Future and Metro Boomin's new collaborative album We Don't Trust You, out today, boasts uncredited guest features from the Weeknd, Travis Scott, Rick Ross, Playboi Carti and Kendrick Lamar — the last of whom used his time in the booth to send shots at a pair of fellow rap figureheads in Drake and J. Cole.
Lamar — who has eschewed the musical omnipresence of someone like Drake to instead deliver incredibly dense albums like 2022's Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers, and craft acclaimed, immensely enjoyable songs with cousin Baby Keem — appears on We Don't Trust You's "Like That," authoring a new chapter in the hip-hop cold war he has primarily waged with the Canadian megastar for over a decade.
The most recent development begins with Drake and J. Cole's "First Person Shooter," which appeared on the former's 2023 album For All the Dogs. On that song, Cole raps, "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, but right now, I feel like Muhammad Ali." Drake, meanwhile, continues invoking the King of Pop in saying he's "one away from Michael."
On "Like That," it's clear Lamar doesn't feel the same way, pointing to "n— talkin' out of they necks," and "a lot of goofies with a check."
Lamar goes on to "choose violence," rapping, "Fuck sneak dissin', first-person shooter, I hope they came with three switches," subsequently declaring, "Motherfuck the big three, n—, it's just big me."
He saves his most cutting words for Drake, spitting, "And your best work is a light pack / N—, Prince outlived Mike Jack' / N—, bum, 'fore all your dogs gettin' buried / That's a K with all these nines, he gon' see Pet Sematary."
The invocation of those two icons — who similarly saw each other as musical opponents — cement Lamar as a cunning lyrical assassin, knowing that Drake's uncle, Larry Graham, has a history of collaboration with the Purple One. Graham holds credits on 1999's Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic, 2001 remix companion Rave In2 the Joy Fantastic and that year's The Rainbow Children.
We'd be remiss not to mention that, once again, Big Sean has somehow been overshadowed by the Compton, CA, MC in this moment. Not unlike how Lamar threw down the gauntlet with his verse on Sean's "Control" just over a decade ago, the arrival of Lamar's "Like That" feature may have left you without the knowledge that the Detroit native delivered new song "Precision" today, marking his first solo single since 2021.
Whether Drake and Cole stick with subliminal disses, or rip off a response imminently à la "Snow on Tha Bluff," it's undoubtedly competition time for some of rap's biggest.
Hear Lamar hit out at his contemporaries in the player below.