u/_toggleMeSoftly

This is an article written back in June of 2024, but never ended up being published or posted. The purpose was to explain The Beef to people who had zero context or understanding of what was happening at the time. This feels like a good moment for reflection on it. It’s been edited slightly and some of the language has been updated for readers in 2026.

A diamond studded crown of thorns rests on the head of Kendrick Lamar. His starkly white shirt is stained down the front with drops of blood and sweat coming down from his face. He’s surrounded on stage by performers wearing red and white who stare out stoically over the entire audience. He finishes his concert repeating over and over, “They judge you; they judge Christ. Godspeed for women’s rights. They judge you; they judge Christ. Godspeed for women’s rights.” Again and again until he drops the microphone and walks off the stage. The crowd roars. It’s June 2022.

Somewhere else in time and space, Aubrey Graham, better known by the stage name Drake, is holding the hand of a young fan brought up to his stage. Mr. Graham slow dances with her for a short time, and then spins her around so that he can kiss her exposed neck multiple times. In a moment that seems almost choreographed, he proceeds to ask her age. She replies that she’s 17 years old. He smiles and jokes that he can’t go to jail yet, says he had fun and then compliments her body, specifically noting the feeling of her chest up against him. The crowd laughs and cheers. Drake was 23 years old at the time.

For weeks, or maybe months, or likely even years, rappers have been taking verbal shots at October’s Very Own Drake. Yes, that Drake. The Nickelodeon-child-actor-from-Canada Drake. The Hotline Bling guy. The pop-rap-melody-singer with a penchant for baggy sweaters and duck face social media posts has been attempting a transition into a more proper and harder rap career over the years if you weren’t paying attention.

Drake’s name made some related waves back in February of 2024 when a video allegedly of him literally swinging his dick around was shared across social media platforms worldwide. How many people saw it, you might ask. I don’t know would be my answer. Was it accessible to children, you might ask. Probably yes.

For those of you asking why a grown man with every material sufficiency satisfied might possibly have reasons to maybe do such things, you can simply take a closer look at Aubrey Graham and some of the people around him to find your conceivable answers.

After a bidding war in 2009, Drake signed to Young Money Records, which was founded by famed and respected rapper Lil Wayne. Lil Wayne himself reports to have said to Drake “don’t start singing about killing nobody, don’t start singing about the streets.” It should have been clear that just because Drizzy was associating himself with American rappers, it doesn’t mean people would let him use their image for his own. Image has deeper implications beyond simple aesthetics in the rap world. Image carries a narrative about what’s happening in the scene. If Drizzy, the Canadian-born-Nickelodeon-actor-turned-autotune-singer, started singing about topics like murder in American streets, it could have certain reverberations that might reach far behind the curtains into the politics of rap and beyond. Artful expression or not, important and powerful people tend to take those kinds of things very seriously.

In June of 2018, Florida-born rapper XXXTentacion was murdered. He was 20 years old. Three months earlier, he shared an Instagram post reading, “If anyone tries to kill me it was @champagnepapi [Drake’s Instagram handle].” Around the same time, Drake released the music video for a song called “I’m Upset,” a song which offers up some very eyebrow raising lyrics including “SMS, Triple X, That’s the only time I shot below the neck.” Similarly, years later in 2022 he released a song called “On BS,” which includes the line “If he held his tongue on that live, he’d be alive again.” These lyrics along with others seem to indicate that Drake has not only been interested in singing his loverboy melodies anymore.

A majority of the ire expressed by today’s rappers seem to have been expressed in open secret. Subtle digs, insults, and references scattered lightly across rap lyrics spanning a number of years and dozens of songs if not more. An accumulation that, in 2024, seems to convey a larger coded message sent piece by piece through the fog of time. A message reading loud and clear; a lot of people have big problems with Drake and the people he keeps close. And it’s been that way for a while now.

Kendrick Lamar has collaborated with Drake a couple times over the years. In 2012, the two future icons even went on tour together. So, when Kung Fu Kenny started releasing songs and being featured on tracks that had increasingly hard to ignore barbs aimed at Drake, it indicated that an exchange of diss tracks or a “rap war” was coming, but it wasn’t immediately clear at the time how deep of a cut Kendrick was looking for.

