Kendrick Lamar is having his say. Again.
A week and a half after Drake dropped two songs in which he insulted the Compton-born rapper — diss tracks Drake released after Lamar attacked him last month in the song “Like That” — Lamar returned to their beef Tuesday with a new track he posted on YouTube called “Euphoria.”
It’s a lengthy and detailed catalog of criticisms that mostly revolves around what Lamar views as Drake’s lack of authenticity and his anxieties as a biracial person.
“You’re not a rap artist, you a scam artist with the hopes of being accepted,” Lamar raps over a simmering soul-music groove in the song’s intro. “Tommy Hilfiger stood out but FUBU never had been your collection.” Later, after the song’s horn-laced beat kicks in, Lamar asks, “How many more fairytale stories ‘bout your life till we had enough? / How many more Black features till you finally feel that you Black enough?” He also says he hates the way Drake walks, talks and dresses.
“I even hate when you say the word ‘n—,’” he adds, “But that’s just me, I guess.”
“Euphoria” comes in the wake of Drake’s “Push Ups” and “Taylor Made Freestyle,” in which Drake mocked Lamar for collaborating with Maroon 5 and accused him of taking orders from Taylor Swift. “Taylor Made Freestyle” employed artificial intelligence to emulate the voices of Tupac Shakur and Snoop Dogg; Drake took the track down from social media, according to Billboard, after the late Shakur’s estate threatened legal action against the Canadian rapper.
“Euphoria” is the first solo track Lamar has released since his Grammy-wining 2022 album, “Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers.” “Like That,” a collaboration with Future and Metro Boomin, appeared on their joint album “We Don’t Trust You”; before that, Lamar teamed with his cousin Baby Keem for their 2023 single “The Hillbillies.”
