Kendrick Lamar’s diss track “Not Like Us” has officially dethroned a Spotify record once held by Drake himself. The track now holds the record-breaking 12.809 million streams of a hip-hop song, surpassing Drake and Lil Baby’s “Girls Like Girls.”
Drake diss tracks currently account for 43.8% of Kendrick Lamar’s daily Spotify streams 👀 pic.twitter.com/kyfCaQ1MnW
— Kurrco (@Kurrco) May 17, 2024
This feat has dethroned the previous record-holder, Drake, and Lil Baby’s collaboration, “Girls Want Girls,” which had held the record since 2021 with 12.385 million streams. Despite the rivalry, both artists are seeing commercial success with their diss tracks. Kendrick’s victory in this tight race has been acknowledged by Top Dawg, but the battle might not be over yet.
While Kendrick’s diss track has set records, there’s still speculation about whether this feud is truly over. Drake may have re-listed his Beverly Hills property, hinting at a potential revenge drop. Kendrick didn’t claim outright victory, leaving room for further engagement in this rap war.
These diss tracks can be widely streamed on Spotify. For example, “Like That” was published on March 22, 2024, and this was how it faced Drake and K-Dot’s beef. Fans defended their hits zealously, and this rap war has become a trend in the entertainment industry and sparked discussions about the music world, show business, and so on.
Kendrick Lamar might have Drake beat in their rap war as far as streaming numbers go. Despite being known for his less frequent releases, Kendrick, 36, has “more than doubled his 2023 output with 2024 diss tracks alone,” Billboard’s Jason Lipshutz notes. The magazine reports that these songs have not only performed well on their own, they’ve also lifted K.Dot’s entire back catalog, which includes hit albums like Damn and Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City.
Over the weekend, streams for Kendrick’s discography—not counting his Drake disses—lifted 49 percent, to 50.62 million, from the previous weekend’s 33.98 million. Drake’s catalog, bolstered by For All the Dogs last year, hasn’t seen a bump. While his overall streaming numbers are about twice as many as Kendrick’s, his discography, excluding his Lamar disses, took a 49 percent weekend-to-weekend dip from 105.86 million to 100.69 million.
As far as the diss tracks go, Lamar’s “Euphoria” debuted at No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for the week of May 11, with 27.6 million domestic streams in its first three days of release. His latest, “Not Like Us,” may debut higher thanks to the 21.1 million streams it opened with. “Meet the Grahams,” which arrived in the middle, fared more modestly with 8.8 million. Figures for “6:16 in LA” weren’t provided by Billboard because the song remains exclusive to Instagram.
Drake’s “Push Ups” debuted at No. 19 on the Hot 100 in its first week and climbed to No. 17 this week.
The artists’ creative work and refusal to move away from their subjects and texts for listeners helped revive the perpetrators. This rap war catalyzed discussion between the fans and the insiders. And one sure thing is that the world of rap music will never be the same again.