With both artists connected to Universal Music Group, this looked to a lot of people like it was going to be something akin to an exhibition match. Probably good to raise the stake of both competitors, but the promoters would be the real winners in the end. Everyone could make their money and go home happy with some bruises but nothing too crazy. What resulted instead was a sensational early-round knockout win for Kendrick Lamar that may prove utterly fatal for Drake’s music career. A career that Universal Music Group just made a $400 million dollar deal for back in May of 2022.

In the now legendary songs of this beef, Kendrick Lamar seemed to accuse Drake of being a culture vulture, a colonizer, and even a [REDACTED], indicating as well that he knows things about Drake that weren’t yet public knowledge. In his diss tracks, Kendrick offered not just a judgement over Drake’s actions, but over the entire culture that he has helped perpetuate. A culture of overly sexualized, overly drugged up, and overly violent young people who would do anything for a taste of the high life. For a taste of euphoria. Anything. Any. Thing. While Drake’s music tends to playfully promote a toxic cycle of substance abuse and violence, Kendrick Lamar’s mission has been explicitly to engage and break such cycles in the real world.

Drake’s hyper-polished sound and style is a cutting-edge state of the art product. What looks to be an AI-assisted marvel of modern music production. A cultural mover seemingly constructed within the fortifications of the industry itself. But Kendrick Lamar is a certified force of nature with ownership over his own music in more ways than one. He is, in his own words, “what the culture’s feeling.” He’s a product of the same society that celebrates him. A cultural mover born from the culture itself with a purpose to move the system. Not the other way around.

Drake, a Canadian child television actor, got rich first as a child actor on the hit TeenNick show Degrassi and then sought to become a rapper afterwards. His uncle being an inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame probably didn’t hurt too much. Simply put, he didn’t make himself in the same way that other rappers had to make themselves. With his family’s connections, it could be argued that he simply never had a chance to be that kind of person with that kind of story because of where his story started.

Regardless, back in early 2024 it was confidently passed around the campfires that Drake was one of the Top 3 rappers in the world. The Big Three. The other two being J. Cole and Kendrick Lamar. A declaration that apparently was first made by J.Cole in a song with Drake and then echoed out over the proverbial megaphones of the music industry that effectively seemed to have decided it in the first place.

After reading the writing on the wall, J. Cole graciously reversed course, took a big step back, and bowed out of the entire conversation altogether. Kendrick went on to exclaim, “Motherfuck the Big Three, it’s just big me,” throwing down the proverbial gauntlet against the Drake Machine and starting this feud in proper.

Now two years after the fact, despite fervent scrubbing, the bloodstain on the canvas is still there for all who wish to see it, and the truth feels overwhelmingly clear to just about everyone who was there to witness it in real time:

Kendrick Lamar was right.

I’ve been holding onto something. But in the spirit of the parable of talents, I’ve decided to share those talents.

Two years ago, I was a sort of open-minded atheist. Always interested in the supernatural and paranormal, but too certain that there were no mysteries in the cosmos.

About 1 year and 11 months ago, that all changed.

I was standing there, staring out my living room window. Staring at a tree in full bloom across the street from me. I couldn’t really tell you exactly what I was thinking about, but I will say that at this point, despite my beliefs, I had sent a prayer up to God just on a whim.

It was around sunset. And suddenly, the clouds parted and the sunlight struck the very tree as I was staring. Like a flash, it was glowing. Gold and shimmering. And it was moving. Not like a tree in the wind. It was actually moving. It was moving like a lava lamp. Parts of it bubbled up, separating off the rest of the tree, floating upwards and outwards. I genuinely could not believe it.

So I turned away.

Someone was cooking in the kitchen at the time. Someone else was sitting on the couch in the living room. I walked over there for a few moments and said to myself, “I’m gonna go back to look out the window, and it’s going to be back to normal again.”

So I waited for a few. And then I went back to the window. It was not normal again. Everything else was totally normal, but not this one tree. The tree was golden and glowing and flowing. Like a lava lamp.

