“I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. This was huge. I could feel it. And before I was halfway through Not Like Us, I knew — oh my God — this is historic.”
That’s when it began.
Not the beef. A showdown between Kendrick and Drake had “been brewing in a pot,” as Drake put it, for over a decade. And to be honest, it’d been years since I had really paid attention to rap like that – We gon get back to that for the record – so I wasn’t overly invested in the beef. I figured Kendrick would have the lyrics. Drake would have the songs. It’s a rap beef. Count me in. But no, not the beef.
Not the breakdown. I’m not sure how far we were into recording that episode of The Tedcastby the time my spinning mind spun off this particular moment of mind blown recall about listening to Not Like Us. No, not the breakdown.
It was the moment I fell back in love with hip hop.
And do you know what today is?
That’s right. “It’s our anniversary!”
(If you sang that in your head, you are in the right place. If you sang it out loud – You’re definitely home. – you might want to go ahead and subscribe.)
She was old school, when I was just a shorty Never knew throughout my life she would be there for me – Common, I Used to Love H.E.R.
I’m 52. Hip-hop is 51. I was there when rap was born. When you never heard it on the radio. When you had to dub it off your cousin’s mixtape. The first record I ever bought – Yes. Record. I get it. I’m old. – was Rapper’s Delight. Whether you consider 52 old or not, we can all agree that rap is my contemporary. And it is my music.
It influences the way that I walk, the way that I talk, the way that I dress – We gon get back to that for the record. — It is my music.
So when a seismic saga like this Kendrick v. Drake beef hits, I don’t just hear it — I feel it in my bones. And I’m not alone. The culture felt it. The world did.
For me, it started the morning of May 4th. It was a Saturday. I was planning to get up and get some stuff done around the house. I grabbed my phone and social media… was… WHOA… You know the frenetic vibe of a timeline when EVERYBODY got jokes, comments or both.
Kendrick…? Drake…?
It was all a haze. Alex had shown me Like That, with its pithy “mutha[subscribe for expletives] The Big 3” rhetorical flourish. So as I pre-caffeine stumbled out of my bedroom, I wondered, “Maybe he knows–”
“DID YOU HEAR IT?!”
Alex comes bounding up the stairs. He was turning 19 the next day and it was one of those moments when I was interacting on one level and wondering what he did with the little kid who used to run around here on another.
“What? Everybody’s going nuts. What is going on?”
Drake had dropped Family Matters. Alex pressed play and held the phone up in my direction, him at the top of the stairs, me a few steps from my bedroom door.
Sandra*: Maybe in this song, you shouldn’t start by saying–
Drake: Ni-[subscribe for expletives]-a I said it / I know that you mad / I’ve emptied the clip over friendlier jabs / You mentioned my seed / Now deal with his dad / I gotta go bad / I gotta go bad…
* We gon get back to that for the record.
Alex just stares at the phone… but really Drake, then at me, then the phone again, but really Drake… because… is this real life?
We stand there for a moment of “Well, that just happened.” Alex heads back down to his room. And I go to brush my teeth, get dressed, and hurriedly backtrack through:
6:16 in LA
Euphoria
Taylor Made Freestyle
All caught up, I walk into the kitchen–
“DID YOU HEAR IT?!”
Alex comes bounding up the stairs.
“Nah, I was catching up. I haven’t listened to it aga–”
“NO. Kendrick dropped.”
We stand shoulder to shoulder at the top of the stairs. Alex presses play.
Kendrick: Dear Adonis, I’m sorry that that man is your father…
Alex and I turn slowly and hold each other’s slack jawed gaze.
Is Kendrick talking to the man’s son?
Neither of us actually asks the question. But we’re both asking the question.
Because… we both KNOW he is not talking to the man’s son. And I stopped to absorb it, because somewhere along the way, my son had learned from me that, as the saying goes, “There’s rules to this [subscribe for expletives].”
At this point, I’m already full “YIKES” face – You know… When you use your neck muscles to spread your bottom lip in a futile attempt to escape head first into your own torso.
Alex just stares at the phone… but really Kendrick, then at me, then the phone again, but really Kendrick… because… is this real life?
The song ends. “You think Drake is Ja Rule?,” I ask, having told him the story when he told me about First Person Shooter.
“Nah, it’ll hurt him, but he’ll keep his fans.” The night Alex and his twin, Maya, were born, I had things I wanted to tell them… read them… play for them. That night, as I tried to make myself useful and contain my excitementfearjoyanxietyfearlove so as to not disturb my wife, when she could rest. I mean, clearly she had done the heavy lifting.
