Drake is back with not one but three new albums: Iceman, Maid of Honour and Habibti.
The records are of varying quality, as The Independent’s music editor Roisin O’Connor explores in her review, but one thing that won’t come as a surprise is that the 39-year-old Canadian rapper has been unable to resist reigniting his headline-making feud with Kendrick Lamar.
The tension between the pair dates back over a decade, and has involved numerous diss tracks as well as Drake’s failed lawsuit against his own label, Universal Music Group over Lamar’s song “Not Like Us.”
On Iceman, Drake not only returns to his beef with Lamar, but also details his grievances against many of those who he feels have sided against him, including LeBron James, A$AP Rocky, J.Cole and Dr Dre.
Here’s a rundown of everyone Drake has in his sights on his new albums.
Kendrick Lamar
There are multiple lyrics on Iceman that fans have interpreted to be digs aimed at Lamar. For instance, on fourth track “Janice STFU” Drake raps: “White kids listen to you ’cause they feel some guilt and that’s how your soul gets fulfilled / Handin’ out turkeys on camera inside of your hood, then you go back to the hills / How many houses you build? How many souls did you heal off the back of your deal?” These lines have been interpreted as accusing Lamar of being performative in how he portrays his love for his Compton community.
Later, on the track “Make Them Pay,” Drake raps: “F*** a big three anyway, there was too many chefs in the kitchen, it was a mess to begin with, yeah / And now they got a new GOAT and we gotta test the position / Damn, who is this guy for real? I guess a magician / Hundred million streams vanished, no one got questions for n*****.”
These lines reference the idea that Lamar, Drake and J. Cole represented the “big three” of contemporary rap, an idea that Lamar previously dismissed on his 2024 track “Like That” when he rapped: “Motherf*** the big three, n****, it’s just big me.” Drake goes on to reference a discredited online theory that Lamar’s streaming numbers were reduced after bots supposedly inflated his audience.
On another track, “Make Them Remember,” Drake aims a jab at Lamar’s height. Lamar is 5’5”, only a little taller than Muggsy Bogues, who at 5’3” was the shortest basketball player ever to play in the NBA. Drake compares the two with a line aimed at minimizing Lamar’s achievements with “Not Like Us,” rapping: “And Muggsy Bogues dunked for once, even I’m a bit amazed.”
J. Cole
Drake’s aforementioned reference to the end of the “big three” isn’t the only time he takes a shot at J. Cole on Iceman. On “Make Them Pay,” he refers to Cole reportedly seeking Jay-Z’s perspective on engaging in the beef with Lamar by rapping: “Your n***** run and talk to Hov for a second opinion / Me, I stood ten T’s and accepted the mission.”
On “Make Them Remember,” he nods to Cole’s decade-long marriage when he says: “I could’ve fell back like the married rapper, but we engaged.”
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A$AP Rocky & Rihanna
The track “Burning Bridges” appears to be largely aimed at A$AP Rocky. The pair were once friends and collaborators, working together on tracks including 2012’s “F***in’ Problems” (which also featured Lamar). However, Rocky’s latest album Don’t Be Dumb featured a number of disses aimed at Drake, notably the line: “First you stole my flow, so I stole yo’ b****,” which was widely interpreted to refer to Drake and to Rocky’s partner (Drake’s ex) Rihanna.
On “Burning Bridges,” Drake suggests that Rihanna failed to support Don’t Be Dumb, rapping: “Your baby mama ain’t even post your single, damn / Where she at? Yeah, where she at? Your baby mama ain’t even post your single.” He adds: “You saw my brother, you was tryna fix it / Now you drop your album and you back dissin’.”
DJ Khaled
Drake criticizes his longtime collaborator DJ Khaled by name on “Make Them Pay,” complaining that the rapper, who has Palestinian heritage, failed to back him up in his fight with Lamar. He raps: “And, Khaled, you know what I mean / The beef was fully live, you went halal and got on your deen / And your people are still waitin’ for a free Palestine / But apparently everything isn’t black and white and red and green, damn / I’m seein’ everyone’s true colors, for real, I’m sensin’ a theme.”
Rick Ross
On the same track, “Make Them Pay,” Drake takes a jab at his former collaborator Rick Ross as he puns on the viral streamer Adin Ross and says: “Dog, I was aiding Ross with streams before Adin Ross had ever streamed.”
Jay-Z
Drake and Jay-Z have collaborated in the past, but more recently the rap mogul has tended to side with Drake’s rival Lamar. Notably, it was Jay-Z who was responsible for Lamar being booked to play the Super Bowl halftime show in 2025. On “Janice STFU,” Drake suggests that Jay-Z (nicknamed “Jigga”) is pulling strings behind the scenes as he raps: “We know how you OGs rocking already, my n****, the jig is up.”
On “Whisper My Name,” Drake references the popular meme asking whether you’d rather have dinner with Jay-Z or $500,000. Drake raps: “I take 500K down to dinner, I never could learn s*** from none of y’all.”
Universal Music Group
Drake’s defamation lawsuit against Universal Music Group over Lamar’s scathing “Not Like Us” was dismissed last October. He had claimed that UMG spread the “false and malicious narrative” that he is a pedophile with the song’s lyrics, “Say, Drake, I hear you like em’ young” and “Certified Lover Boy? Certified pedophiles.” UMG filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, slamming his claims as “groundless and indeed ridiculous.”
Iceman has been released on Drake’s label OVO Sound, itself a subsidiary of UMG. Nevertheless, on his new song “B’s on the Table” he seems to refer to the case as he raps: “I’m fighting the man, not suing a rapper, you boys are not listening.”
LeBron James
Drake once seemed to count basketball icon LeBron James among his allies, but their friendship apparently came to an end after James (who famously wears number 23) made a public appearance at Lamar’s “The Pop Out” show at the Forum in Inglewood in 2025.
On “Make Them Remember” Drake makes a couple of cutting references to the incident, rapping: “I shouldn’t even be shocked to see you in that arena / Because you always made your career off of switchin’ teams up.”
Later on the same song, he adds: “Please stop askin’ about what’s goin’ on with 23 and me / I’m a real n**** and he’s not, it’s in my DNA.”
Dr Dre
The rap mogul and producer Dr Dre has been a key figure in Lamar’s rise, so it’s little surprise to see Drake take shots at him. On “Make Them Remember” he does so with a pun on his own name, pointing out that “Drake” without “AK” spells “Dre” and turning some of the accusations made against him back on Dre: “If Drake took out the AK, maybe he’d be in jail / Just based off the name that it spells / What they say they just smelled / I heard they got special places in hell / For n****s jokin’ about evil when they did it themselves, damn.”