Drake could use some rabbinic advice on his latest lawsuit
What would the sages tell the Jewish rapper about his beef with Kendrick Lamar?
The rappers Drake, left, and Kendrick Lamar have been trading insults in a series of songs that have aroused commentary far beyond the music. (Prince Williams/Wireimage; Erika Goldring/FilmMagic; via Getty Images)
It seemed as though the months-long, extremely public feud between rappers Kendrick Lamar and Drake had come to a close; the two had been dropping diss tracks against each other for months, but nothing new had been released since May. But now, Drake seems to want to draw the conflict out; just last week, he filed a legal suit — against the better judgement of any rabbinic sages who might have advised the Jewish hip hop artist.
The turning point in the battle was the release of Lamar’s “Not Like Us” on May 4, which quickly broke Spotify’s record for most streams of a hip-hop song within 24 hours of its release with 12.8 million streams. The song accuses Drake, a Canadian Jew, of pedophilia and of grifting off of Black-American culture. (To add insult to injury, that record was previously held by Drake’s song “Girls Want Girls” — which accumulated only 6.593 million streams in a single day.)
Drake tried to clap back the next day with a track titled “The Heart Part 6,” but it was panned both by critics and fans. “Not Like Us” proved to have an irreversible cultural impact, becoming one of the defining songs of the year. It broke dozens of music records and has already been nominated for five Grammys.
Having failed to win the battle on pure musical merit, Drake has now turned to more bureaucratic remedies; last week, Drake’s attorneys filed motions to pursue an investigation of Universal Music Group, the parent company of both Drake and Lamar’s record labels, for artificially boosting Lamar’s streams on Spotify and iHeartRadio stations via bots, as well as secretly paying stations for more plays.
It seems unlikely that Lamar, who has become a household name in the world of rap and one of its most decorated figures — he’s won a Pulitzer Prize for his lyrical stylings in addition to his 17 Grammy wins, the third most of any rapper in history — needs that kind of help. Legal experts have already weighed in on Drake’s suit, saying the accusations don’t seem to have much weight to them. The fact that the motions were filed only a couple days after the release of Lamar’s latest album, GNX, makes them seem like a petty attempt to undermine his competitor.
It’s not a great look; Drake is being roundly bashed online for being a sore loser. Perhaps he could have saved face by listening to some age-old advice. In Pirkei Avot 4:1, Rabbi Ben Zoma warns against being ungrateful and tells us that “he who rejoices in his lot” is truly rich. Continuing, he references a psalm: “You shall enjoy the fruit of your labors, you shall be happy and you shall prosper.”
With all the achievements Drake already has under his belt, he could have comfortably put his feet up in his $100 million mansion in Toronto. Despite his poor showing in the feud with Lamar, he remains a legend in the hip-hop world and the music industry more broadly. He holds multiple Billboard Hot 100 records, including the most charted singles of any artist in history — he has 338. And he was named “Best Rapper Alive since 1979” by Complex, a youth-focused pop culture magazine, three times: in 2011, 2012, and 2015.
Drake has occasionally referenced his Judaism in his career; his video for his 2022 song “Falling Back” is set at a Jewish wedding, and he did a bar mitzvah sketch when he hosted Saturday Night Live in 2014. If he turned to his heritage now, he might be able to save his reputation from turning into that of an artist upset with spiteful legal battles.
Many Jews have grown up with strong warnings against the evil-eye, which is understood in Pirkei Avot to be a concept of envy and jealousy that can bring destruction to its targets. Rabbi Joshua ben Hananiah says “an evil eye, the evil inclination, and hatred for humankind put a person out of the world.” This means Drake turning the evil eye towards Lamar may, in fact, just bring misfortune onto himself.
Drake should also listen to the wise words of Rabbi Ben Azzai: “Do not despise any man, and do not discriminate against anything, for there is no man that has not his hour, and there is no thing that has not its place.”
This year was clearly Lamar’s hour, but Drake shouldn’t feel that he has lost the war. His time and place will probably come again. After all, rap feuds don’t end in a year.
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