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Kendrick Lamar doubles down with fiery Drake diss: Listen to '6:16 in LA'
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Date:2025-04-18 13:17:20
Kendrick Lamar has taken a page from Drake's playbook and released back-to-back diss tracks against the Canadian rapper.
Following a surprise drop of his brutal "Euphoria" track on Tuesday, the Compton, California, native released "6:16 in LA" on his Instagram Friday morning. The song title is a reference to a song format Drake is known for popularizing, including "6PM in New York" from "If You're Reading This It's Too Late" to "8am in Charlotte" from his recent album, "For All the Dogs."
"It's survival," Lamar opens the track. "I think somebody lying. Smell somebody lying."
Art for the 3-minute and 44-second track includes a photo of a black Maybach glove. Rick Ross, who entered the convoluted rap beef last week with "Champagne Moments," is a founder of the rap label Maybach Music Group.
What does '6:16 in LA' mean?Fans analyze Kendrick Lamar's latest Drake diss
'6:16 in LA' lyrics: Kendrick Lamar says Drake's label OVO is 'working for me'
Lamar begins the track discussing buying yachts and taking trips to Ibiza, in what may be a nod to Ross' "luxury rap" style of music.
"Who am I if I don't go to war?" he raps, later adding that messing "with good people make good people go to bat."
Lamar takes a shot at Drake's label and team, rapping, "Have you ever thought OVO is working for me?" before calling Drake a "fake bully."
He continues: "I hate bullies / You must be a terrible person / Everyone inside your team whispering that you deserve it."
Lamar then says he was having "fun" with the tit-for-tat until Drake put "money in the streets" for dirt against the "Like That" rapper. But Lamar claims Drake "lost money 'cause they came back with no receipts."
"I'm sorry that I live a boring life / I love peace / But war ready if the world is ready to see you bleed," he says.
Lamar continues the offensive on OVO. "If you were street smart you would've caught that your entourage is only to hustle you," he raps, claiming Drake has 100 people on salary, and "20 of them want you as a casualty."
The Pulitzer Prize-winning rapper then ends the track with reference to Michael Jackson's hit "You Are Not Alone": "It's time that you look around on who's around you / Before you figure that you're not alone, ask what Mike would do."
Both Drake and Lamar have referenced Jackson in their music, with Drake saying he's "one hit" away from Jackson's record of 13 hits on Billboard's Hot 100 on his October track "First Person Shooter." Drake has since tied with Jackson with that very song. Drake has also sampled the late singer's vocals for the 2018 track "Don't Matter to Me" from an unreleased 1980 studio session.
Lamar followed up on Future and Metro Boomin's "Like That," rapping: "Prince outlived Mike Jack.'"
Kendrick Lamar's back-to-back disses '6:16 in LA,' 'Euphoria' follow Drake disses
In "Euphoria," Lamar complimented Drake's track "Back To Back" saying he "liked that record." The 2015 single was a diss track aimed at rapper Meek Mill, and was Drake's follow-up to his first diss, "Charged Up."
Now, Lamar has released a back-to-back of his own. On "Euphoria," Lamar called Drake a "scam artist," took shots at his relationship with his son and invoked the Toronto-born rapper's feud with Pusha T.
He continued: "How many more fairytale stories about your life 'til we've had enough? How many more Black features 'til you finally feel that you're Black enough?"
Drake, who is biracial, was previously called out by Pusha T in a similarly vicious feud for a photo featuring him in blackface. After Pusha T used the picture as the cover for his diss track "The Story of Adidon," Drake said the blackface photo was from 2007 when he was working on a "project that was about young black actors struggling to get roles, being stereotyped and type cast." Pusha T also revealed Drake had a child, unbeknownst to the public at the time.
"Euphoria" and "6:16 in LA" follow Drake's diss tracks "Push Ups" and "Taylor Made Freestyle." "Taylor Made Freestyle" was later pulled from streaming services after Tupac Shakur's estate threatened to sue over the use of a AI voice imitation. "The unauthorized, equally dismaying use of Tupac's voice against Kendrick Lamar, a good friend to the Estate who has given nothing but respect to Tupac and his legacy publicly and privately, compounds the insult," a cease-and-desist from the estate obtained by USA TODAY said.
Listen to Kendrick Lamar's '6:16 in LA'
Listen to Lamar's "6:16 in LA" on his Instagram.
Contributing: Brendan Morrow
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