Kendrick Drops ‘Not Like Us’ Music Video: More Drake References

Kendrick Lamar isn't done with Drake. In his new music video for "Not Like Us" he shows that he's got some more shots to fire. Of course, nothing is done without Kendrick's subtleties, and his Fourth of July music video release date of the Drake diss track didn't go over his fans' heads.

Kendrick initially released the diss track back in May. Fans have loved the song since its release, and it has been even more loved since Kendrick's Ken & Friends Pop Out on Juneteenth, where the Compton native performed it a whopping five times in a row.

Lamar and his longtime friend and collaborator Dave Free directed the video, which features several cameos. DJ Mustard, who produced the track, is seen in the video wearing a Toronto Blue Jays cap in one of the more obvious jabs at Drake. Also featured are Tommy the Clown, Compton-born NBA star and former Toronto Raptors player DeMar DeRozan, and Top Dog Entertainment (TDE) CEO Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith.

Watch the music video below:

Once the song starts, the rapper is doing push-ups on cinder blocks in a room. The scene is a reference to Drake’s diss “Push Ups." In another shot back at one of Drizzy's disses, "Family Matters" alleged that Free fathered one of Lamar’s children with his fiancée Whitney Alford. In a very clear shot back at Drake, Kendrick, Alford, and their two children are seen dancing together in the video.

The video features several visual references to owls, the bird associated with Drake’s OVO label. The first shot is an owl piñata, which Kendrick wacks at while wearing disco ball pants. He hilariously wrote in a disclaimer that read: "No OVHoes were harmed during the making of this video."

Fans had fun picking out all the Drake references in the nearly 6-minute-long video. One person on X (formerly Twitter) pointed out in the music video's final scene: "Kendrick stands face to face with an owl. Soon, as the music fades out, Kendrick walks away calmly while the owl stands alone inside of a cage."

Of the scene where Kendrick dances with his family, one fan declared, "This is intentionally the hardest part of the 'Not Like Us' video. Didn't even acknowledge any of Drakes claims just showed you he was a liar."

Making fun of Kendrick's calculated music video drop and all the additional Drake references, fans trolled Drake. One person added a clip of Homelander from The Boys and wrote, "Drake watching Kendrick do the Pop Out on Juneteenth and drop the Not Like Us video on Independence Day." Another added, "Kendrick dropping the “Not Like Us” video on 4th of july is poetic as heII LMAOOO." A third fan had a wild theory and wrote: "Someone in my chat pointed out the possibility of these shipping containers alluding to "human s*x trafficking" by the 69Gawd. INSANE details.."

Kendrick Lamar Duckworth was born on June 17, 1987, in Compton, California. The rapper was named after singer-songwriter Eddie Kendricks of the Temptations. As the eldest of four children, Kendrick and his family lived in Section 8 housing, were reliant on welfare and food stamps, and experienced homelessness.

Despite suffering hardships, K-Dot remembered having "good memories" of his childhood that sparked his interest in hip-hop music. After hearing a recording of his voice for the first time, he became interested in rapping. While in elementary school, Kendrick had a noticeable stutter. Despite that, his first-grade teacher encouraged him to be a writer after hearing him correctly use the word "audacity."

By middle school, Lamar was introduced to poetry, and through its connection to hip-hop, he studied rhymes, metaphors, and double entendres, which made him fall in love with songwriting. His initial writing helped him manage his psychological trauma and depression, which he struggled with during his adolescence. In high school, he adopted the stage name K-Dot and began freestyling and battle rapping at school. He befriended who would become his long-time friend and collaborator Dave Free, and they recorded music together at Free's makeshift studio.

When Free was working as a computer technician, he introduced Kendrick's Youngest Head N---- in Charge (Hub City Threat: Minor of the Year) mixtape to record producer Anthony "Top Dawg" Tiffith. Impressed with Lamar's potential, he invited him to audition for his newly established independent record label, Top Dawg Entertainment (TDE).

In 2005, Kendrick was signed by TDE, joining Jay Rock as the label's first signings. He then met Ab-Soul and Schoolboy Q, forming the hip-hop supergroup Black Hippy. The following year, Lamar signed an artist development deal with Def Jam Recordings and was featured on two singles by the Game. Lamar's stint in Def Jam was short-lived after an encounter with its president and chief executive officer, Jay-Z. K-Dot later described it as "one of those situations where I wasn’t ready."

