Kendrick Lamar's Stealth Attack on Drake Potentially Discovered by Fans

Fans following Kendrick Lamar's feud with Drake believe they have uncovered a stealth attack from the rapper from 2018.

Lamar and Drake, whose full name is Aubrey Drake Graham, have spent recent weeks lobbing insults and allegations at one another on a host of tracks as the long-established bad blood between the two reaches boiling point.

The current war of words got into full swing in March, when Lamar released "Like That," a cutting response to the Drake and J. Cole track "First Person Shooter." While J. Cole quickly bowed out of the brewing beef, Lamar and Drake have relentlessly attacked each other on tracks that have captivated fans ever since.

Over this past weekend alone, the rappers ramped up their back-and-forth with the release of four new diss tracks between them. In the tracks, they have talked about each other's families and lobbed unsavory allegations at one another.

Despite occasional collaborations, Drake and Lamar's feud has been going on for more than a decade, with the rappers taking shots at each other through their music and in the media. As such, fans have raked over old media to look for signs of the bad blood since the current rap beef took shape.

On May 7, one fan took to X, formerly Twitter, to share a screenshot of an Instagram post from 2017 that showed the sales tallies for Lamar and Drake's singles. The post, which showed that Lamar had achieved more sales than Drake, was liked by Drake, who also shared a comment.

"Amazing to see our music moving!!!" Drake is shown writing in the comments section.

The screenshot was juxtaposed with a snippet of the video for "All the Stars," Lamar's track that was featured on the soundtrack for the 2018 movie Black Panther.

"Can we bring it back to 2018 when Drake congratulated Kendrick for outselling him and Kendrick replied with a verse on the Black Panther album that said 'Don't Congratulate Me - I Don't Like You," wrote the X user who shared the post.

In the track, which featured SZA, Lamar rapped: "Tell me what you gon' do to me / Confrontation ain't nothin' new to me / You can bring a bullet, bring a sword, bring a morgue / But you can't bring the truth to me / F*** you and all your expectations / I don't even want your congratulations."

"I recognize your false confidence and calculated promises," Lamar went on. "All in your conversation / I hate people that feel entitled / Look at me crazy 'cause I didn't invite you / Oh, you important? You the moral to the story? You endorsin' / Mothaf****, I don't even like you."

As of press time, the X post has garnered more than 5.5 million views. Newsweek has contacted representatives of Lamar and Drake via email for comment.

"Listening back to a lot of his songs, I'm realizing he's talking directly to HIM. That's crazy," said one X user of Lamar's feelings regarding Drake.

"It's so OBVIOUS, which is why I personally get annoyed when people say the beef is new," the original poster responded. "It's been 10 years of jabs back and forth."

While the track in question could be seen as a swipe at track, it also likely represents the tumultuous relationship between Killmonger and T'Challa, characters respectively played by Michael B. Jordan and the late Chadwick Boseman in the Ryan Coogler-directed first installment of Black Panther.

The Black Panther album features an original score composed by Ludwig Göransson. Also included are original songs performed or curated by Lamar.

"All the Stars" was the first single to be released from the soundtrack album, in January 2018. In all, three singles were released from the project, the others being "King's Dead" and "Pray For Me."