Breaking Down All of Drake’s Shots at Kendrick (and Half the Rap Game) on “Family Matters”

Unlike his approach on “Push Ups,” Drake focuses most of his attention on Kendrick throughout “Family Matters,” making heavy accusations about the Compton rapper, his partner, and children (which would be the catalyst for Dot dropping his “Meet the Grahams” response track minutes later). Drake covers a wide array of topics, accusing Kendrick of being an unfaithful, absentee father who is physically violent towards his partner.

“‘Maybe in this song, you shouldn't start by saying’/ Nigga, I said it, I know that you mad/ I've emptied the clip over friendlier jabs/ You mentioned my seed, now deal with his dad/ I gotta go bad, I gotta go bad”

In the opening seconds of the song, we hear Drake’s mother Sandra Graham asking her son not to open the track with “nigga,” but he does it anyway, as a way to respond to Kendrick’s line on “Euphoria” when he said, “I even hate when you say the word “nigga.” Then Drake references Dot’s “friendly fade” line, saying that he’s ready to press the red button because Kendrick mentioned his son. When Drake says he’s “emptied the clip over friendlier jabs,” he could also be referring to the Twitter rant from Meek Mill that prompted him to drop “Charged Up” and “Back to Back” (or one of many other petty feuds over the years).

“I mean it's true a nigga slimed me for my AP” 

Drake is confirming the rumors behind Kendrick’s bar in “Euphoria” where he name-dropped a Toronto restaurant called New Ho King because the rapper had been robbed at one in 2009.

“You the Black messiah wifin' up a mixed queen/ And hit vanilla cream to help out with your self-esteem/ On some Bobby shit, I wanna know what Whitney need/ All that puppy love was over in y'all late teens”

Drake is using Kendrick’s partner’s biracial identity to make him look like a hypocrite for his racially charged disses on songs like “Euphoria” when he’s married to a mixed-race woman. Then Drake uses a Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston reference as a double entendre to imply Whitney and Dot have a strained relationship, while potentially hinting at physical abuse. He also insinuates that Dot has been unfaithful with white women, something that has already been revealed by Kendrick himself on Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers’ cut “World Wide Steppers.”

“Your baby mama captions always screamin', ‘Save me’/ You did her dirty all her life, you tryna make peace/ I heard that one of them little kids might be Dave Free/ Don't make it Dave Free's/ 'Cause if your GM is your BM secret BD/ Then this is all makin’ plenty fuckin sense to me”

Drake continues to imply that Kendrick has been physically abusive with Whitney, before dropping the bombshell that he “heard” that the rapper’s manager and close friend Dave Free is actually the father to one of his two children. Then he interpolates Sexyy Red’s hook on “Rich Baby Daddy” but uses “free” to reference Dave Free.

“Your man a lil' K, we call that shit a mini Drac'/ He always said I overlooked him, I was starin' straight/ These bars go over Kenny head no matter what I say”

This is basically just Drake calling Kendrick short in a bunch of different ways, using the double entendre of “these bars go over Kenny’s head no matter what I say” to brag about his wordplay and saying he literally speaks over him.

Drake dedicates the entirety of the final minutes on “Family Matters” to Kendrick, layering it with petty jabs and dark accusations about the Compton rapper’s personal life. He opens the verse by talking about how he thinks Dot is overrated and gets love from critics just for “opening his mouth.” Then Drake misgenders Kendrick’s trans Aunt, who Dot talked about in “Auntie Diaries,” asking for his “uncle” so he can “talk to the man of the house.” 

Drake addresses Dot’s line on “Euphoria” about wanting to “inherit the beef” from Pharrell next, challenging Kendrick to take all of P’s jewelry back from him. From there, Drake refutes Dot’s claims that he sent a cease-and-desist for “Like That,” countering by accusing Kendrick of calling Tupac’s estate to sue him for “Taylor Made Freestyle.” 