I couldn’t say what happened after that. I just don’t remember.

A couple nights after that, I was sitting on the couch in the dark. Everyone else was asleep.

I was having this “dark night of the soul” moment. I was thinking about human trafficking, shipping containers, satanic cults, Accelerationist groups, sex abuses in the music world, the entertainment world, the political world, predators, and their prey. I was saying to myself “This can’t be how it is. This can’t be how the world works. This cannot be.”

And then I had a vision. Clear as day in my head. I’ve always been an artistic person with a vibrant imagination, but this was not my imagination. It was intrusive. It was a message.

I saw a colossal mountain standing there against a clear blue sky. It was quiet at first. Silent. And then it exploded. Almost like slow motion the way the pyroclastic flow looks from far away when a volcano erupts. Giant chunks of the mountain tumbled through the air.

But as those giant rocks flew and tumbled, a giant wave came from behind, even taller than the mountain, and crashed into it all. Somehow doing even more damage than the explosion itself. Wiping it all away.

And in that moment. I heard a voice. Two voices, harmonizing as one. It said:

“This is who I am.”

And the wave swept over the mountain and the rocks. And it was all gone.

I don’t think this is a prison planet. I don’t think we’re trapped here.

I think this is rehabilitation. Maybe we’re willing participants. Maybe we were unwilling. But I think at this point, if you’re reading this now in this moment, then you know the truth. That we want to be better. We want to do better.

This isn’t the End of Days. This is a New Day.

Thank you for listening.

I’ve been holding onto something. But in the spirit of the parable of talents, I’ve decided to share those talents.

Two years ago, I was a sort of open-minded atheist. Always interested in the supernatural and paranormal, but too certain that there were no mysteries in the cosmos.

About 1 year and 11 months ago, that all changed.

I was standing there, staring out my living room window. Staring at a tree in full bloom across the street from me. I couldn’t really tell you exactly what I was thinking about, but I will say that at this point, despite my beliefs, I had sent a prayer up to God just on a whim.

It was around sunset. And suddenly, the clouds parted and the sunlight struck the very tree as I was staring. Like a flash, it was glowing. Gold and shimmering. And it was moving. Not like a tree in the wind. It was actually moving. It was moving like a lava lamp. Parts of it bubbled up, separating off the rest of the tree, floating upwards and outwards. I genuinely could not believe it.

So I turned away.

Someone was cooking in the kitchen at the time. Someone else was sitting on the couch in the living room. I walked over there for a few moments and said to myself, “I’m gonna go back to look out the window, and it’s going to be back to normal again.”

So I waited for a few. And then I went back to the window. It was not normal again. Everything else was totally normal, but not this one tree. The tree was golden and glowing and flowing. Like a lava lamp.

I couldn’t say what happened after that. I just don’t remember.

A couple nights after that, I was sitting on the couch in the dark. Everyone else was asleep.

I was having this “dark night of the soul” moment. I was thinking about human trafficking, shipping containers, satanic cults, Accelerationist groups, sex abuses in the music world, the entertainment world, the political world, predators, and their prey. I was saying to myself “This can’t be how it is. This can’t be how the world works. This cannot be.”

And then I had a vision. Clear as day in my head. I’ve always been an artistic person with a vibrant imagination, but this was not my imagination. It was intrusive. It was a message.

I saw a colossal mountain standing there against a clear blue sky. It was quiet at first. Silent. And then it exploded. Almost like slow motion the way the pyroclastic flow looks from far away when a volcano erupts. Giant chunks of the mountain tumbled through the air.

But as those giant rocks flew and tumbled, a giant wave came from behind, even taller than the mountain, and crashed into it all. Somehow doing even more damage than the explosion itself. Wiping it all away.

And in that moment. I heard a voice. Two voices, harmonizing as one. It said:

“This is who I am.”

And the wave swept over the mountain and the rocks. And it was all gone.

I don’t think this is a prison planet. I don’t think we’re trapped here.

I think this is rehabilitation. Maybe we’re willing participants. Maybe we were unwilling. But I think at this point, if you’re reading this now in this moment, then you know the truth. That we want to be better. We want to do better.

