Kendrick Lamar on What Inspired His Drake-Dissing 2024: 'I Love When Artists Grit Their Teeth'

Kendrick Lamar, fresh off sweeping the Grammys with the Drake-dissing “Not Like Us,” looked back on his blockbuster 2024 in a rare interview on Thursday.

The moment came as part of Thursday’s special Apple Music press conference ahead of Super Bowl LIX's halftime performance, set to feature Lamar and SZA.

In the press conference, Nadeska Alexis and Ebro Darden both sought insight into Lamar's mindset over the past year. As Ebro put it, it felt like Lamar’s intention in 2024—a year dominated by his and Drake’s back-and-forth—was to draw a proverbial line in the sand.

“My intent was to always keep, I think, from day one, the nature of it as a sport,” Lamar said. “I don’t care how motherfuckers look at it as far as a collaborative effort. That’s cool too. But I love when artists grit their teeth. I still watch battle raps.”

As K.Dot sees it, the conversation is less about any particular year and more indicative of how he always tries to approach his music.

“It was always just the continuum,” he said. “What I will say about this year, it was more from a space of—I think a lot of people was putting rap to the back. And you didn’t see that grit. You didn’t see that bite anymore. So I always took that into consideration going into any time in my music.”

Lamar later summarized his immediate thoughts after that aforementioned Grammys sweep, revealing that he was “just thinking about the culture, really.”

This is a key part of how Lamar sees his larger purpose, he explained, adding hope that he will one day see newer artists furthering these same ideas in their own way.

While words like “post-beef” get thrown around, elements of Lamar and Drake’s headlines-amassing feud would appear to still be quite active. Just this week, Drake noticeably tweaked the LeBron James line in “Nonstop” after the Lakers star was seen at Lamar's The Pop Out back in June.

More recently, LeBron was filmed rapping along to Lamar's GNX track “Man at the Garden.”

Meanwhile, “Not Like Us” is currently at the center of a defamation lawsuit from Drake against Universal Music Group. To be clear, Drake is not suing Lamar, with lawyers stating in court docs that the case is instead “entirely about UMG.”

A spokesperson for UMG later called the claims “Illogical.”