And that’s only the beginning of it. Drake references the story that Kendrick told on “Duckworth” about his father being robbed by Top Dawg in their youth. “Your daddy got robbed by Top, you Stunna and Wayne, like father, like son/Anthony set up the plays, Kojo be chargin' you double for nothin,” Drake raps, using Birdman and Lil Wayne’s Like Father, Like Son album title to play on the running theme that Top has Kendrick locked in a bad deal and essentially robbing him. Then Drake says that Duval Kojo Bankole Timothy, who is credited on Kendrick’s Mr. Morale, is overcharging him.

After refuting the idea of a “Big 3” by saying it’s only “Big D and there’s video proof,” which is a reference to his own NSFW leaked video, Drake gets personal. He says each of their respective “light skin kids” should play at the park, but then implies that Kendrick is ashamed that his child isn’t darker than him. 

Drake doubles down on his accusations that Kendrick has assaulted his partner, rapping, “When you put your hands on your girl, is it self-defense ‘cause she’s bigger than you?” Then he flips the Michael Jackson and Prince narrative that’s been running for the entire battle and proposes  that Kendrick might actually be more similar to Mike because “Michael was prayin' his features would change so people believe that he's actually white/ Top would make you do features for change, get on pop records and rap for the whites/ And wait, you say your brother Jermaine, but you wanted him to stay out of the light.” The end of that bar is a double entendre because Michael Jackson had a brother named Jermaine who never grew to be as successful as him, and Drake is also referencing J. Cole (whose real name is Jermaine) as a way to suggest that Kendrick never wanted to work with him despite their longtime friendship. 

Drake closes the verse with a bombshell, saying that Kendrick hired a crisis management team to “clean up the fact that you beat up your queen,” fully leaning into the narrative that Dot was physically abusive with Whitney in the past.

The Weeknd sent shots Drake’s way on We Still Don’t Trust You, and after Drake fired back at the singer’s management team on “Push Ups,” he now addresses the XO artist directly.

“Knew it was smoke when Abel hit us with the serenade/Nigga said, "Uh, uh"/ Almost started reachin' for my waist”

Drake makes a joke about how The Weeknd dissed him in a hilariously melodic way on “All to Myself,” singing like an angel instead of coming after him in a rap verse.

“If Drake shooters doing TikToks, nigga/ Realest shooter in your gang, that's P's brother, y'all ain't getting shit shot, nigga/ Can't listen to the stick talk in falsetto, save it for a hip-hop nigga/ You don't even be at home, dog, you a souvenir-out-the-gift-shop nigga/ Still mad about that one ho, we ain't even fuck, I just lip-locked with her”

Drake is replying directly to The Weeknd’s line on “All to Myself” where he sung “they shooter making TikToks,” which might have been a reference to Drake’s former bodyguard and OVO member Baka Not Nice. Drake jokes that he can’t listen to tough-guy shots that are fired in a falsetto tone, before pointing out that The Weeknd is never in Toronto and seemingly referencing rumors that the singer has beef with him because of a past relationship with Bella Hadid. The Weeknd and Hadid dated on and off from 2015 to 2019, and Drake previously name-dropped the Hadid family on Sadra’s Rose in 2018, rapping, “My house is full of supermodels just like Mohamad Hadid.” It’s unclear if that’s the woman that Drake is referring to here, but it now seems confirmed that their beef is tied to a past romantic relationship.

“Weeknd music gettin' played in all the spots where boys got a little more pride/ That's why all your friends dippin' to Atlanta, payin' just to find a tour guide/ Abel, run your fucking bread, need to buy some more chains for some more guys/ Let me find another street nigga I can take to the game courtside/ Let me get a used Ferrari for a rapper, take the nigga on a horse ride/ Anything to take the spotlight off the fact the boss is a drugged-out lil' punk sissy from the Northside”

Drake makes gay jokes about The Weeknd and his crew, before calling back some of his bars on “Push Ups” where he claimed that the singer’s management blows his money (“Cash blowin' Abel bread, out here trickin/Shit we do for bitches, he doin' for niggas”). The next few bars are Drake’s way of highlighting how he has enough influence to put any new Toronto artist on, like he did for The Weeknd, and he’s willing to do so to get them away from XO.

