Well, that was quick. On the same day Kendrick Lamar released “6:16 In LA,” his second anti-Drake diss track of this week, Drizzy responded with ”Family Matters,” a song that—as the title implies—pulls no punches talking about Kendrick’s fiancée and children.
In the first verse, Drake claims that Kendrick was the first to bring children into this rap beef, and therefore, he deserves what’s coming. And what’s coming is the wild claim that one of Lamar’s kids might not be his own.
We could’ve left the kids out of this, don’t blame me
You a dog and you know it, you just play sweet
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
In the second verse, Drake turns his attention to The Weeknd and, pointedly, Rick Ross, who bears the brunt of the following lines. (Ross, you’ll recall, inserted himself into this war with “Champagne Moments.”) Drake mocks Ross for using weight-loss drugs and then references his past as a corrections officer.
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
Later in the verse, Drake goes hard against A$AP Rocky, who seems to imply on Future and Metro Boomin’s “Show of Hands” that he had relations with the mother of Drake’s child before Drizzy did. Drake flips this around to imply that, at the time, he was having relations with someone else. Possibly Rihanna? (Shoutout to Genius user @PatrickCash for outlining this theory in an annotation.)
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
Before the song ends, Drake gets in a few more vicious bars about Kendrick and his partner. First, he accuses Kendrick of domestic violence: “When you put your hands on your girl, is it self-defense ’cause she bigger than you?” He then returns to the Prince/Michael Jackson comparison that Kendrick first made in “Like That,” except now Drake—by way of some skin-lightening jokes—is claiming the Prince role.
Why did you move to New York? Is it ’cause you livin’ that bachelor life?
Proposed in 2015, but don’t wanna make her your actual wife
I’m guessin’ this wedding ain’t happenin’, right?
’Cause we know the girls that you actually like
Your darkest secrets are comin’ to light
It’s all on your face like what happened to Mike
Oh shit, it’s all making sense, maybe I’m Prince and you actually Mike
That’s a quick reading. There’s loads to decipher here. Read all the lyrics to “Family Matters” on Genius now.
