Kendrick Lamar Defeats Drake By Unanimous Decision With “Not Like Us” Video
Kendrick Lamar has landed the knockout punch on Drake, releasing his “Not Like Us” music video on Thursday (July 4).
Upon release, the highly anticipated visuals broke the YouTube record, 1.3 million, for most views in an hour for a rap song in 2024. The video accumulated over 2 million views in under 2 hours of publication on the platform. As of Friday (July 5), Kenny’s video has skyrocketed to 13.2 million views on YouTube alone.
As for the song’s visuals, the music video is teeming with Easter Eggs and references hitting back at Drake’s accusations. So, here’s a few. For starters, “Not Like Us” is directed by both Kendrick and his best friend/business partner Dave Free. Free was the man Drake claimed in both “Family Matters” and “The Heart Part 6” to be the father of one of Lamar’s kids. Drizzy’s two mentioned diss tracks claimed that his actions strained Lamar and Free’s relationship, but the video paints a vastly different picture. Dave also appears in the visuals, giving K. Dot dap as he does business on the pgLang Light Phone II.
Another scene finds K. Dot wearing all-Black in a dimly lit room, posturing and looking down. A man wearing an all-Black sheisty mask, hoodie, and gloves is seen trying to creep up on the Compton emcee from behind. However, the unknown figure is immediately pulled away from Lamar. Based on this shadowy figure’s attire, one can deduce that this is a reference to Drake’s appearance for the cover his Dark Lane Demo Tapes project, where he’s donning the same outfit.
Kendrick Lamar's 'Not Like Us' has already broken Eminem's 'Houdini's record for most watched Rap music video in first 24 hours on YouTube this year (13.5M views)?? pic.twitter.com/RsvFhNUTc7
— Hiiipower – TDE News (@hiiipowers) July 5, 2024
In a subsequent scene, K. Dot plays off Drizzy’s “Push-Ups” diss track. He appears to be in a prison-like room and doing a couple of push-ups across two cinderblocks, disregarding Drake’s previous barbs. After this, Lamar appears in front of a blue backdrop, destroying a goofy-looking owl pi?ata with a stick to the tune of the “Wop, Wop, Wop, Wop, Wop” bars. A hilarious disclaimer can be seen during this portion of the video, stating that “No OVHoes were harmed during the making of this video.” This leads directly into Lamar playing and dancing through the children’s game, hopscotch, as the song reaches the viral “A-minorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr” portion of the track. Sneaky.
The music video suddenly shifts to an overhead shot of Black California natives shouting the “They’re not like us” chorus, grooving and two-stepping to Drake’s demise.
But the true highlight of the “Not Like Us” video has to be Kendrick appearing alongside his fiancée, Whitney Alford, and their kids. Lamar raps, “The family matter and the truth of the matter, it was God’s plan to show y’all the liar,” as he and Alford lift their gaze to meet the camera. The shot pans out, showing Lamar, Alford, and their kids playing and laughing in the room. Whitney then gets her moment to shoot at Drizzy, joyously Blood-walking in the face of the Canadian man’s salacious allegations. Kendrick and their two kids can be seen sitting on the couch cheering on Alford as she breaks that sh*t down (Unbiased note: not gonna lie, she hit that mothaf**ka, for real).
The video then ends with a moody shot of Kendrick Lamar staring down a caged barnyard owl. It’s a tense moment as it’s unclear what K. Dot will do next to the bird. But, with his arms to his back, Lamar decides to leave the bird untouched, locked in its cage, and walks away, seemingly signaling the end of the Drake-Kendrick Lamar feud.
Other appearances throughout the video include DeMar DeRozan, who used to play for the Toronto Raptors, DJ Mustard, Tommy the Clown, Ab-Soul, Jay Rock, ScHoolboy Q, Punch, Top Dawg, and Punch.
The video also features a fiery, unreleased song snippet from Lamar. Watch the “Not Like Us” visuals above.
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