In lawsuit, Drake accuses Kendrick Lamar of picking on ‘Jewish heritage’
The beef over Lamar’s Grammy-nominated ‘Not Like Us’ continues
The rappers Drake, left, and Kendrick Lamar have been trading insults in a series of songs that have aroused commentary far beyond the music. Photo by Prince Williams/Wireimage; Erika Goldring/FilmMagic; via Getty Images
By PJ Grisar January 16, 2025
It may be song of the year — but is it also an antisemitic dig?
Drake’s lawsuit against Universal Music, alleging defamation and harassment over Kendrick Lamar’s Grammy-nominated diss track “Not Like Us,” notes in its complaint that the song “alludes to Drake’s Jewish heritage” when it states that the rapper is “not a colleague” but “a f–kin’ colonizer.”
The suit, filed Wednesday, goes on to say that posters responding to the song on YouTube and X “turned to racial and religious slurs against Drake, who is mixed race and Jewish.”
One comment cited said that Drake was a “pedojewboy” and has a “jew protection pedo team” that will defend him. (The filing alleges the track, which refers to Drake and his circle as “certified pedophiles,” “accuses Drake of being a pedophile and calls for violent retribution against him.”) Other posters claimed Jews are colonizers and that Drake is a “Kazarian [sic] Jew,” a reference to a conspiracy theory that Jews are descended from a Turkic people that converted in the Middle Ages.
Drake, whose mother is white and Jewish, and who has referenced his Jewishness in music videos, was drawn into a feud with Lamar last year. The two engaged in a series of diss tracks, with Lamar accusing Drake of co-opting rap music and having “lied about religious views.”
Some take the “colonizer” lyric in “Not Like Us” as a reference to Drake performing in a musical idiom that, as a biracial Canadian, doesn’t belong to him. But online posters cited in the complaint mentioned that the lyric “goes much deeper than rap” and that so-called Khazarians “stole the identity of the true biblical Semitic Israelites.” This appears to be a reference to the ideology of some groups of Black Hebrew Israelites, a movement which Lamar has affiliations with through his cousin, and whose beliefs he has invoked in his music.
One commenter quoted said, “BROOOOO, DRAKE IS A COLOLNIZER [sic] BECAUSE HE IS JEWISHHHH,” which could also be a reference to the in-vogue perception of Jews — particularly Israelis — as colonizers in the midst of Israel’s war in Gaza.
Writing about the beef in April for J. The Jewish News of Northern California, Andrew Esensten noted that the pile-on from artists like Rick Ross, who alluded to an alleged rhinoplasty and called Drake’s crew the “pastrami posse,” could be references to Drake’s Jewishness.
But, despite the social media comments to the contrary, Lamar’s lyrics don’t seem to explicitly mention Drake’s Jewishness so much as they call him out for appropriating Black American culture and borrowing affectations (and street cred) from American rappers. That, at least, is also how those commenting on the lyric website Genius seem to take it as well.
What exactly Drake is accused of colonizing can be seen in context with the line directly before it: “You run to Atlanta when you need a few dollars,” meaning he is profiting off of a hip-hop milieu he doesn’t come from.
We may get a more thorough explanation soon. That is, if the case actually goes to trial.
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