This isn’t the End of Days. This is a New Day.

Thank you for listening.

I’ve been holding onto something. But in the spirit of the parable of talents, I’ve decided to share those talents.

Two years ago, I was a sort of open-minded atheist. Always interested in the supernatural and paranormal, but too certain that there were no mysteries in the cosmos.

About 1 year and 11 months ago, that all changed.

I was standing there, staring out my living room window. Staring at a tree in full bloom across the street from me. I couldn’t really tell you exactly what I was thinking about, but I will say that at this point, despite my beliefs, I had sent a prayer up to God just on a whim.

It was around sunset. And suddenly, the clouds parted and the sunlight struck the very tree as I was staring. Like a flash, it was glowing. Gold and shimmering. And it was moving. Not like a tree in the wind. It was actually moving. It was moving like a lava lamp. Parts of it bubbled up, separating off the rest of the tree, floating upwards and outwards. I genuinely could not believe it.

So I turned away.

Someone was cooking in the kitchen at the time. Someone else was sitting on the couch in the living room. I walked over there for a few moments and said to myself, “I’m gonna go back to look out the window, and it’s going to be back to normal again.”

So I waited for a few. And then I went back to the window. It was not normal again. Everything else was totally normal, but not this one tree. The tree was golden and glowing and flowing. Like a lava lamp.

I couldn’t say what happened after that. I just don’t remember.

A couple nights after that, I was sitting on the couch in the dark. Everyone else was asleep.

I was having this “dark night of the soul” moment. I was thinking about human trafficking, shipping containers, satanic cults, Accelerationist groups, sex abuses in the music world, the entertainment world, the political world, predators, and their prey. I was saying to myself “This can’t be how it is. This can’t be how the world works. This cannot be.”

And then I had a vision. Clear as day in my head. I’ve always been an artistic person with a vibrant imagination, but this was not my imagination. It was intrusive. It was a message.

I saw a colossal mountain standing there against a clear blue sky. It was quiet at first. Silent. And then it exploded. Almost like slow motion the way the pyroclastic flow looks from far away when a volcano erupts. Giant chunks of the mountain tumbled through the air.

But as those giant rocks flew and tumbled, a giant wave came from behind, even taller than the mountain, and crashed into it all. Somehow doing even more damage than the explosion itself. Wiping it all away.

And in that moment. I heard a voice. Two voices, harmonizing as one. It said:

“This is who I am.”

And the wave swept over the mountain and the rocks. And it was all gone.

I don’t think this is a prison planet. I don’t think we’re trapped here.

I think this is rehabilitation. Maybe we’re willing participants. Maybe we were unwilling. But I think at this point, if you’re reading this now in this moment, then you know the truth. That we want to be better. We want to do better.

This isn’t the End of Days. This is a New Day.

Thank you for listening.

I’ve been holding onto something. But in the spirit of the parable of talents, I’ve decided to share those talents.

Two years ago, I was a sort of open-minded atheist. Always interested in the supernatural and paranormal, but too certain that there were no mysteries in the cosmos.

About 1 year and 11 months ago, that all changed.

I was standing there, staring out my living room window. Staring at a tree in full bloom across the street from me. I couldn’t really tell you exactly what I was thinking about, but I will say that at this point, despite my beliefs, I had sent a prayer up to God just on a whim.

It was around sunset. And suddenly, the clouds parted and the sunlight struck the very tree as I was staring. Like a flash, it was glowing. Gold and shimmering. And it was moving. Not like a tree in the wind. It was actually moving. It was moving like a lava lamp. Parts of it bubbled up, separating off the rest of the tree, floating upwards and outwards. I genuinely could not believe it.

So I turned away.

Someone was cooking in the kitchen at the time. Someone else was sitting on the couch in the living room. I walked over there for a few moments and said to myself, “I’m gonna go back to look out the window, and it’s going to be back to normal again.”

So I waited for a few. And then I went back to the window. It was not normal again. Everything else was totally normal, but not this one tree. The tree was golden and glowing and flowing. Like a lava lamp.

I couldn’t say what happened after that. I just don’t remember.

