In May 2024, amidst their ongoing beef at the time, Kendrick Lamar dissed Drake in his Not Like Us track, which became the hottest rap hit of the year. Lakers superstar LeBron James has publicly shown his admiration for the track, which has led to speculations that the NBA superstar has been siding with Lamar in his beef with Drake.
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In that wake, a tweet about Drake taking a dig at LeBron James for siding with Lamar has recently gone viral.
Claim
An X user recently posted a verse from Drake’s track ‘Songs About My Brother’, claiming that the rapper is taking shots at LBJ in the song. The lyrics can indeed prompt such speculation because of a Kobe Bryant reference. In the verse, the Canadian rapper doesn’t take any names as to who he is referring to.
Drake claims in the track that when the person will retire, he won’t get a farewell tour like Bryant and also won’t be missed by fans like the Black Mamba. The lyrics go like this,
“One day you wake up and tell ’em ‘Enough is enough.’ That’s how you gon’ find out you not Kobe Bryant to us. Man, you not Kobe Bryant to us, at all…”
This part can be easily linked to LeBron James because he has been the face of the league since the Mamba retired. He would also expect a lot of hype during his farewell season in the league. So, is there any substance to this speculation?
Fact
The “Songs About My Brother” track came out on November 17, 2023. Therefore, it can’t be a response to LeBron supporting Kendrick Lamar’s diss track Not Like Us. It released way before James showed any tendency to side with KDot over the Canadian rapper. Hence, the diss track is not aimed at LBJ.
Apart from that, both Drake and LBJ have been pals since the late 2000s. The NBA legend doesn’t miss out on a chance to meet with him and they have shared public spaces on numerous occasions. The Kobe Bryant reference was probably aimed at Joe Budden, who retired two years after Bryant’s farewell season.
In 2016, Budden had labelled Drake’s fourth album ‘Views’ as “uninspiring”, which could have prompted the response from the Canadian rapper.
Reason for Hoax
It isn’t surprising that many folks fell for the hoax. LeBron James attended Kendrick Lamar’s Pop Out and Show concert right before the 2024 Paris Olympics. He was grooving to Lamar’s diss track, which could have potentially offended Drake. He was also enjoying the track after Team USA defeated Serbia during a pre-Olympic exhibition game in Abu Dhabi.
While Stephen Curry expressed his displeasure about hearing the song everywhere, LBJ openly showed his love for it.
Meanwhile, in another instance, James attended one of Drake’s concerts along with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Stephen Curry, and Kevin Durant. While the rapper gave a shout-out to SGA, KD, and Curry in his IG stories, he didn’t include LBJ in them.
Thus, there are solid grounds for believing that Drake can diss LeBron James using Kobe Bryant’s name. However, the latest viral tweet about the same is misleading.
