The Drake and K-Dot beef may have blown up last year, but the ripples of their feud were felt throughout 2025. Drake unquestionably lost the beef. (And then he did the most un-hip hop thing possible by taking Lamar to court over it). But there is a question their feud brought up that continued to be asked in 2025: What does authentic Blackness look like in global pop music?
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I’m not going to rehash the beef—it had Black America in a chokehold in the spring of 2024. But there is a verse that brought this question, simmering beneath the surface for years, into the spotlight.
In Not Like Us, the record that ended the feud between the rapper from Compton and Mr. Canada, Lamar points out Drake’s habit of adopting Black American style, slang, and musical trends without truly belonging to the culture by saying ‘you not a colleague, you a f*ckin’ colonizer.’
This metaphor implies that Drake mines Black culture for profit and authenticity in the same way historical colonizers exploited the land of people they invaded. But in this case, it’s cultural elements like Southern hip-hop and Black vernacular.
See, here’s the thing. Drake may have a father who is from Memphis, TN. But he was not raised by him nor is he from that city. The man is a biracial Canadian who was raised by his mother, a white woman. Many see him as an outsider to the Black American experience he tries to embody in his music, making his engagement with our culture come off as exploitative…and that was Kendrick’s point.
The feud between these two men pivoted with that verse. It was all fun and games until Lamar put that on wax. Once he said that he forced a larger conversation that continued into 2025. One that has not truly been settled yet.
Drake is hip-hop’s biggest hitmaker. That’s undeniable. It’s why Billboard named him the #1 R&B/Hip-Hop Artist of the 21st Century. But that doesn’t mean he was universally beloved. The reason why the metaphor resonated so deeply was because many thought he was guilty of cultural theft and commodification of Black American culture.
This forced Black America to look deeply in 2025 and ask hard questions about who gets to represent our culture on a global stage. Hip Hop is not a niche genre that is unique to America. It may have started in the Bronx, but it is beloved by people from Japan to France.
Before that verse, many were not thinking deeply about who has the right to represent us around the world. But Kendrick calling Drake a colonizer inspired many to write essays, make videos and post on social media about who has the right to represent Black culture to the world.
This conversation was a long time coming. But Kendrick and Drake forced us to have it in 2025.
Straight From 
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