If I had to sum up 2024 in a few words, I’d go with “Settling Scores.” On January 3rd, Katt Williams set the tone by stating, in a now legendary interview:

“It’s God’s side and the other side. And we don’t care nothing about the other side. Period. All of these big d*ck deviants are all catching hell in 2024. It’s up for all of them. It don’t matter if you Diddy or whoever you is. All lies will be exposed, that’s all. And anyone who takes it the wrong way, know why they take it the wrong way. The truth is the light.”

In the following weeks, Diddy was indeed exposed as a diddler. On a broader scale, the rap world entered a “civil war” in which numerous artists viciously dissed other artists while exposing their moral misdeeds in the process.

While most rap fans found this generalized beef to be thoroughly entertaining, things got very real when the war crystallized around two juggernauts of the genre: Drake and Kendrick Lamar.

Other rappers who attacked Drake made fun of him for getting ab implants and a BBL (Brazilian butt lift). However, Kendrick chose to engage in all-out psychological warfare. Of course, Kendrick did not fail to mention Drake’s hilarious surgeries, but the bulk of his attacks were infinitely more serious: He accused Drake of being a pedophile. He did not insinuate it. He just said it. He also accused his entourage of being industry creeps who prey on minors.

Here’s a look at this sticky situation.

Is Drake a Groomer?

Drake probably wishes this picture (and many others) didn’t exist right now.

In 2018, I published an article about Drake being accused of grooming Millie Bobby Brown. The actress – who was 14 years old at the time – mentioned a few times that she was in regular contact with Drake, prompting people to wonder if she was being groomed. Most of the weirdness stems from the following interview, in which Millie talks about her relationship with Drake.

In this cringy interview, Millie discusses planning to meet Drake in Atlanta. Odd. However, the biggest “groomer” red flag is raised when she mentions that Drake “helps her with boys.” That’s typical groomer behavior, which is defined as “establishing a connection with children to lower their inhibitions and desensitize them to sexuality.” Most adults know that giving “relationship advice” is a classic way of flirting while gaining the trust of a love interest, but these efforts are not that transparent to teenagers.

As if to prove everything above, Drake decided it would be a good idea to become the executive producer of a series I define as “groomer TV”: Euphoria.

Euphoria

Drake probably wishes he wasn’t associated with that show.

As explained in my article about this God-awful series, Euphoria is all about sexualizing minors. But that’s an understatement.

To give a concrete example, the first episode contains an explicit scene of an underage transexual teenager (who dresses like a little girl) being violently sodomized by a man in his fifties for an extended time … complete with disturbing gagging noises and all.

An older man jams his thumb inside the mouth of a transexual teenager in Euphoria. Thanks, Drake.

In Euphoria, these scenes are not presented in a bad light but as things that just happen to young people. In other words, it’s all about normalization, which also happens to be the goal of groomers.

This is what Drake is “executive producing.”

Incidentally, Euphoria is the name of Kendrick’s first diss track aimed at Drake. That was not a coincidence. It was Kendrick’s way of reminding the world that Drake co-signed a series about sexualizing high schoolers.

The intro of Kendrick’s Euphoria ends with a couple of lines addressed at Drake:

Know you a master manipulator and habitual liar too
But don’t tell no lie about me and I won’t tell truths ’bout you

Well, Drake apparently told lies about him because Kendrick told a whole lot of truths about him.

Meet the Grahams

In reply to Kendrick’s attacks, Drake released Family Matters – an eight-minute track where Drake gets personal, even alleging abuse in Kendrick’s relationship with his fiancee.

This is where this rap beef turned into psychological warfare. A few minutes after the release of Family Matters, Kendrick posted Meet the Grahams—a response to Drake’s personal attacks.

In the song, Kendrick writes letters to members of Drake’s family. When Kendrick addresses Drake’s mother, Sandra Graham, things get brutal.

Sandra, sit down, what I’m about to say is heavy, now listen
Mhm, your son’s a sick man with sick thoughts
I think n***as like him should die
Him and Weinstein should get f**ked up in a cell for the rest they life
He hates Black women, hypersexualizes them, with kinks of a nympho fetish
Grew facial hair because he understand bein’ a beard just fit him better
He got sex offenders on OVO that he keep on a monthly allowance
A child should never be compromised and he keepin’ his child around them
And we gotta raise our daughters knowin’ there’s predators like him lurkin’
F**k a rap battle, he should die so all of these women can live with a purpose
I been in this industry 12 years, I’ma tell y’all one lil’ secret
It’s some weird s**t goin’ on and some of these artists be here to police it
They be streamlinin’ victims all inside of they home and callin’ em Tinder
Then leak videos of themselves to further push their agendas
To any woman that be playin’ his music, know that you’re playin’ your sister
Or better, you’re sellin’ your niece, to the weirdos, not the good ones
Katt Williams said, “Get you the truths,” so I’ma get mines
The Embassy ‘bout to get raided, too, it’s only a matter of time
Aye, LeBron, keep the family away, hey, Curry, keep the family away
To anybody that embody the love for they kids, keep the family away
They lookin’ at you too if you standin’ by him, keep the family away
I’m lookin’ to shoot through any pervert that lives, keep the family safe

This verse must be carefully dissected because there’s much to unpack here.

