"I just wanted to give some advice to the young people out there, never get into a rap battle with Kendrick Lamar." On February 2 in Los Angeles, at the 67^th Grammy Awards ceremony, Sean Ono Lennon, son of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, quipped this warning to the young artists in the room. During the evening, Lamar, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2018 for his album DAMN., scooped up five awards with his track "Not Like Us," both an anthem for the Black and Latino communities of the West Coast and a bomb in the face of hip-hop's other superstar, Drake, 37.

For the past year, the two artists have been engaged in one of those titanic clashes that rap fans revel in. Among other grievances, Lamar criticizes his Toronto colleague, the son of an African-American drummer from Memphis and a white Canadian educator, for appropriating Black Californian culture. In "Not Like Us," he also points to his opponent's alleged penchant for very young girls ("Say, Drake, I hear you like 'em young"), and accuses him of surrounding himself with "certified pedophiles" on his security team, hijacking the title of Drake's album, Certified Lover Boy (2021).

Lamar, who will be touring the United States and Europe with singer SZA from April 19 to August 9 (with a stop at the Paris La Défense Arena on July 15 and 16), and who is working on a film, Whitney Springs, due for release in July, doesn't miss a chance to trounce his best enemy. The opportunity was just too good on February 9, at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, during his half-time performance at the Super Bowl, the American football championship final watched by over 120 million television viewers.

You have 85.79% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.