Yesterday (April 19), Drake officially released the new song “Push Ups,” his response to Kendrick Lamar’s pointed verse on the chart-topping “Like That.” He’s followed it up with another Lamar taunt, “Taylor Made Freestyle.” The track, shared on social media, opens with verses made to sound like 2Pac and Snoop Dogg. A third verse comes from Drake without obvious artificial intelligence vocal manipulation. Find the “Taylor Made Freestyle” on X.
In the opening verse, the AI 2Pac goads Kendrick Lamar into responding to Drake. “Kendrick, we need ya, the West Coast savior/Engraving your name in some hip-hop history,” the voice raps. “Fuck this Canadian light-skin, Dot/We need a no-debated West Coast victory, man.”
The AI Snoop Dogg continues by questioning Lamar’s street credentials while also encouraging him to beef with Drake: “I know you never been to jail, or wore jumpsuits and shower shoes/Never shot nobody, never stabbed nobody/Never did nothing violent to no one, it’s the homies that empower you/But, still, you gotta show this fucking owl who’s boss on the West/Now’s a time to really make a power move.”
To close the song, Drake disses Lamar more and also praises Taylor Swift, Lamar’s “Bad Blood” collaborator who released the massive double album The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology hours before Drake’s “Push Ups”: “But now we gotta wait a fucking week ’cause Taylor Swift is your new Top/And if you ’bout to drop, she gotta approve.” He adds later, “Yeah, shoutout to Taylor Swift/Biggest gangster in the music game right now/You know, I moved my album when she dropped.”
Drake’s evocation of 2Pac calls to mind the closing track on Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly, “Mortal Man.” On that song, Lamar used archival audio of 2Pac to have a conversation with the late California rapper. Beyond the album, Lamar has long expressed his admiration for 2Pac, writing to him in 2015, “The people that you touched on that small intersection changed lives forever.”
And Drake’s use of AI Snoop Dogg vocals has already gotten a response from the real, living Snoop Dogg. The Long Beach artist, who also appeared on To Pimp a Butterfly, on “Institutionalized,” acknowledged “Taylor Made Freestyle” in a video he posted on social media. “They did what? When? How? Are you sure?” he asks. “Y’all have a good night.”
Kendrick Lamar reignited a feud with Drake with a barbed verse on Metro Boomin and Future’s “Like That.” The track prompted a response from J. Cole, another target on the track, who shared his own “7 Minute Drill.” Cole quickly distanced himself from the beef, apologizing publicly for the track and pulling it from digital streaming platforms.