Eminem / Kendrick Lamar

Since Metro Boomin and Future unleashed the first of their two joint albums, titled WE DON’T TRUST YOU, social media blew up on Friday (Mar. 22, 2024), courtesy of an explosive verse detonated by the one and only Kendrick Lamar. On the song called “Like That,” K. Dot throws several jabs, suggestively targeting two of the best rappers in the game, J. Cole and Drake.

“Yeah, get up with me, f–k sneak dissing/ ‘First Person Shooter,’ I hope they came with three switches,” Kendrick spits on his guest verse. “First Person Shooter” is the collaborative song Drake and Cole released last year on which the latter boasted: “Love when they argue the hardest MC/ Is it K-Dot? Is it Aubrey? Or me?/We the big three like we started a league.”

Kendrick Lamar didn’t stop there, as he continued firing more shots at Dreezy and Jermaine. “Think I won’t drop the location? I still got PTSD/ Motherf–k the Big 3, n-gga, it’s just big me,” he raps. Lamar then seemingly aimed directly at Drake, saying: “‘Fore all your dogs gettin’ buried, that’s a K with all these nines, he gon’ see Pet Sematary.” For context, Drake’s last album is titled For All The Dogs that came out in 2023.

Kendrick firing shots at his peers overshadowed some interesting lines he had in the middle of his verse, which appears to be inspired by Eminem‘s actions against Melle Mel. “I crash out, like, “F–k rap,” diss Melle Mel if I had to.” raps Kendrick.

Melle Mel was the lead rapper and songwriter of Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five, the 1970’s New York hip-hop collective that not only pioneered the art of rapping, but the genre of hip-hop altogether. To diss Melle Mel would be dissing rap and hip-hop itself, which Kendrick is well aware of and willing to do if necessary, meaning no one is safe. Lamar may be drawing parallels to the infamous 2023 beef between Detroit legend Eminem and Melle Mel.

The beef started back in a March 2023  with Art of Dialogue interview where Mel suggested that Slim Shady’s No. 5 placement on Billboard’s top 50 Rappers of All Time list was because of him being white. Em would go on to respond with a diss on “Realest,” a July 2023 track by Shady Records’ recent signee Ez Mil where Em claimed Melle Mel lost his mind to steroid use. Melle Mel replied in a diss of his own which was poorly received to the point Melle Mel had deleted the track and issued public apology for the song and for starting the beef itself.