The great Drake/Kendrick Lamar war of 2024 appears to be over, or at least on pause, for now. Today, we get to see the latest way that feud has impacted the charts, and the findings reflect the excitement that surrounded that lightning-fast back-and-forth. As widely predicted, Kendrick Lamar’s utterly withering victory lap “Not Like Us” has emerged as the biggest record to come out of this feud, at least since Kendrick opened things up with his verse on Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That.” Today, Billboard reports that “Not Like Us” has debuted at #1 on the Hot 100.
“Not Like Us” is Kendrick Lamar’s fourth #1 hit and his second as a solo artist. Kendrick has previously ascended to the top of the mountain with “Humble” and with his guest appearances on Taylor Swift’s “Bad Blood” and Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That.” (Other than “Humble,” all of those are diss tracks, which makes Kendrick the king of disrespect. Speaking of Taylor Swift, “Not Like That” ends the two-week reign of Swift and Post Malone’s “Fortnight,” knocking that song down to #4.)
The 70.9 million first-week streams for “Not Like Us” are the most for a hip-hop track since Billboard stopped factoring in user-generated YouTube videos in 2020, surpassing the 67.3 million total for Drake, Future, and Young Thug’s “Way 2 Sexy” in 2021. The track’s chart impact reflects the way that diss tracks have done enormously well on the Hot 100 this year. Before “Not Like Us,” both “Like That” and Megan Thee Stallion’s “Hiss” also debuted at #1. “Hiss” pissed Nicki Minaj off mightily, but there’s compelling evidence that Megan’s main target on the track is actually Drake, so he’s getting it from all sides these days.
The Drake/Kendrick feud dominates this week’s Hot 100, with back-and-forth diss tracks taking up four spots in the top 10. Kendrick Lamar’s “Euphoria,” which debuted at #11 last week, rises up to #3, while “Like That” rises two spots to #6 and Drake’s own “Family Matters” debuts at #7. Kendrick’s malevolent “Meet The Grahams” debuts at #12, and Drake’s weeks-old “Push Ups” is at #17. The numbers affirm what everyone already knew: Kendrick won.
The rest of the top 10 includes longstanding chart hits like Benson Boone’s “Beautiful Things” (#9) and Teddy Swims’ “Lose Control” (#10), as well as breakout tracks like Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” (#5) and Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” (#8). “Million Dollar Baby,” the funky-ass viral smash from Virginia singer Tommy Richman, had a huge, out-of-nowhere debut at #2 last week, and it’s shown remarkable staying power, holding steady at #2 this week. Once the new Taylor Swift album and the Drake/Kendrick beef fall out of the conversation, “Million Dollar Baby” is poised to become a true song-of-the-summer candidate.
