By: Brayden Peters
The third of May arguably has to be one of the wildest days in rap history. Drake responded to Kendrick Lamar's disses in "euphoria" and "6:16 in LA" with "Family Matters," which dissed Lamar. Drake made the claim that Lamar's wife, Whitney Alford, cheated on him with his creative partner Dave Free. Also, he claimed that one of Lamar's children is actually Dave Free's. 52 minutes later, Lamar dropped another diss track titled "meet the grahams." This is unheard of as it takes well more than an hour for rappers to create a song and record it. In a way, it is almost like Lamar anticipated that Drake would drop "Family Matters."
"meet the grahams" brings in a very haunting instrumental made by producer The Alchemist. You could hear the same four notes being played on a piano in a minor key for most of the song. Already, it makes you feel uncomfortable. What was to come was absolutely unexpected.
To start things off, Lamar talks about Drake's son, Adonis Graham. The lyrics make it out as if Lamar is writing a letter to him. Lamar "tells" Adonis how bad his father his, saying he is lazy, claiming that he is hiding other children that he is the father of and that he isn't a superstar. This is interesting as Drake initially didn't claim Adonis to be his son until June of 2018. This was a little under a year after Adonis was born, which was October 11, 2017. Lamar even said in the song that he would be a better mentor to Adonis compared to his father. Outside of that, some of Lamar's lyrics in the first third of the song were brutal and honestly harsh. For example, in one of the first lines of the song, he said, "I look at him [Drake] and wish your grandpa woulda wore a condom." This gave a hint that this was more than just some rap battle.
Lamar then proceeds to talk about Drake's parents, Sandra and Dennis Graham. He blames them for Drake's supposed issues, such as his poor treatment of women, gambling issues, tendency to play the victim and psychopathic and manipulative actions. Lamar continues to be ruthless with his lyrics, saying "Mm-mm, your son's a sick man with sick thoughts, I think n*****/like him should die." What Lamar says next left many baffled.
He continues the second verse by claiming that Drake is a pedophile and that he has sex offenders signed with his label OVO. The only known sex offender that was with OVO is Baka Not Nice, who was arrested and charged in 2014 with forcing a 22-year-old woman into prostitution, along with taking her money. It has not been confirmed, though, if there are any other rappers that are signed with the label that are sex offenders.
Then, Lamar claims that Drake was running a sex trafficking ring in his home. Although it is unknown how true this is, Drake did admit in "Chicago Freestyle" that his head of security, Chubbs, finds women in a city that Drake will have a concert in and choose the right one to have a hookup with Drake after the concert. However, if the sex-trafficking ring is true, along with Drake being a pedophile, this will severely damage his reputation, which might make him wind up in prison with P. Diddy. As a matter of fact, Lamar claims in "meet the grahams" that Drake's home, which he calls the Embassy, will be raided by the police just like P. Diddy's home.
As if this song wasn't crazy enough, it gets even crazier in the third verse. In this verse, Lamar "talks" to a girl that is apparently an unclaimed child of Drake. Lamar shows sympathy towards this mysterious girl when it comes to the fact that Drake isn't in her life. Also, Lamar says that Drake should be a real father instead of going to Turks to have sex with other women and take percocet. This is just a claim, though, and it is unknown if this is true.
Although it isn't completely known who the girl is, speculation has gone online that it is a girl by the name of Eternity Gallardo, who was featured in the "All My Life" music video by Lil Durk and J. Cole. No further information has come out if this is true, as Drake has denied the fact that he has a secret daughter.
To wrap the song up, Lamar "talks" to Drake, and he continues to barrage him with insults. Lamar says that Drake has drug and drinking issues outside of the numerous issues Lamar claimed. Things get even darker when Lamar says that Drake lied about many things. Everytime Lamar said the word "lied," a menacing background voice of Lamar would say "lied," too. What helps bring this darkness and sense of dread is the intensity in his voice, which is typical of him. He then drops one of the coldest lines of the song to end it by saying, "F*** a rap battle, this a long life battle with yourself."
If anything, this song ended the rap battle between Lamar and Drake. Its brutality and numerous accusations put Drake in a very rough situation. Regardless if many of these accusations are true or false, they still will hurt his reputation in one way or another. It is clear that Lamar came out with the victory in this rap battle, thanks to "meet the grahams."