Kendrick Lamar and Drake beef: What's the latest?

 

Kendrick Lamar's show-stopping performance at Super Bowl on Sunday was, for many, a victory lap following his knock-out blow in a long-running beef with fellow rapper Drake.

The Compton star's entire half-time set seemed to swiftly build to a performance of Not Like Us, his Grammy-winning takedown of Drake which was one of last year's biggest hits... but is also now the subject of a potential libel case brought by the Canadian.

Drake was performing in Australia on Sunday, dishing out cash to several of his fans at a Melbourne show, before the whole world tuned in to watch his rival.

The origins of the argument go back more than decade. But here's a quick reminder of where we are now and how we got here over a heated 12 months:

'The big three'

In March last year, producer and former Drake collaborator Metro Boomin' and rapper Future released a collaborative album called We Don't Trust You.

Hidden in the tracklisting was a song called Like That with an uncredited verse by Kendrick Lamar... and it was explosive.

In it, Lamar took aim at rapper J Cole's previous claim - that himself, Kendrick and Drake were "the big three" - proclaiming: "[forget] the big three - it's just big me".

After years of tension, the fuse had been lit.

Three become two

Soon after, Drake appeared to address Kendrick's verse at a concert in Florida.

He told the crowd: "I know that no matter what, it's not a [person] on this earth that could ever [expletive] with me in my life!"

Two weeks later, J Cole offered his own reply to Kendrick's verse, on a track called 7 Minute Drill, but he soon realised it had been a huge "mis-step".

Speaking on stage at the Dreamville Festival in North Carolina, he apologised for the song, praised Lamar's back catalogue and asked for forgiveness.

Boiling point

Drake then released a song called Push Ups (Drop and Give Me 50), in which he took aim at Lamar's height, calling him a midget (he's 5ft 4in tall) and a record label puppet who's forced to collaborate with pop artists.

"Maroon 5 need a verse, you better make it witty / Then we need a verse for the Swifties," he cajoled.

He also took issue with Lamar's position in the hip-hop hierarchy, suggesting other artists had overtaken him.

More rappers, including Kanye West and Rick Ross got drawn into the feud. But Drake's attention was solely focused on Lamar.

The Toronto star goaded his US adversary by dropping yet another diss track called Taylor Made Freestyle, which suggested Lamar was too cowardly to release music in the same week as Taylor Swift's The Tortured Poets Department.

What's more he used artificial intelligence to deliver the insults in the voices of Lamar's heroes, Tupac Shakur and Snoop Dogg.

Kendrick comes out fighting

Lamar finally responded with a full-blown, six-minute riposte on record.

Titled Euphoria (a reference to the HBO show where Drake serves as an executive producer), it saw him brand Drake as "predictable", a "master manipulator" and a "habitual liar", while calling his sparring partner's parenting skills into question.

"Let me say I'm the biggest hater," he rapped. "I hate the way that you walk, the way that you talk, I hate the way that you dress."

Less than 72 hours later, he followed up with a second song called 6:16 in LA.

In it, he claimed that someone inside Drake's organisation was leaking damaging information.

"You must be a terrible person/ Everyone inside your team is whispering that you deserve it."