When Kendrick Lamar and Drake started beefing earlier this year, I’m not sure anyone expected one of the diss tracks in their back-and-forth to become the song of the summer, but Kendrick’s “Not Like Us” has become an inescapable anthem that just keeps building momentum.
First there was “The Pop Out”, where Lamar filled the Forum in L.A. and drew millions of viewers on Amazon for a celebration of Los Angeles, culminating in him performing “Not Like Us” not one, not two, not three, not four, but five times in a row to close out the show. During his fourth time running it back, he brought up seemingly all of L.A. onto the stage, including a pair of NBA players, as L.A. natives Russell Westbrook and DeMar DeRozan gleefully danced on stage.
The victory lap continued as shortly after “The Pop Out”, Kendrick was seen filming the “Not Like Us” music video, and the Compton native dropped the visuals on July 4. In the video, DeRozan makes an appearance during Lamar’s “I’m glad D-Roze came home, y’all didn’t deserve him neither” line, referencing the former Raptor’s stint in Toronto. Getting one of Drake’s beloved Raptors players to make a video appearance in a diss track is a special kind of twist of the knife from Kendrick, who has looked to find every possible way to make Drake miserable during this beef.
As for DeRozan, he is still figuring out where he’ll play next season, as it seems increasingly unlikely he’ll be back in Chicago and is exploring sign-and-trade options — which figure to include Los Angeles as a possible destination.
