The West now holds the rap crown.

Drake ruled for over ten years, despite several artists’ attempts to dethrone him. Pusha T caused damage, but the Canadian rapper managed to survive his long-standing rival’s attempt to destroy his character. It feels different, though, given his recent feud with Kendrick Lamar. The country’s current number one hit, “Not Like Us,” is a biting diss track that sounds like a party hymn. It must be bizarre to be surrounded by people who are all yelling and dancing that you might be a pedophile, especially if you’re a well-known hitmaker like Drake. It was obvious that he underestimated his rival.

Kendrick Lamar was methodical and thoughtful. From hinting at the impending Dennis Graham Dossier with the cover art for “6:16 in LA” to exposing the whole picture with “Meet the Grahams,” he appeared to have everything planned out in advance. The rapper from Compton didn’t post on social media until it was to release a song, and he didn’t give any information or records to well-known streams.

Drake adopted an alternative strategy. He laughed and teased on his Instagram Stories during this back and forth, acting as an unofficial representative for well-known streamer DJ Akademiks, and “leaked” music without permission. Drake, in contrast to Kendrick, also had to handle several other feuds concurrently. Perhaps his mocking went too far, though, because Drake was forced to remove the song “Taylor Made Freestyle,” which featured artificial intelligence (AI) to rap in the voices of 2Pac and Snoop Dogg, after the Shakur estate threatened to take the song down from Drake’s YouTube channel and social media profiles.

Kendrick made the most intimate diss records to date by taking advantage of all of this. With each song, he carefully conveyed to his opponent that he does not reflect the feelings of the culture, taking aim at both his character and cultural status. We dissected Kendrick’s strategy into five distinct ways.