A couple nights after that, I was sitting on the couch in the dark. Everyone else was asleep.

I was having this “dark night of the soul” moment. I was thinking about human trafficking, shipping containers, satanic cults, Accelerationist groups, sex abuses in the music world, the entertainment world, the political world, predators, and their prey. I was saying to myself “This can’t be how it is. This can’t be how the world works. This cannot be.”

And then I had a vision. Clear as day in my head. I’ve always been an artistic person with a vibrant imagination, but this was not my imagination. It was intrusive. It was a message.

I saw a colossal mountain standing there against a clear blue sky. It was quiet at first. Silent. And then it exploded. Almost like slow motion the way the pyroclastic flow looks from far away when a volcano erupts. Giant chunks of the mountain tumbled through the air.

But as those giant rocks flew and tumbled, a giant wave came from behind, even taller than the mountain, and crashed into it all. Somehow doing even more damage than the explosion itself. Wiping it all away.

And in that moment. I heard a voice. Two voices, harmonizing as one. It said:

“This is who I am.”

And the wave swept over the mountain and the rocks. And it was all gone.

I don’t think this is a prison planet. I don’t think we’re trapped here.

I think this is rehabilitation. Maybe we’re willing participants. Maybe we were unwilling. But I think at this point, if you’re reading this now in this moment, then you know the truth. That we want to be better. We want to do better.

This isn’t the End of Days. This is a New Day.

Thank you for listening.

I’ve been holding onto something. But in the spirit of the parable of talents, I’ve decided to share those talents.

Two years ago, I was a sort of open-minded atheist. Always interested in the supernatural and paranormal, but too certain that there were no mysteries in the cosmos.

About 1 year and 11 months ago, that all changed.

I was standing there, staring out my living room window. Staring at a tree in full bloom across the street from me. I couldn’t really tell you exactly what I was thinking about, but I will say that at this point, despite my beliefs, I had sent a prayer up to God just on a whim.

It was around sunset. And suddenly, the clouds parted and the sunlight struck the very tree as I was staring. Like a flash, it was glowing. Gold and shimmering. And it was moving. Not like a tree in the wind. It was actually moving. It was moving like a lava lamp. Parts of it bubbled up, separating off the rest of the tree, floating upwards and outwards. I genuinely could not believe it.

So I turned away.

Someone was cooking in the kitchen at the time. Someone else was sitting on the couch in the living room. I walked over there for a few moments and said to myself, “I’m gonna go back to look out the window, and it’s going to be back to normal again.”

So I waited for a few. And then I went back to the window. It was not normal again. Everything else was totally normal, but not this one tree. The tree was golden and glowing and flowing. Like a lava lamp.

I couldn’t say what happened after that. I just don’t remember.

A couple nights after that, I was sitting on the couch in the dark. Everyone else was asleep.

I was having this “dark night of the soul” moment. I was thinking about human trafficking, shipping containers, satanic cults, Accelerationist groups, sex abuses in the music world, the entertainment world, the political world, predators, and their prey. I was saying to myself “This can’t be how it is. This can’t be how the world works. This cannot be.”

And then I had a vision. Clear as day in my head. I’ve always been an artistic person with a vibrant imagination, but this was not my imagination. It was intrusive. It was a message.

I saw a colossal mountain standing there against a clear blue sky. It was quiet at first. Silent. And then it exploded. Almost like slow motion the way the pyroclastic flow looks from far away when a volcano erupts. Giant chunks of the mountain tumbled through the air.

But as those giant rocks flew and tumbled, a giant wave came from behind, even taller than the mountain, and crashed into it all. Somehow doing even more damage than the explosion itself. Wiping it all away.

And in that moment. I heard a voice. Two voices, harmonizing as one. It said:

“This is who I am.”

And the wave swept over the mountain and the rocks. And it was all gone.

I don’t think this is a prison planet. I don’t think we’re trapped here.

I think this is rehabilitation. Maybe we’re willing participants. Maybe we were unwilling. But I think at this point, if you’re reading this now in this moment, then you know the truth. That we want to be better. We want to do better.

This isn’t the End of Days. This is a New Day.

Thank you for listening.