First, Kendrick compares Drake to Harvey Weinstein, the infamous Hollywood producer who used his power and influence to coerce actresses to have sex with him. Weinstein was accused of forcing oral sex on a production assistant in 2006 as well as rape in the third degree of an actor in 2013. On December 19, 2022, Weinstein was convicted of rape, sexual penetration by a foreign object and forcible oral copulation.

Kendrick continues by stating that Drake hypersexualizes Black women, “with kinks of a nympho fetish”. This is most likely a reference to Drake paying $350,000 to a woman who accused him of sexual assault in 2017. The accuser – a former stripper and Instagram model named Laquada Morris (aka Layla Lace) – alleged: “Drake forced me to perform oral on him. It wasn’t your ordinary oral it was more so a fetish.” She then describes how he told her to spit into a cup “until he had measured it.”

In the next line, Kendrick says Drake “grew facial hair because he understands bein’ a beard just fit him better.” A beard is a person that is used to conceal another person’s infidelity or homosexuality. In a more general sense, a beard refers to someone who provides cover for someone else, which ties in with the next line of Kendrick’s verse: “He got sex offenders on ho-VO that he keep on a monthly allowance.” OVO is the name of Drake’s record label. One of his artists – Baka Not Nice – was charged with human trafficking and procuring prostitution in 2015.

Drake with Baka Not Nice.

Kendrick then insinuates that Drake keeps his son Adonis around these OVO predators: “A child should never be compromised, and he keepin’ his child around them.”

Drake with his son Adonis at an OVO promotional event.

Kendrick continues: “And we gotta raise our daughters knowin’ there’s predators like him lurkin”. Here, Kendrick heavily implies that Drake preys on young girls and that he wouldn’t leave his children around him. Then, he goes even deeper down the rabbit hole. Re-read these lines carefully.

I been in this industry 12 years, I’ma tell y’all one lil’ secret
It’s some weird s**t goin’ on and some of these artists be here to police it
They be streamlinin’ victims all inside of they home and callin’ em Tinder

In these lines, Kendrick talks about Drake and other industry people running sex trafficking rings inside of their homes. The victims are chosen, groomed, and filmed by people on Drake’s payroll, who then create a “private Tinder” for him to peruse. In October 2021, TikToker @eileensgarden posted a viral video stating:

“Everything I’m about to tell you is a hundred percent true. And this information came to me from one of the crew members on Drake’s tour. This was the guy who did all the tech stuff. And he told me that Drake has an employee whose job is to go around town looking for super hot girls. He finds the girls and then he interviews them, and out of all the girls he interviews, he picks the one that he thinks is the best. Then, he drives her to Drake’s place, Drake has sex with her, and then he drives her home. So, basically, Drake has his own private Tinder.”

Drake himself appears to be bragging about this operation in his song Chicago Freestyle:

All good, Chubbs will look around
Find one that seem my type
That my dawg and he know what I like
He done found me plenty in my life

Chubbs, the associate who reportedly recruits girls for Drake.

Kendrick adds: “Then leak videos of themselves to further push their agendas”. This line most likely refers to Drake “leaking” naked videos of himself as a way of advertising his sex trafficking operation.

Kendrick adds, “The Embassy’s about to get raided too, it’s only a matter of time.” Drake’s $100 million mansion in Toronto was nicknamed “The Embassy.”

The inside of Drake’s mansion is bizarre. What’s up with these one-eyed figures on each side of the doorway?

Kendrick suggests that authorities will soon raid The Embassy, not unlike what happened to Diddy and Epstein’s properties.

The verse ends with an ominous warning to NBA stars Lebron James and Stef Curry (who have connections with Drake): Keep your families away from this den of predators.

As if that wasn’t enough, the next verse suggests that Drake is hiding an abandoned 11-year-old daughter. While Drake denied this claim, some internet sleuths dug out a 2012 tweet that seemed to “celebrate” the birth of a girl.

