Drake is in the middle of an all-out war against Kendrick Lamar (and half the rap game) right now, and diss songs are getting lobbed back and forth.
Since Kendrick’s explosive verse on “Like That” acted as a signal flare for anybody who has problems with Drake to step forward and get at him. Rappers like Rick Ross and Ye have answered the call, while Drake has been fighting back with his own responses (and AI?) to even the score. As we wait for more shots to land in the near future, here is a ranking of all of the direct diss tracks (not counting some of the more subliminal verses on We Still Don’t Like You) that have come out of this rap war so far.
6. Future & Metro Boomin f/ Ye, “Like That” Remix
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Somehow, Ye figured out a way to wedge himself into this rap war by dropping a remix to Future, Metro Boomin, and Kendrick Lamar’s “Like That.” After answering Future’s call to jump on the remix, Ye enthusiastically explained that “everybody is very, very excited about the elimination of Drake,” but this track won’t be what gets that done. He transforms the original Metro-produced beat by adding a choir of Inter Milan hooligans, in the same way that he did on his No. 1 song “Carnival,” which makes it feel like it could have soundtracked a blockbuster movie trailer. But sadly, it’s less like Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight and more like Marvel’s Ant-Man 3. And the lyrics are worse, as Ye spends the first half of the verse rapping about himself before firing off a few half-baked shots about Lucian Grainge, J. Cole, how he “can’t even think of a Drake line” (which is a lie). This remix falls in line with many of the lackluster verses that Ye has dropped recently, and it’s clear that he didn’t have much to add to this rap war, besides reigniting his long-running feud with Drake. He could have sat this one out.
4. J. Cole, “7 Minute Drill”
![Yes, J. Cole loses points for apologizing for his diss at Kendrick Lamar and taking “7 Minute Drill” off of streaming. But even though Cole’s heart was never in the fight in the first place, his response to Kendrick’s “Like That” verse still out-paces some of the AI raps and self-indulging remixes that have followed it. The bars themselves are mild, and Cole says that he was “hesitant” to diss Kendrick on the track because he still “loves [his] brother.” It’s clear that he acted out of character by dropping “7 Minute Drill,” and while it’s not terrible, its lack of conviction is evident.](https://img.youtube.com/vi/F18RQuT3-c0/mqdefault.jpg)
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Yes, J. Cole loses points for apologizing for his diss at Kendrick Lamar and taking “7 Minute Drill” off of streaming. But even though Cole’s heart was never in the fight in the first place, his response to Kendrick’s “Like That” verse still out-paces some of the AI raps and self-indulging remixes that have followed it. The bars themselves are mild, and Cole says that he was “hesitant” to diss Kendrick on the track because he still “loves [his] brother.” It’s clear that he acted out of character by dropping “7 Minute Drill,” and while it’s not terrible, its lack of conviction is evident.
3. Rick Ross, “Champagne Moments”
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Rick Ross gets points in this rap war just for pulling an extremely Rick Ross kind of a move and responding to Drake’s “Push Ups” within a few hours of the track “leaking” online. On “Champagne Moments,” Ross plays the ghost of Christmas past, present, and future by bringing up old rumors of ghostwriting, making the internet question whether or not Drake got a nose job, and everything in between. Then he finishes with an explosive outro where he accuses Drake of sending a cease-and-desist to French Montana, claims that he had work done to his body, and emphatically calls him “white boy” with enough passion to make even the most mature listener snicker. And then of course, there’s the cover artwork, which looks like a photoshopped photo of Drake as a white man, but is, in fact, a real photograph. Good old-fashioned shit-talking is the foundation of any good diss track, and Rick Ross is a hall-of-famer when it comes to that.
2. Drake, “Push Ups”
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Drake is such an indomitable force in rap that it takes a whole army of foes to join forces and make a coordinated effort just to attack him, and even then, he still finds a way to fire back against them all. “Push Ups” is a masterclass in multitasking, a song where he efficiently takes shots at Kendrick Lamar, Future, Metro Boomin, Rick Ross, The Weeknd, and even Ja Morant (?) with four minutes of straight bars on a beat that sounds like it could have soundtracked the OG Halloween franchise. Taking on half the rap game in one song is a daunting task, but Drake makes it look easy as he dedicates a few bars to everybody, shooting back at Future, making the internet try to figure out Kendrick’s shoe size, and delivering the funniest one-liner in rap this year with, “Metro, shut yo hoe ass up and make some drums, nigga.” “Push Ups” surfaced in a fumbled rollout that caused everyone to question the validity of a low-quality leak that sounded like it could have been AI, but the song itself is very strong and it deserves high placement on this list.
1. Future & Metro Boomin f/ Kendrick Lamar, “Like That”
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Kendrick rang the bell for the whole battle with his appearance on “Like That” and there still hasn’t been a moment that’s topped it (yet). With one explosive verse that shook up the entire rap landscape, Kendrick finally put an end to all of the pump-faking he and Drake had been engaging in since he last pushed the red button on “Control” a decade ago. What’s most impressive about “Like That,” though, beyond its sheer impact, is how effective Kendrick is in so few bars. He wastes no time to refute the Big 3 label, shit on Drake’s affinity for Michael Jackson with a clever bar about Prince, and make it clear that he wants all the smoke. Metro Boomin finding a way to say “fuck you” to Drake through the club-friendly production also helps make the case for “Like That,” a song that’s been sitting at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for three weeks. Drake has long been praised for his ability to diss rivals on hit songs that they have to hear in the club, so you know he’s seething now that someone did it to him. Kendrick managed to trigger an entire rap war off his first hand, so there’s no telling what else has up his sleeve.
