The release of a surprise diss aimed at two of the biggest rappers in the world led to a chaotic series of releases, involving disses from multiple artists. Rapper Kendrick Lamar created a huge wave in the rap industry when he dissed Rappers Drake and J. Cole on a song titled “Like That,” which was part of Rapper Future and Producer/Rapper Metro Boomin’s new album, We Don’t Trust You. This occurred on March 22nd, when the album was released, and it was in response to a mention Cole made of Lamar on one of Drake’s songs.

What Happened
The original song that Lamar referenced in his diss on Drake and Cole actually seemed to be complimenting Lamar in a way, and at least doesn’t seem to be insulting him at all. This song was “First Person Shooter,” from Drake’s album For All The Dogs, which was released in October of 2023.
“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,” said Cole on “First Person Shooter.”
Cole was saying that he thinks that him, Lamar (K-Dot), and Drake (Aubrey) are the big three in the rap industry, or in other words the three most popular/influential rappers.

What Was The Response?
Lamar, however, emphasized his disagreement with this statement on “Like That.”
“M********k the big three… it’s just big me,” said Lamar on the song.
In the same song, Lamar brought up something else that Drake had included in “First Person Shooter.”
During the outro of “First Person Shooter,” Drake repeatedly says “beat it” after mentioning Michael Jackson.
Lamar referenced this, saying “Prince outlived Mike Jack.”
This is a reference to the rivalry between pop/rock icons Prince and Micheal Jackson during the 1980’s.

Where Are We At Now?
On April 5th, Cole released a surprise album, which included a diss on Lamar as the final track.
The album, titled Might Delete Later, made a few mentions of Lamar throughout it, but the most significant came on the song “7 Minute Drill.”
He began by claiming that Lamar had fallen off as an artist.
“He’s still doing shows, but fell off like the Simpsons,” said Cole.
Cole backed this up by stating Lamar has recently lacked new releases.
“He averaging one hard verse like every 30 months or somethin’, If he wasn’t dissing’ then we wouldn’t be discussing’ him,” said Cole on “7 Minute Drill.”
Cole included other disses on the song as well. However, he seemed to experience a change of heart after releasing that album.
Cole apologized for the diss at a festival with his record label on April 8th, saying that he “loves” Lamar.
On April 12th, “7 Minute Drill” was removed from streaming platforms, but the rest of the album remained.
Throughout the weeks after the release of We Don’t Trust You, Metro Boomin had made many posts on X regarding the situation.
“Once you pick a side, stay there,” Metro Boomin said.
However, based on Cole’s actions, it didn’t seem like he was doing so.
When We Still Don’t Trust You, another album by Future and Metro Boomin, released on April 12th, Cole was featured on one of the songs.
That album included multiple shots at Drake from various artists, including Canadian Artist The Weeknd, Rapper A$AP Rocky, and Future.
Drake is yet to respond to all of the disses targeted towards him, but a recently leaked song hints that he has a response ready and that it may release soon.

All in all, the series of insults and disses being exchanged by multiple rappers has created a lot of tension in the rap industry and will likely lead to more developments, which will take an unknown amount of time to be resolved, and only time will tell what the outcome will be.