Music Stars React to the Drake and Kendrick Lamar Feud: 21 Savage, Ice Cube and More

The beef between Drake and Kendrick Lamar has many people, including some A-list stars, talking about hip-hop.

The clash between the two rappers came to a head when Metro Boomin teamed with Future — who’s worked frequently with Drake in the past — for We Don’t Trust You and We Still Don’t Trust You, a pair of collaborative albums that saw stars from the hip-hop world (The Weeknd, ASAP Rocky) take aim at the “God’s Plan” superstar.

Since then, hip-hop heavyweights like 21 Savage, Ice Cube, Pusha T and Meek Mill have all commented on the beef, mostly hoping that it will end without anyone getting seriously hurt.

This rap war kicked off after Lamar used his verse on “Like That” from We Don’t Trust You to respond to J. Cole’s bit on “First Person Shooter” (from Drake’s For All the Dogs album). Lamar dismissed Drake’s alleged “sneak dissing” and made some remarks about Cole and Drizzy not being in the same league as him. From there, all hell broke loose.

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Cole responded with “7 Minute Drill” before bailing on the feud and apologizing to Lamar. Drake didn’t give up so easily, firing off two disses — “Push Ups” and “Taylor Made Freestyle” — before Lamar escalated things with “Euphoria” and “6:16 in LA.”

Soon after, Drake was accusing Lamar of domestic abuse in “Family Matters,” while Lamar alleged Drake was a sexual predator and had a secret 11-year-old daughter on “Meet the Grahams.” Lamar took things further with “Not Like Us,” lobbying further accusations against a DJ Mustard beat.

“Not Like Us” went viral, so much that Billboard announced on May 13 that it would debut at No. 1, while “Euphoria” returned to the Top 5 at the No. 3 spot. “Like That” was also in the Top 10 at No. 6, while Drake’s “Family Matters” debuted at No. 7.

Many have since called for peace and said that this beef is nothing more than a distraction from real-world issues. Keep scrolling to see what other musicians have said about the feud:

21 Savage

21 Savage thinks that ultimately, the war between Drake and his opponents will work itself out. He also doesn’t want to hear about it until then.

“Don't keep coming on to my muthaf–king Live talking about no muthaf–king beef,” Savage said during a May 12 Instagram Live session. Savage, who made the Her Loss record with Drake and has worked a lot with Metro Boomin, said that he isn’t taking sides in the battle. “Metro [is] my brother, and

Drake [is] my brother,” said Savage. “Those n–as [are] going to figure that s–t out eventually.”

Ice Cube

Ice Cube weighed in on the beef when it was just between Lamar and Cole. As someone who lived through the East Coast vs. West Coast clash of the 1990s and feuded with many of his fellow rappers, Ice Cube said he wasn’t enjoying this feud.

He warned rappers to ensure that “a beef doesn’t turn into a murder” and noted that words travel farther than they used to because of modern technology.

“Back in the day, you do a diss record, but it would stay kinda somewhat in the hip-hop community,” said Ice Cube. “Now, it’s all over the world. All walks of life know what’s going on and you know, some people can’t really take that kind of humiliation.”

Since the last round of diss tracks, there have been three trespassing incidents at Drake’s home in Toronto. On May 7, a shooting outside the property left one of Drake’s security guards seriously injured.

Boosie Badazz

Rapper Boosie Badazz weighed in on rap feuds in general as Drake and Lamar’s war escalated.

"Everybody gassing up rap beef SMH," Boosie wrote via X on April 12. "All excited, saying this hip-hop! Well, everyone in the crew not gon' see it that way and when it pop 'it really goes down.' So when someone from one of these crews die, don't say they stupid SMH. Go support them in court like y'all supported the rap beef. I've seen people die. Y'all happy about who gon' win or lose but a mama gon' lose her son n ain't none of y'all going to the funeral smh."

Boosie clarified that hip-hop had changed, adding that this isn’t the 1980s or '90s when rap was a “so-called sport.”

"When you rap about someone it becomes rap beef. They ain't shaking hands when they see each other no more,” he wrote. “The homies ain't going for that disrespect. They feel their job is to protect big dog and their respect. How many rap beefs have led to murders? It's a new day 'hip-hop fans.'"

On May 6, he tweeted how he’d never seen so many fans “excited to see men tearing each other down through music.” Boosie said he was in a casino when someone asked him what he thought about the Drake and Lamar fight. “Do y’all really want one of these great artists’ career done cause they lost a rap battle?” he asked. “Do y’all want all what they have done for hip-hop overshadowed by rap beef?”

Pusha T

Pusha T cheekily reacted to the Drake-Lamar beef on April 2. A fan wrote via X that “after all these years of mob talk from Drake, nobody ever laid a finger on [Pusha T]," and Pusha responded that no one laid even "a pinky nail" on him.

Pusha T won his clash with Drake by dropping “The Story of Adidon,” a song that not only exposed Drake for having a secret son but also featured artwork that depicted the “Hotline Bling” rapper in blackface.

Drake later explained that the photograph was taken for an art project about how “African Americans were once wrongfully portrayed in entertainment” and “to highlight and raise our frustrations with not always getting a fair chance in the industry and to make a point that the struggle for black actors had not changed much.”

Drake also introduced the world to Adonis, his son with Sophie Brussaux.

Meek Mill

Meek Mill famously clashed with Drake in 2015, which resulted in Drake dropping the feud-winning tracks “Charged Up” and “Back to Back.”
On May 8, Mill seemingly weighed in on the Drake-Lamar conflict. “I give yall my honest without speaking on drake …. Bike life culture ‘meek’ billionaire culture connected to rap … really been through poverty the system ‘meek’ really changing laws “meek” showed the most new artist love with my platform ‘meek,’” he wrote via X.

After saying he changed four laws to “stop the cycle of probation for the average person coming up in the culture,” Mill added, “My pr has been off for a year or 2 so they mutating my name but when I’m gone they will give it up! Ima just keep grinding! They boy and Kendrick have their own lanes and qualities they great at also!”

Black Thought

Black Thought of The Roots weighed in on the feud — specifically, Cole bailing early on in the feud — during the May 8 episode of 1Hood Media’s “This Week in White Supremacy” podcast.

“What we’ve yet to see is somebody nip that in the bud, right? That’s what I felt like [Cole] was in effect doing," said Black Thought (born Tariq Trotter). "It just showed humility, nobility and a sense of elevation that you don’t see too often across the board."

Stevie Wonder

Wonder reflected on the feud on May 10, telling TMZ that “any kind of war is bad for the world.” Wonder also said that he has “no bad feelings” toward either of the rappers and thinks this hip-hop tiff is taking attention from more important issues.

“I just think that the world needs to focus on what's going on, because those things are just distractions,” said Wonder. “Do you know the wars that are going on right now? Do you know the homelessness that’s going on right now? TMZ, can’t you see?"

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Questlove

“Nobody won the war,” wrote Questlove on May 7, posting a sobering message via Instagram. “This wasn’t about skill. This was a wrestling match level mudslinging and takedown by any means necessary — women & children (& actual facts) be damned. Same audience wanting blood will soon put up ‘RIP’ posts like they weren’t part of the problem. Hip-hip is truly dead.”