Anyway, that night one of the things I downloaded into their cultural DNA was Rock Box by Run DMC. I always loved the song. And then Mr. Barksdale taught it to us in band at I.S. 320. And then – This is the part I really remember them enjoying at about 3 hours old – Mr. Barksdale had the band play it at assembly and my best friend at the time and brother for life, Dwayne, and me rap it! (Right now, I’m assuming you are as enthralled as they were.)
How could my children possibly know me and not know rap music? How could they possibly know me and not know that I love rap beefs? LOVE.
Jay-Nas…
Biggie-Pac…
Did I pull up ringside when Nicki Minaj and Remy Ma got into it?
Did I mention that I love rap beefs?
Man… I watched Run battle Kool Moe Dee on WPIX!
I’M TRYING TO TELL Y’ALL THAT I HAVE SEEN SOME RAP BEEFS!
But after listening to Kendrick methodically break Drake down, making his way through all the Grahams, ending with Aubrey, to whom he recommended ayahuasca – That might have seemed kinder in a different context – I was fascinated.
I jumped on YouTube and dove in that Kendrick-Drake beef rabbit hole like it was a swimming pool full of liquor. But for all the reactions and breakdowns – and there are some smart, funny people out there – I felt like something was getting lost, an explanation for our collective fascination. And then it hit me:
Teachers teach / and do the world good / Kings just rule / and most are never understood. — KRS-One, “My Philosophy”
I’d been watching the battle that was unfolding in rap up to May 4 for our entire lives. Ultimately, what we — from 19-year-olds who legit (and disrespectfully, I might add) refer to the 90s as the “1900s,” to greybeards who are this close to shutting down their debit cards — were responding to and engrossed by in this battle is that it was always much bigger than either of them.
This was the epic tale of hip hop: Virtue vs. Vice.
I haven’t always described it that way, but back to the days when I was the young one bounding around places, I have talked about the PE–NWA Fork In The Road. For those for whom that played a bit jargon-y, that would be rap groups Public Enemy and Ni[subscribe for expletives]az Wit Attitudes [sic].
PE represented the Virtue path. Now, I’m not speaking to the personal character, lives, or decisions of individuals. I’m speaking to what these groups came to represent in the culture. Chuck D’s voice was the one that forever etched “1989!” into rap (and film) lore as he rallied the culture to “Fight The Power!”
NWA represented the Vice path. No doubt, they were as they claimed, “the CNN of the streets.” And anyone who denies the massive impact of [subscribe for expletives] Tha Police [sic] is, in terms I would have used when I was about the age Alex is now, fakin’ the funk.
But I think we can all agree that when Chuck D belted out “You’re headed for self-destruction!,” he probably had sentiments in mind like:
“When I’m called off / I got a sawed off / Squeeze the trigger / And bodies are hauled off” — Ice Cube, “Straight Outta Compton”
To choose the Virtue path is to aspire to the best of who we are. To choose the Vice path is to aspire to satisfying our personal appetites and desires. That is way oversimplified. I get it. So I’ll give you something concrete that might help:
Platonic Virtues:
Wisdom Courage Moderation Justice
Vices, then, would be:
Ignorance Cowardice Gluttony Injustice
The PE path led to protests.
The NWA path led to parties.
The culture, though respectful of the protests, overwhelmingly chose the party. - We won’t be getting back to the party for the record. It died.
Alex’s senior year of high school, he decided to join the wrestling team. Anyone who knows me or who noticed that I go by Coach Orlando can probably guess how fired up I was. But knowing him, I asked if it’d be best if I stay away for his first meet. He preferred it that way. But I got a call from him after the match.
“How’d it go?”
“I lost.”
“Your first time.”
“Yeah, but it was cool. The guy was experienced or whatever. But he kept trying to pin me and I just kept fighting and fighting and keeping him from pinning me. After, my coach said I was tough. And the guys on the team were saying it, too. And… thanks.”
Now, I did not see that coming.
“Proud of you. See you when you get home.”
My boy—my young man—had found out he could be tough and got to feel how good it can feel to show up as himself, fully. And my smile lasted for a while.
“Pssst... I see dead people.”
No lie, I raised my hands to cover my mouth in what I assume is the universal signal of “Not like this… Not like this.”
Had I been close enough to Drake for it to matter, the second I heard those words, I would’ve yelled, “RUN!”
I’m sure it wouldn’t have stopped Not Like Us from killing him. But at least his final memory would have been of running free.
Then, the bass dropped.
Fast forward and Drake is suing his record label over a rap beef — We gon get back to that for the record — but I don’t want to skip over some very important lessons I think we can gain from the epic showdown we witnessed over the last year.
