, which tracks U.S. streaming data, streams for Lamar’s entire catalogue were up more than 149 percent at the height of the feud (May 3 to May 9). Drake also saw a boost, but only of 16 percent. “Not Like Us” had 73.7 million on-demand streams (counting both audio and video) for the same period, while “Family Matters” had 43.5 million, Luminate reported.
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The showdown represents a reversal of fortunes for two men widely considered to be among the most important rappers of their generation, with 36-year-old Lamar topping 37-year-old Drake for a change.
Share this articleShareThe Canadian rapper has appeared on Billboard’s Top 10 the most of any artist — 78 times — since Billboard began tallying singles in 1958. (Taylor Swift has appeared 59 times.) Drake also boasts 331 songs appearing on the Billboard Hot 100 — well ahead of Swift (263).
Drake’s popularity has been powered by his frequent collaborations and his ability to pen a powerful earworm, as well as his mastery of internet meme culture.
Lamar, while achieving commercial success of his own, has been viewed by fans as the more cerebral of the two. He is a perpetual Grammy favorite (he has won 17 so far), and his 2017 album, “DAMN.,” was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for music, which the Pulitzer committee lauded as a “virtuosic song collection ... capturing the complexity of modern African-American life.”
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The once-in-a-generation beef, however, has reminded audiences that Lamar, too, is capable of dropping dance-floor bangers. (“Not Like Us” was being played in clubs hours after it dropped on May 4.) It has also been a boon for his fans: The beef with Drake has spurred Lamar to produce nearly 20 minutes of new music in the past two weeks.
Drake has lately had more serious matters to attend to than chart performance. Police have recently responded to multiple incidents at his Toronto mansion, including a drive-by shooting that injured a security guard. Police have not disclosed any suspects or motives in the shooting.
Lamar’s reign over the Billboard Hot 100 spells bad news if you’re sick of rap beef. Although the two rappers have stopped swapping diss tracks — at least for now — their songs are still ubiquitous, and may be so for quite some time: GQ has already christened “Not Like Us” the song of the summer.
correction
A previous version of this article incorrectly said that Kendrick Lamar's “Euphoria” debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100; it rose to No. 3, but debuted at No. 11. The article has been corrected.
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