Cultural events in the digital age take on a familiar form. There's the central story — in this case, the truly vicious beef between rappers Kendrick Lamar and Drake — and then a whole series of twists stemming from that central event. The essential fuels, for better or worse, a content ecosystem.
The fight between Kendrick and Drake has spawned a cottage industry of online reactions. Of course, beef is merciless. Families are involvedthe so-called secrets are revealed, potential false flag operations are at stake and serious criminal allegations have been made. There was also innumerable opportunities for creators to get involved, even if they don't necessarily engage directly with the nastier bits of the beef. There are words to analyze and speeches that inspire meaningful things. reactions to the various new songs dropped.
In short, even something like the Drake vs Kendrick beef – honestly, especially something like beef – is an opportunity for creators to expand their reach. It's a natural choice for some because they are Already talk about.
“I try to follow everything that’s happening in music” Jordan Bowles, a 21-year-old creator living in Indiana, told Mashable. “The first time I talked specifically about Kendrick and Drake, the beef, I brought it up after Euphoria came out.”
The video immediately found its audience, reaching nearly 20,000 views.
But the battle was far from over, as we all know. Bowles is the kind of TikTok creator you'd expect to get into beef. Scroll through his profile and you'll find plenty of posts about hip-hop, pop culture, and other small observations of life that you typically see on the platform.
I don't want to completely rekindle the battles between Kendrick and Drake, but there have been a lot allegations going back and forth – some serious and, crucially, unproven. Drake came forward with a domestic violence allegation, and Lamar came back with a lot, including accusations of child molestation. Many points of sale have done great work breaking the beef timeline. The consensus seems to be that Lamar “won” the battle thanks to back-to-back offerings of “Meet the Grahams” and “Not Like Us.” which rose to the top of the streaming charts.
The fight still rages online, even though Kendrick and Drake are at a standstill. Bowles posted regularly as the tracks dropped, usually writing his thoughts in captions over a video of him listening to the song. Like many others, he felt Kendrick was winning the battle. He made a simple video to “Meet the Grahams,” noting that Drake should never have brought up family because he couldn't follow Kendrick's response. It has racked up 4 million views, easily Bowles' most viewed TikTok. It is enough the number for a creator who has just exceeded 18,000 subscribers.
It was a big moment for Bowles, who is trying to find his way as a creator.
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“My phone is ringing, view after view. I check every 10 seconds because I'm excited,” he said.
Some of his other videos about the feud have racked up between 60,000 and 900,000 views, which is all big numbers for a micro-content creator. His account also saw about a 12 percent increase in followers after he started talking about the beef.
However, someone like Bowles is relatively small compared to other creators. A handful of already popular figures have focused on the Drake vs. Kendrick saga. Already one popular and controversial influencer, Kai Cenat has accumulated millions of views and, one assumes, a good sum of money to cover the beef. There are also creators like the rapper Jean Scru Face, which was already quite popular but, like Bowles, saw its numbers increase with its focus on beef. Most viewed TikToks on his pagesome floating around a million views, all talk about Kendrick vs. Drake, while his music and other hip-hop reactions show much less engagement.
But that's the problem. Creators who seem to capitalize on the beef must have earned it. They were Already focused on the hip-hop space when this huge moment arrived.
“I appreciate my perspective and my feelings in all of this,” Bowles said. If people knew you liked hip-hop, your thoughts might shine through. For example, Bowles said he tries to have reactions that are exciting and opinionated.
“Every essay that came out, I listened to it three, four, five times before jotting down some thoughts,” he said. “And after I pulled myself together, I texted a few people to get their different perspectives. Then I would collect my thoughts.”
Then he would post a summary of those thoughts via text message over a video of his reaction.
“It was a good recipe,” Bowles said.
These moments can be a big deal for creators – even though, again, we're talking about a violent verbal fight that some say inspired real-world violence. Smaller creators, like Bowles, could be affected hawk products in the TikTok store (he declined such offers). For someone like Cenat, major earnings come from viral videos on YouTube.
While the subjects discussed in the beef is severe, the notion of rap beef itself is a relatively low stakes subject but of great interest to address for a creator. There's endless drama and fodder – think of all the lyrics you could break down. It's like reality TV. Consider the reactions, theories and amateur sleuths that have emerged Bravo's scandalous saga Vanderpump Rules. At least in the digital world, it's an opportunity to react, take sides and find nuggets of information. You can comb through Kendrick's lyrics and Tom Sandoval's Instagram page with effectively the same fine-grained Internet comb, even though the topics are quite different.
In short, anything dramatic is grist for the internet's mill. As long as Drake and Kendrick are arguing, people won't care. However, right now we're just waiting for the next song. There there were clues Drake has something in the works: get your light rings and front cameras ready.