Jun 13, 2019; Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Recording artist Drake watches with Toronto Raptors fans as they cheer on their team in the NBA Finals against Golden State Warriors at the Jurassic Park watch party at Scotiabank Arena. Mandatory Credit: Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports via Imagn Image

The funny thing about this DJ Akademiks take is that Drake has barely even alluded to Kendrick Lamar’s name on recent material.

DJ Akademiks is as excited as the rest of the OVO fandom for Iceman, although he thinks Drake needs to think twice about his rival Kendrick Lamar. During a recent livestream caught by his affiliated Akademiks TV Twitter page, he explained why Drizzy should refrain from mentioning K.Dot or the battle again in future material.

Ak’s reasoning is solidly in line with what you would expect: don’t give the haters the attention they’re looking for, you’re the biggest rapper, win the war instead of the battle… You get it. In fact, he even used Jay-Z as an example of someone who did this well by only including subliminal shots towards the people trying to get at him. But the commentator and reporter’s take here is a little ironic.

Beyond a mention of the Pop Out on “What Did I Miss?,” pretty much all of the 6ix God’s references to the battle have been non-explicit. The reason why other shots feel so obvious is because the 2024 showdown warped our brains and this is now apparently the only way most rap fans can talk about the genre’s two biggest artists right now.

Drake UMG Lawsuit

As such, this DJ Akademiks take on Drake and Kendrick Lamar might sound a little shaky to those keeping up with everything. For the most part, the Toronto superstar hasn’t done anything direct against the Compton lyricist, with moves like the UMG defamation lawsuit only tangentially accusing Kendrick. So all in all, he’s following Ak’s advice and will most likely continue on this non-explicit but nonetheless obviously shady path.

Drake’s next album Iceman will probably be another versatile and well-rounded full-length from The Boy, if the singles are anything to go by. “Which One” followed up an earlier, more boisterous and grand single with dance-heavy and chilled-out vibes, plus a Central Cee feature.

We will see what other elements define the upcoming record, whenever Aubrey decides to put it out. We sadly don’t have a release date on our hands yet. But considering that two singles and a tour recently arrived, we don’t expect to wait much longer for it.