Summary
Like hundreds of thousands of people – millions, maybe – I’ve been watching the feud between rappers Kendrick Lamar and Drake come to a head this weekend.
It’s a cultural moment, the first truly massive rap beef of our generation to capture the attention of people who don’t even usually care about hip hop, and one of the first to spawn so many memes that people’s social media feeds have been completely overtaken with people laughing at Drake. My workTwitteraccount’s algorithm, which usually feeds me gaming discourse, has been completely overridden by the sheer force of rap beef.
You won’t see me complaining. As a longtime hip hop fan who grew up listening to both Drake and Kendrick Lamar, I’m fascinated not just by the feud, but the political bent of the diss tracks from both artists. Drake accused Kendrick of domestic violence, a claim that has taken on much more weight in a post #MeToo era where the private actions of men in the spotlight have been, rightly, more deeply analysed and criticised. The same goes for Kendrick’s accusations against Drake, especially in the tracks Euphoria, Meet The Grahams, and Not Like Us, in which he repeatedly called the Canadian rapper a misogynist, a deadbeat dad, a predator, a coloniser, and a pedophile.
I’ve seen so many videos of DJs playing Not Like Us in the club that I really can’t imagine Drake can ever come back from this.
But realistically, what’s fueling the cultural interest isn’t these accusations, but the memes. Kendrick Lamar in particular has used humour to his advantage, making it cool to make fun of Drake. (To be fair, it was already easy to mock him.) The jokes, tweets, and TikToks about the feud have been non stop, leading even Twitch streamers who usually stream gaming content to turn their attention to the ongoing beef.
Extra, Extra, Get Your Fake News!
This leads me toone particular tweet that went viral: a tweet that shows a video recording of a clip of Kratos from God of War, seemingly posted to Drake’s Instagram story. The clip shows Kratos in God of War 3, saying, “The hands of death could not defeat me. The Sisters of Fate could not hold me. And you will not see the end of this day. I will have my revenge!”
This quote is actually number six out of 15 onour list of scariest Kratos quotes, which is pretty funny.
This, naturally, led to even more people making fun of Drake, including people who don’t even care about the feud. Some people called him cringe, which is correct. Some highlighted that Kratos in God of War 3 was a total jerk who admitted in later games that his actions were totally misguided, which is also correct. An account called ‘Kratos from GOD OF WAR’ quote tweeted it with the caption “DRAKE I DONT FW YOU”. Theofficial PlayStation UK Twitter account even weighed inwith a gif of Kratos in place of Nathan Fillion from Firefly, wanting to stop Drake but unable to find the words.
This is all very funny, and incredible fodder for mockery, but there’s no evidence that Drake ever actually posted this. When I first saw the tweet, I went to check if Drake had actually posted this to his Instagram story, and found nothing. To be fair, Drake is a known IG story dirty deleter who removes things if they don’t land with his followers, but the account that posted the tweet seems to be very obviously a parody account. Whoever is behind it has posted thatDJ Akademiks said Kendrick Lamar has a marketing deal with Sonyand there’s a surprise PlayStation Showcase dropping next week, thatDrake has posted Jak and Daxter memes on his story, and thathe used a clip from Infamous 2 to respond to Lamar’s Not Like Us.’
I’m pretty sure none of these things are true, so as far as making fun of Drake for being a weirdo who relates to Kratos goes, we are unfortunately out of luck. Drake is not posting clips from PlayStation exclusives to Instagram to respond to Kendrick’s diss tracks. It would have been very funny if he was, but he’s not. However, it does say something about him that we all believed it without a second thought – considering he’s the kind of guy to say that Kendrick Lamar only hates pedophiles because he was abused as a child(he wasn’t, actually), he does seem like the kind of guy to relate to Kratosbeforethe redemption arc.
Drake Could Afford To Be More Like Kratos
Kratos is famous for his redemption arc, which a certain sect of players (and God of War’s creator) got quite upset about. In Sony Santa Monica’s games, the once rageful and vengeful protagonist settles down a little, learning how to forgive others and himself for his mistakes, and trying his best to be the father his son Atreus deserves. Some players think that this goes against his character, butI and many others see it as character development. Despite all the horrible things he’d done in his past, he realised he could break the cycle of destruction and create a better life not just for himself, but for the people around him.
Most people could stand to learn that for themselves, especially people who’ve done really terrible things. Far be it from me to decide the veracity of Kendrick’s accusations, but I think everybody deserves to break their personal cycles of receiving and perpetuating pain. It’s fun and games for everybody looking in on this feud from the outside, but there are real repercussions of the actions of people within cultures like hip hop on wider, mainstream culture. I think a lot of what makes Lamar’s diss tracks so cutting is that you can tell just how much he hates the impact of people like Drake onhisculture, and that acid bleeds through into the music. Drake doesn’t actually think he’s Kratos, but I wish he did.
God of War
Starting with the 2005 PlayStation 2 game, God of War is a series of nine games across PS2, PS3, PSP, PS4, and PS5 following Spartan warrior Kratos and his quest for revenge and redemption. The series was rebooted in 2018, shifting the setting from Ancient Greece to Scandinavia, with God of War Ragnarok following in 2022.