This first series is going to explore some of those.
Here’s one:
Know who you are.
Actually. [subscribe for expletives]that.
Decide who you are. Decide it every day. Decide it every moment.
Because all that practice may pay off when your opponent, whether physical, mental or spiritual, seems stronger… and more experienced… and eager to pin you. You may just draw on that toughness, on that empathy, on that courage, on that love. And you will know you can because you will know it’s there. Because you chose it. You chose who you were going to be.
Listen, I love a great strategy. That is, literally, what I do. But another famous philosopher once said:
“Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” — Mike Tyson
A great strategy is like a great map, but should the winds of life blow through and take your map with it, your WHO is the most powerful compass you’ll ever use.
“If you were to rule or govern a certain industry All inside this room right now would be in misery No one would get along nor sing a song ’Cause everybody’d be singing for the king, am I wrong?” — KRS-One, “My Philosophy”
We witnessed a prophecy fulfilled. A clash of rap titans. An epic battle between Virtue and Vice.
Hip hop has not been the same since we all came to know and love Mustard. Since that beat dropped. Since Kendrick Lamar, knowing himself, thoroughly returned to Compton, where he learned lessons of Virtue and Vice — however complicated. Where he developed a love for hip hop. Where he developed into one of the greatest artists we’ve known.
Hip hop has not been the same since Drake found himself cut off from his usual supply lines and seemed to have no real home to which he could retreat, no place where could find himself. There are prices to be paid for taking the Vice path. Unchecked ego is a hazard to humanity. Imagine losing and being so incapable of accepting it that you feed your fans copium and get them to rally around you and sincerely believe you won, despite all evidence to the contrary. (I am, of course, only referring to this rap beef.) Bottom line: If you don’t know your you, how do you expect to know your us.
Hip hop has not been the same since Kendrick Lamar, fueled by righteous indignation, a profound love for the culture, and a hate for Drake that burns with the fury of a thousand suns, did the unthinkable:
He took Virtue, the worldview that we ought to aspire to the best in us, and wrapped it in a Vice package.
History lessons and that instrumental? It was too much. Too. Much. He stood over the rap landscape, planted a foot on each of our divergent paths and declared that all rap roads go through him for the foreseeable future.
We were powerless against it.
I’m glad I was alive to see it. This is my music. And we got that ol’ thing back.
Not Like Us will play at your family reunion in 20 years.
And I believe that is, in large part, because we wanted and needed to remember the best of ourselves… in this time.
Not saying that’s a relevant theme for folk right now, but… We gon get back to that for the record.
“Sometimes you gotta pop out and show [subscribe for expletives].”
The night of May 4, 2024, I had a little fun. It’s the eve of Alex’s 19th birthday. He’d gone out with friends.
I walk downstairs, real serious. Walked in on his crew. Winked at one of the guys — the signal.
“Hey, I know some of you weren’t around back then, but when Alex and Maya were little, I’d make them a birthday song. Cute little rap. I used to burn CDs with their favorites and sneak it on the end.”
One of his boys starts grinning.
“Anyway, I just got a little sentimental with them turning 19. I made something new. Thought I’d share it before I head out.”
Alex walks out of his room mid-sentence, panic in his eyes.
“Wait. What? You serious?”
“Oh yeah. It’s just about how much I love you.”
“No. No no no no no—”
“Just give it a listen. Then I’m gone.”
And I press play.
“Pssst... I see dead people.”
That intro hits, the room erupts, and he gives me a look — part disbelief, part fury, all love — and walks away laughing. We were all in on the joke.
I’m pretty sure we made up for my little joke when my wife, Daphne, and I took Alex to The Pop-Out to celebrate his graduation. I won’t disclose which one of us went craziest when Kendrick put us through that Not Like Us repeat cycle. But I thank Alex for allowing me to close my track suit jacket and hide my sweaty T-shirt with dignity.
I know other 52-year-old dads don’t scream curse-laden lyrics next to their son.
I know other sons may not feel comfortable screaming curse-laden lyrics next to their dad.
But for a year, now, this thing we each love has become this thing we both love.
So, who cares how other fathers and sons get down?
Us (June 19, 2025)
They not like us.
On Alignment is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Thanks for reading On Alignment! This post is public so feel free to share it.
“(If you sang that in your head, you are in the right place. If you sang it out loud – You’re definitely home. – you might want to go ahead and subscribe.)”
“(If you sang that in your head, you are in the right place. If you sang it out loud – You’re definitely home. – you might want to go ahead and subscribe.)”
Yes, and yes, and yes!
Loved this piece. Savored it. Thank you.
Happy to see you here friend!