Fans have reacted to Drake and Kendrick Lamar’s rap beef on social media, through their own diss tracks, and now through joke fundraiser campaigns on GoFundMe. The platform has been monitoring campaigns related to the two rap artists–and taking swift, decisive action to remove them.
Multiple GoFundMe fundraisers that reference the beef, the majority of them poking fun at Drake, have been taken off the platform. The point, however, of a GoFundMe campaign is to raise money, and seeing as neither Drake nor Kendrick Lamar is in need of any burial or bereavement funds, it falls on the platform to shut down the campaigns before anyone’s very real money is collected.
The beef between the two rappers dates back to well before Lamar’s “Like That” verse. After exchanging guest spots on each other’s albums in the early 2010s, a 2013 “Control” verse saw Kendrick Lamar take on much of the rap industry, including Drake, and spawned a deluge of responses. At that time, Drake opted to disengage, instead targeting Meek Mill in 2015 with a series of diss tracks, notably including “Back to Back.”
By 2018, Pusha T entered the fray and, through his own diss track, forced the Canadian rapper to admit that he had been hiding a child.
In 2023’s “First Person Shooter” on Drake’s “For All The
Dogs” album, Drake took a plethora of shots at multiple targets, including Megan Thee Stallion, and seemed to believe that he, J. Cole, and Lamar were on the same level, calling the trio the big three in his song. This seemed not to sit well with Lamar, who responded through his “Like That” verse, taking indirect and direct shots at Drake. Drake took the bait, hook, line, and sinker this time, and a rap beef was born.As a spokesperson for GoFundMe told the outlet, “We can confirm we are monitoring the platform for related fundraiser starts and will remove any that have not been authorized by the recipient of the funds. $0 has been raised. We have zero tolerance for the misuse of our platform.”
As Complex reported, at least one fundraiser remained on the platform as of May 7, but that post clearly mentions that it is a joke and only has set a fundraising goal of $20. Titled “Donate for sumn ear surgery bc of this bum’s trash music” and posted under the name Kendrick Lamar, the post’s description reads, “Imma need some god damn surgery thanks to this hoe. make some good songs ffs my songs can’t even make up for how bad your sh*ts are,” the post concludes, “THIS IS A JOKE BUT DRAKES MUSIC IS DOGSH*T”
As USA Today reported, in a 2016 interview with Adande Thorne, otherwise known as YouTube personality Swoozie, former President Barack Obama called Lamar the winner in a potential battle between the two. President Obama also praised Lamar’s most recent album at the time, To Pimp A Butterfly. “Gotta go with Kendrick,” Obama said. “I think Drake is an outstanding entertainer, but Kendrick, his lyrics.” Obama continued, “(Lamar’s) last album was outstanding. The best album I think of last year.”