Kendrick Lamar Fans & Drake Fans Are One & The Same: A Parasocial Paradox

Have you ever thought we, as fans, were working for Kendrick Lamar and Drake? For many in the rap world, Drake and Kendrick's place as leaders in hip-hop's commercial space couldn't be less different. The former is a reclusive and reluctant "savior" of the genre's traditions with massive acclaim for his album output. In contrast, the latter is an inescapable juggernaut that pushed rap forward and offered some of the genre's (and frankly, contemporary music's) most accessible and successful hits. However, their differences don't mean much when considering that they are playing the same game. It's two different types of shots at the goal of rap's throne in the commercial mainstream, two different headliners on the culture's biggest stages, and two transcendent artistries that make record labels detached from the culture a whole lot of money.

However, perhaps the saddest similarity between Kendrick Lamar and Drake is that they've cultivated equally obsessive corners of their larger fanbases that made their current feud of mutually assured lyrical destruction a whole lot messier. We're not talking about casual fans or fans of both or those who don't care at all, and this isn't (fully) an Animal Farm-core "it was impossible to say which was which" take. Stans of either MC are easily distinguishable if only going off of their taste; if they like one and dislike the other, that doesn't define one's character. We're talking about these die-hards that are just as susceptible to spreading bot rumors, fake tweets, personal attacks, and dismissals void of earnestness against their fave's opponent as they are to ignore these same claims against their champion blindly. They're not the real problem in this beef, but they are exposing it.

The Artistic Arguments

For one, the only rappers truly capable of avoiding any opponent's smoke are the top dogs, and Drake and Kendrick Lamar are unique in that regard. Sadly, many lyricists can continue a career with horrific allegations against them. But only a few across history have ever truly "survived" a rap beef loss against one of the greats, something that both K.Dot and Drizzy risked with their back-and-forth. As much as To Pimp A Butterfly and If You're Reading This It's Too Late operate on different realms, their alchemy produces the same potions. Hit records, cultural ubiquity, respect for their penmanship, brand partnerships, business ventures, and so much more through the capitalist structure of hip-hop's kiosk in the cultural marketplace. Their acceptance in the culture is very different, but that hasn't impacted their fanbases or success.

Drake faced a lot of unfair criticism in old-school hip-hop thought but persevered regardless to lead new generations. Kendrick Lamar is astonished on both sides but with lots of "overrated" shots at his rap style, deliveries, concepts, or less accessible material that doesn't pass the car test. But every single metric can be levied at the opposing side's fans. No Mr. Morale fan cared much about numbers in comparison to The Boy until these disses, and no OVO supporter believed still-present botting claims from unknown parties until they came against their captain's rival. Everyone's reaching for a sextuple entendre or clowning any attempts to do so for the other side. Kendrick fans are trying to beat him in a "Drake hating" competition, and Drake fans act like the support behind the biggest artist in the world is something that the world is always turning against.

The Personal Arguments

That perspective quickly manifested in ugly ways. Now fans stood by fake Drake tweets, misreadings of "Mother I Sober" and "DUCKWORTH.," presumptions about relationships with young women, and Instagram follows and real estate as hard evidence for cheating and fatherhood, all of which perpetuates female trauma as talking points to accuse. It's a narrative war now, but we don't have the luxury of foreseeing a future in which these claims don't become a much darker foreshadowing or reckoning, and nobody wants to see another Black man fall to the prison system. After all, the 6ix God's neighborhood was recently the victim of a reported shooting, in which an alleged security guard was struck. No rap beef should go this far, but fans unwittingly contribute to this warped misinterpretation that could lead to disaster.

That's not to say that Kendrick Lamar or Drake shouldn't be held accountable for these alleged crimes if true. But who wants rap beef to bring about violence or lawsuits as a "Gotcha"? Fans' completely unabashed engagement with the ugly parts of these suppositions becomes moot when you consider that many of these skeletons were already out of the closet.

No tweet from Kendrick's partner's brother or testimony from an alleged Drake victim can change that we knew about Kendrick's team threatening to pull music from Spotify in support of XXXTENTACION and other possibly removed artists (which the team called a double standard callout) or that we already saw that Denver concert video or heard the nature of Drake's texts to Millie Bobby Brown, talking to her about boys and missing her. Either way, fans blindly stand behind an allegedly terrible person, which isn't damnation until they engage in selective outrage.

Why Kendrick Lamar & Drake Are The Problem Fans Are Self-Exposing

But this celebrity culture trap refuses to distinguish art and character. Kendrick Lamar fans and Drake fans are one and the same because, when the other side argues against their fave's opponent, it feels like they are talking to themselves instead of the music. They want validation in their righteousness because they connect with "Money Trees," and they want to flaunt success against all opposition because they remember the "Marvin's Room" days. Because victory would be saying something about themselves. There's nothing wrong with art connecting to you despite its circumstances, but those circumstances are a much more important part of your life than the music itself is. As such, making that distinction and accepting that support of art doesn't replace actual values would save many of these reaching fans from letting the art blind their hearts.

There can still be a "winner" if we fully embrace the kayfabe of it all, and in that art-driven regard, Kendrick seems to have taken the crown by rap's metrics as a culture and art form. Like he said, he is not our savior. It's also important to note that these two predominantly white fanbases on rap's biggest stage represent the industry-wide problem of exploiting Black art, relationship issues, financial success, political strife, or cultural imposter syndrome for a sense of superiority. The artists are either "the villain" or "one of the good ones," but neither take from this sub-sect of fans engages with more important issues at hand. Drake and Kendrick Lamar know this too well and effectively leveraged these statuses in this beef one way or another. They fed these specific, terminally online fans the information as master manipulators. They are not like us.