What’s beef? Ask 10 rap fans and you’ll get 10 different answers. The Drake vs Kendrick Lamar beef that resulted in a weeks-long battle that saw the two rap superstars trading barbs over seven(!) tracks excavated a bunch of conversations about how rap battles should be conducted, what’s fair, and how far is too far.
The last question seemed to dominate the discussion after Drake released the song and video for “Family Matters” and Kendrick immediately followed up with “meet the grahams.” Both songs saw the rappers working to pick apart their opponent by excoriating their interior lives. Drake claimed that Kendrick’s business partner fathered one of his kids and that he physically abuses his fiancé, while Kendrick claimed that Drake is a drug addict who employs pedophiles and has another child that he has not publicly acknowleged.
It all felt like too much for the public. Many wondered if the two had gone too far. And many acted as if Kendrick and Drake were the first rappers to send scalding hot disses at their opponents. Well, we’re here to tell you that they were not the first. Rappers have been “going too far” since the ’80s — the only difference is back then the songs didn’t go No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 like Kendrick’s “Not Like Us.”
To prove our point, we found a bunch of songs that were just as disrespectful and disparaging as anything Drake and Kendrick dropped this year. Below you’ll find the 15 songs we believe to be the most scathing rap diss tracks of all time.
