Kendrick Lamar’s “Like That” Verse Isn’t The First Time He’s Taken Aim at Fellow Rappers

Kendrick Lamar taking aim at Drake, and J. Cole has gotten everyone talking, with fans visiting his past rap disses.

By now, you’ve likely heard the track “Like That” from Future and Metro Boomin’s latest album, “We Don’t Trust You.” While there has been speculation that Future and Metro may have issues with Drizzy, Lamar took a direct approach toward his obvious opp. 

“Yeah, get up with me, f**k sneak dissing / ‘First Person Shooter,’ I hope they came with three switches,” Lamar rapped, referring to Drake and Cole’s single, where Cole refers to himself, Drake and Lamar as the “Big Three.” Lamar shot down this notion, later rapping, “Motherf**k the big three, n***a, it’s just big me.” 

Lamar also added in his verse, “Your best work is a light pack / N***a, Prince outlived Mike Jack / N***a, bum, ‘fore all your dogs get buried / That’s a K with all these nines, he gon’ see Pet Sematary,” a bar that disses Drake’s “For All the Dogs” album. 

There have been rumors regarding how the feud was sparked, and it seems that it did not begin with “First Person Shooter.” Nevertheless, Lamar has a history of going at his rap colleagues with noticeable bars to let them know there is smoke. In fact, in 2013, the Grammy Award winner was featured on Big Sean’s “Control,” which called out multiple lyricists on one single, including Sean himself. 

“But this is hip-hop and them n***as should know what time it is / And that goes for Jermaine Cole, Big KRIT, Wale, Pusha T, Meek Millz, A$AP Rocky, Drake, Big Sean, Jay Electron’, Tyler, Mac Miller / I got love for you all, but I’m tryna murder you n***as / Tryna make sure your core fans never heard of you n***as / They dont wanna hear not one more noun or verb from you n***as / What is competition? I’m tryna raise the bar high,” Lamar declared on the track. 

Sean notably stripped this track from his “Hall of Fame” album despite the track dropping shortly before the project. Sean may have had a significant issue with the diss, but other rappers embraced it. Wale told TMZ shortly after that he would have been offended if Lamar excluded him from the list of rappers he dissed on “Control.” Jay-Z allegedly released a response track, though he never released it, possibly due to his longstanding friendship with Lamar. In a September 2013 interview with Billboard, Drake responded, “It just sounded like an ambitious thought to me. That’s all it was. I know good and well that Kendrick’s not murdering me, at all, in any platform.”

Lamar, who is not too fond of social media, has not had any further comments following “Like That.” Still, we should anticipate more diss tracks soon as Lamar strives to be recognized as one of hip-hop’s greatest, with Drake and Cole also likely to respond.