The feud between Kendrick Lamar and Drake had been grabbing headlines for a while these past few months. On his last released track on this beef, ‘Not Like Us’, Kendrick mentioned DeMar DeRozan and expressed his happiness about D-Roz leaving Toronto. However, fans were very surprised to see the six-time All-Star featuring on the recently released music video of the track.
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Following that, fans unearthed an old clip of D-Roz talking about his loyalty towards Drake. The clip is now making rounds on social media because of how the former Raptors star switched sides so quickly.
Fans have pulled up an old Club Shay Shay interview of DeRozan where he can be seen talking about Drake. During the 2021 interview, DeRozan can be seen telling Shannon Sharpe that Drake was always by his side during his time in Toronto.
D-Roz also took pride in the fact that he was namedropped by Drake on his ‘Lemon Pepper Freestyle’ song. DeRozan started his NBA career in 2009 after he was drafted by the Toronto Raptors. The 34-year-old represented the franchise until 2018. The timeline of this falls adjacent to the rise of Drake in the music industry.
Needless to say, D-Roz was on great terms with the biggest Canadian rap superstar ever. He said, “No matter what, when it comes to Drake, he’ll forever have a friend in me and loyalty out of me. He cared and was there for me when everything was going crazy.”
This 2021 interview with Sharpe shows a drastically opposite side of D-Roz. Only a few years ago, he was singing praises of Drake and declaring his loyalty towards him.
LMFAO https://t.co/OTJvLqgoGq pic.twitter.com/RymQQE4K25
— Hub (@KenHeLive) July 5, 2024
Interestingly, the six-time All-Star was born in Compton, California, the same place where Kendrick is from. In his song ‘Not Like Us’, Kendrick said, “I’m glad DeRoz’ came home, y’all didn’t deserve him neither.” To make his affiliation well known, D-Roz joined Kendrick and the West Coast crew on stage for the Juneteenth concert at the Kia Forum. After that, he also did a cameo for the music video of the Drake diss, which was released yesterday.
From once being a good friend to Drake to now, a lot has changed for DeRozan. After the clip from his interview resurfaced, some fans speculated that something might’ve gone wrong between the two in the last few years.
While several fans are labeling D-Roz as an opportunist with comments like, “they only as loyal as they last meal”, there’s a third section of the audience as well, the ones who believe it’s nothing more than just standing up for his hometown’s biggest star.