This rather enigmatic tweet, which simply says, “Baby girl,” was posted 12 years ago – right around when this girl would have been born.

Less than 24 hours after this heavily charged song, Kendrick released Not Like Us. Some would argue that it was the final KO.

Not Like Us

The cover art of Not Like Us consists of a satellite picture of The Embassy with several pins identifying individuals inside it.

The cover art is meant to mimic sex offender locator apps, where child abusers are identified in red.

The goal of Not Like Us is simple: To have people dance and sing along as Kendrick accuses Drake of the vilest things possible. In the first verse, he says:

Say Drake, I hear you like ’em young
You better not ever go to cell block one
To any b***h that talk to him and they in love
Just make sure you hide your little sister from him
They tell me Chubbs the only one that get your hand-me-downs

After doubling down on his pedophile accusations, Kendrick reminds Drake that prison inmates treat child abusers rather badly. Then he warns the women who fall for Drake to make sure their little sisters stay away because Chubbs will be interested in them.

Then, Kendrick triples down on his accusations:

And Baka got a weird case, why is he around?
Certified lover boy, certified pedophile

Yup, Kendrick altered Drake’s album name, Certificied Lover Boy, with something he felt more appropriate: Certified Pedophile.

Kendrick ends his verse with a line that probably wrapped up this rap beef:

Why he trollin’ like a b***h? Ain’t you tired?
Tryna strike a chord and it’s probably A-Minorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

At the risk of stating the obvious, an A-minor is a chord in music. It is also Kendrick’s way of saying that Drake is trying to strike … a minor.

In the chorus, Kendrick repeats the title of the song:

They not like us
They not like us
They not like us
They not like us

While the exact meaning of these words isn’t explicitly spelled out, they seem to point to the fact that Drake’s entourage – and industry elites in general – are different than regular, non-pedophile, God-fearing people.

Drake’s Reply

After these vicious attacks, people eagerly awaited Drake’s rebuttal. He eventually replied, but his arguments were rather perplexing.

First, Drake stated that he purposely fed Kendrick false information about him.

We plotted for a week, and then we fed you the information
A daughter that’s eleven years old, I bet he takes it

Drake later adds that his team “finessed” Kendrick into telling a fake story about him being a sex predator. Maybe I’m not a strategic mastermind like Drake, but I do not see the upside of feeding an opponent fake stories about an abandoned child and being a pedo monster.

Later, Drake added another mind-boggling gem:

If I was f*cking young girls, I promise I’d have been arrested
I’m way too famous for this sh*t you just suggested

Yes, Drake said that he was too famous to be a pedophile. Meanwhile, we all know that pedophilia is an obsession of the rich and famous. A simple look at Jeffrey Epstein’s flight logs is enough to make one realize that there’s something terribly wrong with the world’s elite. So Drake’s argument of him being too famous to be a pedophile was not well received.

Later, Drake drops yet another eyebrow-raiser:

Only f*ckin’ with Whitneys, not Millie Bobby Browns, I’d never look twice at no teenager

Here, Drake says that he’s only interested in grown women like Whitney (Kendrick’s fiancee) and not Millie Bobby Brown. However, Kendrick never mentioned Millie Bobby Brown in his songs. That’s like accusing someone of being a thief, and the person replies, “I didn’t even steal that bike!”

Who even talked about a bike, Drake?

In Conclusion

Whenever I write about a celebrity divulging nuggets of truth, some commentators never fail to mention that they’re also part of the industry and that they’re not saviors. Well, of course. When I report on a celebrity saying something, it doesn’t mean that I automatically co-sign every single thing they did in their entire lives. However, that also doesn’t mean what they said wasn’t accurate or relevant to this site.

The simple fact remains: The only people who can accurately report wrongdoings in the entertainment industry are people inside the entertainment industry. Outsiders simply cannot have the same insight.

With that being said, some might ask: Is Kendrick Lamar a “good guy” or a “bad guy” in the industry? The most likely scenario is that he’s an imperfect person who is faced, like most people, with struggles and temptations. In 2015, I thoroughly analyzed his album To Pimp a Butterfly which is centered around a relevant theme: An up-and-coming artist is tempted with fame and riches by an alluring character named Lucy – short for Lucifer. I ended the article with these words:

There is one thing Kendrick needs to remember: Lucy does not give up that easily.

In the following years, one wonders if Kendrick finally surrendered to Lucy.

In recent years, Kendrick has often worn a crown of thorns, a fashion statement seen as blasphemous by some Christians.

In short, Kendrick is not perfect. However, that doesn’t mean he’s lying about Drake and the industry in general. In fact, he’s in the perfect position to confirm an important fact: “They not like us”.

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