Kendrick's self-titled debut EP was released in 2009 through TDE. By 2011, he released his first studio album with Section.80, featuring hits like "A.D.H.D.," "HiiiPoWeR," and "Hol' Up." Just a year later, he followed that up with Good Kid, M.A.A.D City, with even more heat on tracks like "Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe," "Swimming Pools (Drank)," "Money Trees," "Poetic Justice," "Compton," "Backseat Freestyle," and "Sing About Me, I'm Dying of Thirst."

In the following decade, Kendrick released three more studio albums, a compilation album, a soundtrack album for Black Panther, as well as features and singles.

No Marvel soundtrack went as hard as the Black Panther album featuring hip-hop heavy-hitters like Schoolboy Q, 2 Chainz, Vince Staples, Kendrick, Future, SZA, and The Weeknd. "King's Dead" is still as hype as ever, over five years since it dropped. The music video is just as hype and iconic, with the insane visuals. From extreme zooms to the Wolf of Wall Street scene to Kendrick's trippy intersection when the beat switches up halfway through, Kendrick's long-time collaborator and childhood friend Dave Free directed the video.

Kendrick's Drake diss will forever be remembered throughout hip-hop history. As his fourth diss track against the Canadian rapper, Lamar released this gem in May 2024, showing that he stands ten toes down as the GOAT of rappers. His scathing lines like, "Why you trollin' like a bitch? Ain't you tired? Tryna strike a chord and it's probably A minor," is rapped over an insane, bouncy beat. Not only does he drop bars against Drizzy, but the song has maintained the top of the charts since its release and will continue to be a party banger.

"King Kunta" is inspired by Kunta Kinte, a fictional character in the 1976 novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family by American author Alex Haley, based on one of Haley's ancestors, a Gambian man who was born around 1750, enslaved, and taken to America where he died around 1822. In the book, Kinte refused to accept the name “Toby” that slave masters tried to give him, and his right foot was cut off following his attempts to escape the plantation he was enslaved on. Lamar said that after watching the series based on the book, he was inspired to write the 2015 track. He said the overall theme of the track tells the "story of struggle and standing up for what you believe in. No matter how many barriers you gotta break down, no matter how many escape routes you gotta run to tell the truth. That’s what I think we all can relate to."

Kendrick's 2014 compilation album featuring all "untitled" tracks had quite a lot of great songs to choose from. This jazzy track is about the rapper's inner conflict between his life at home in Compton and his life as a global superstar. He raps, "I'm sick and tired of being tired. Can't pick a side, the Gemini." In the chorus, he repeatedly says, "Get God on the phone," as he basks in money, diamonds, and women.

To Pimp A Butterfly has so many great tracks, with "Alright" as one of the greatest. The song is uplifting; it's about overcoming pain and struggle, as K-Dot raps about how he means to escape his troubles. By trusting in God, Kendrick is able to look past his failures and have confidence that everything is "gon’ be alright.” This track inspires the feeling of taking action after being exhausted by being beaten down and wallowing in their sorrows.

This 2012 track has two meanings: "My Angel on Angel Dust" and "My Angry Adolescence Divided." "m.A.A.d City" tells the story of K-Dot's upbringing in Compton, rapping about memories of witnessing someone with their "brains blown" out at a burger stand back when he was nine, as well as how his cousin was killed back in ‘94. With lines like: "Brace yourself, I'll take you on a trip down memory lane. This is not a rap on how I'm slingin' crack or move cocaine. This is cul-de-sac and plenty Cognac and major pain," the rapper takes fans on a journey over a trap beat.

Earning the top spot on Kendrick's best songs is "Sing About Me, I'm Dying Of Thirst," from his debut studio album. This song is number one for a multitude of reasons, one of them being that it is two songs in one when the beat switches up around seven minutes into the 12-minute track. Lyrically, the track tells a story of Kendrick's upbringing in Compton, much like most of this album. He said he merged two tracks into one because "that was a situation that happened that exact same time."