You don’t have to be a hip-hop connoisseur to know that Drake and Kendrick Lamar have some major beef. (With diss tracks coming out faster than you can listen to ’em, it’s the feud literally heard around the world. We mean, even Tom Hanks—yes, that Tom Hanks—had some words about the drama.) What started as a little bit of shade in one song quickly turned into a heated volley filled with some serious, dark accusations.
As we (attempt to!) keep up with the tea, we can’t help but want to take the feud to a larger level: Drake and Kendrick might be making personal pokes at each other, but how does their personal spaces stack up? After all, it was recently reported that Kendrick dropped $40 million on a new mansion in Los Angeles’s upscale Brentwood enclave. Clocking in at 16,000 square feet, the eight-bedroom home supposedly has the star-studded treatment with a gym, wine cellar and pool. (There’s also a guest house so members of #TeamKendrick will have somewhere to stay.) There’s not much known about the details of Drake’s home just yet, but The Wall Street Journal predicts it will be one of the most expensive real-estate transactions in Los Angeles this year.
Of course, this isn’t Kendrick’s only home. Over the years, the “Humble” rapper has slowly but surely upped his real-estate portfolio. While he initially picked up a home in Eastvale, California for a humble $523,400, Kendrick has since purchased a $2.65 million mansion in Calabasas (a city known to be friendly to folks with the initial K) as well as a $9.7 million pad in Manhattan Beach. Last year, he expanded his collection to the east coast and paid $8.6 million on a three-storied penthouse in Brooklyn.
Drake was quick to call out Kendrick’s New York digs, insinuating that infidelity was the driving force of the east coast expansion. “Why did you move to New York?” Drake asked in his diss track “Family Matters.” “Is it ’cause you livin’ that bachelor life? Proposed in 2015, but don’t wanna make her your actual wife?”
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The Degrassi star might be ready to throw out the home disses, but how does his portfolio stack up? Despite listing his Beverly Hills mega-mansion for $88 million last year, Drake also has a pretty stacked portfolio. In addition to buying a 313-acre ranch in Texas for $15 million, Drake reportedly dropped $100 million on a mega-mansion in Toronto. Decorated by Ferris Rafauli, the 50,000-square-foot home reportedly boasts an NBA-sized basketball court as well as a chandelier made with 20,000 hand-cut Swarovski crystals.
Nicknamed “the Embassy,” Drake’s Toronto digs seem to be the crown jewel of his real-estate portfolio—which makes it only fitting that Kendrick bashed the property in his diss track “Not Like Us.” Kendrick dropped a YouTube video of the song, which features a Google Maps screenshot of Drake’s Toronto home. The aerial photo is annotated with markers commonly associated with 𝓈ℯ𝓍ual predators, implying that Drake has inappropriate relationships with minors. (We know, it gets really dark, which is why we prefer to focus on the real estate side of things.)
The feud itself is messy and packed with drama, but who wins the real-estate round? Well it’s hard to say. From a strictly value and square footage perspective, Drake’s collection of homes is truly impressive. That said, we respect Kendrick’s coast-to-coast presence and his burgeoning real-estate empire in California. (Plus, since big-ticket transactions have slowed down due to the mansion tax, his latest acquisition is a welcomed flex.)
Interestingly enough, it’s that competitive spirit—the need to be the best—that got us into this pop culture clash to begin with. Kendrick, Drake, and J. Cole (who has mostly took himself out of the narrative) are typically regarded as today’s top three rappers. However, in his song “Like That,” Kendrick argues that there’s no big three. “It’s just big me,” he says. But maybe, when it comes to real estate, everyone can be a winner?
