The Genealogy of Rap Rivalries, 2023 – 2025
Untangling hip-hop’s current family feud
When Jim Jones cracked that “they don’t play Pusha T outside” in early 2023, the throwaway jab tugged an old thread in rap’s tapestry—and the whole cloth began to unravel. Months later, Drake and J. Cole enshrined themselves (and Kendrick Lamar) as the “Big Three” on “First Person Shooter,” daring anyone to dispute the hierarchy, ultimately igniting one of the deepest rap rivalries the world hadn’t seen since the early 2000s. Kendrick obliged with one scathing line on “Like That,” and suddenly every side comment, subliminal and alliance—from Dipset’s embrace of Drake to Pusha’s runway rebuttal—felt like it occupied the same charged universe. What started as a Harlem sound-bite and a Toronto victory lap fused into a multi-studio, multi-platform grudge that now powers streams, memes and ticket sales in equal measure. Dive into the timelines below to see how a single spark became rap’s most profitable wildfire.