Rick Ross was the first person to respond to Drake’s “Push Ups” with his “Champagne Moments” diss that he released the same day, and the Big Boss has had nothing but jokes and memes for The Boy ever since. On “Family Matters,” Drake addresses the trolling directly here with bars like:

“What the fuck I heard Rick drop, nigga? Talkin' somethin' 'bout a nose job, nigga/ Ozempic got a side effect of jealousy and doctor never told y'all niggas/ Put a nigga in the bars, let a nigga rot, kind of like your old job, nigga/ House sittin' on some land, but it's out where no one even really know y'all niggas/ Bitches gotta drive two hours 'fore you pay 'em just to give a blowjob, nigga”

Drake reuses some of the jokes he already let fly on Instagram in the days following Ross’ “Champagne Moments,” responding to claims that he got a nose job and commenting on the “vacant land” that he says Ross is “sandwiched” between. He also says Ross is on Ozempic, a bar that has already aged poorly, because the cover art for Kendrick’s “Meet the Grahams” features a bottle of the weight loss drug prescribed to Aubrey.

“Ross callin' me the white boy and the shit kind of got a ring to it/ 'Cause all these rappers wavin' white flags while the whole fuckin' club sing to it”

At least Drake still has a sense of humor. He found Ross calling him a “white boy” as funny as the rest of us and he’s still able to use the meme to his advantage, cleverly flipping it to show his ability to make diss songs that double as club hits.

“Body after body fuckin’ body and you know Rick readin’ my Miranda Rights”

This is another jab at Rick Ross’ past life as a correctional officer, which was a major point of contention early in his music career because it went against the mob boss persona he created for himself.

ASAP Rocky somehow came out unscathed from “Push Ups,” despite having sent some of the most direct shots at Drake on “Show of Hands,” but the OVO rapper rectifies that by giving him a handful of bars, claiming that Rocky’s rap career has fallen off and he’s known more for fashion and his relationship with Rihanna. It sounds like Drake has been waiting to come at Rocky like this for a while, which is why he gets some of the most potent bars off (outside of the Kendrick shots).

“Rakim talkin' shit again/ Gassed 'cause you hit my BM first, nigga, do the math, who I was hittin' then? I ain't even know you rapped still 'cause they only talkin' 'bout your 'fit again/ Probably gotta have a kid again 'fore you think of droppin' any shit again/ Even when you do drop, they gon' say you should've modeled 'cause it's mid again/ Smokin' Fenty 'bout it, should've put you on the first one, tryna get it in/ Ask Fring if this a good idea the next time you cuddled in that bed again/ She'll even tell you leave the boy alone 'fore you get your head split again”

On “Show of Hands,” ASAP Rocky implied that he was intimate with Drake’s baby mother first (“I smashed before you birthed son, Flacko hit it first son”) and The Boy responds by insinuating that he was still dating Rihanna when that happened. Drake says that the only thing Rocky has going for him is his family and his fashion career (not bad at all), and that he should have included him on “Push Ups.” Then he brutally uses the old nickname he had for Rihanna (Fring) as a way to warn Rocky to leave him alone.

This one hurt for anybody who was a fan of Future and Drake’s collaborations, because it’s clear that even the OVO rapper doesn’t really know why Future dissed him in the first place. At least we can still listen to “Diamonds Dancing” and remember the good times.

“Pluto shit make me sick to my stomach, we ain't never really been through it/ Leland Wayne, he a fuckin' lame, so I know he had to be an influence/ These niggas had a plan and they finally found a way to rope you into it/ Two separate albums dissin', I just did a Kim to it, nigga, skim through it”

Drake hints that he’s not sure why Future sent subs his way, but he believes Metro Boomin (whose real name is Leland Wayne) must’ve been the instigator behind it all. For some reason, Drake’s use of Metro’s real name, which is definitely searchable, is still hilarious because I’ve never seen it before. Drake also believes that there have always been artists out to get him, and now they’ve figured out a way to rope Future into it, even though he only skimmed through We Don’t Trust You and We Still Don’t Trust You.