"Not Like Us" is released

Why it matters

"Not Like Us" came out May 4, 2024, less than 24 hours after Kendrick had released "Meet the Grahams" and roughly 30 hours after Drake's "Family Matters." The producer is DJ Mustard. The beat is built on a sliding G-funk bassline and a snapping snare pattern that is, structurally, a deliberate West Coast aesthetic statement: Kendrick was using Mustard's distinctly LA production to attack Drake on Drake's adopted rap territory. The song is the one most people now mean when they say "the Drake-vs-Kendrick beef." It debuted at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 (Kendrick's first #1 as a lead artist), stayed in the top ten for most of the rest of 2024, and was streamed nine hundred million times in its first three months. The hook is one of the most-quoted choruses of the 2020s. The dance the song spawned (the Crip walk Kendrick performed at the Super Bowl LIX halftime show in February 2025) became one of the year's most-imitated visual sequences. The song won the 2025 Record of the Year and Song of the Year Grammys. Kendrick won the round, decisively. You can hear why. The combination of a great song and a great diss track does not happen often. "Not Like Us" is both.