How Kendrick Lamar And Drake’s Rap Beef Reignited The Anime Big Three Discourse

A year and some change ago, Atlanta rapper Future and producer Metro Boomin released their collaborative studio album "We Don’t Trust You." As is customary for rap album releases on streaming platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music, the features on the album were not disclosed until a few days after its release to encourage listeners to experience the entire album rather than skip to an artist they fancy, like Travis Scott, The Weeknd, Playboi Carti, and Rick Ross (for his four die-hard fans). Today, it is difficult to recall the other featured artists on the album due to Kendrick Lamar’s "Like That" verse, which stole the spotlight and ignited a generational rap feud between him and Drake.

We all know what followed: the world rubbernecked from their day jobs to witness the pair drop eight diss tracks against each other between April and May. Many of the tracks dropped so suddenly that only the most unemployed of the music-listening public could rise to the occasion of playing the role of Paul Revere by posting "Kendrick dropped" whenever a new track released. Their hydrogen bomb vs coughing baby feud culminated with Lamar out-rapping the Degrassi star by winning multiple Grammys for his final diss track "Not Like Us," headlining the Super Bowl, and getting a packed stadium to sing along to the Canadian rapper being a "certified pedophile" (twice). It was, and forever will be, a good time to be a K Dot fan. 

However, one unacknowledged aspect of Kendrick, Drake, and J. Cole's feud (until post-diss clarity hit him, leading him to apologize to Lamar and duck out of the beef to live a peaceful life) is how one line in Lamar's "Like That" verse breathed life into a long-quelled feud in the anime community over which shonen series is the best of all time: Naruto, Bleach, or One Piece.

The bar in question was a response to J. Cole’s “First Person Shooter” verse calling himself, Drake, and K Dot the big three in rap — a claim that’s pretty easy to accept in most rap circles. Lamar, ever the competitive rapper, took playful offense to that, saying, “Fuck the big three, it’s just big me.” While the phrase is in reference to the trio, it also carries weight in anime circles as the term dedicated to One Piece, Naruto, and Bleach as the big three shonen series. While greener anime fans often mistakenly treat the term as something that can be usurped by newer series like Jujutsu Kaisen or Demon Slayer, old heads have gatekept the adulation as a distinction that can never be duplicated. 

As soon as anime fans heard K Dot’s big three bar, they knew peace among fandoms would be disrupted once again with the resurgence of old internet forum debates. But this time, these debates happened on the new stage of the brainrot social media site TikTok, whose video editors took K Dot’s bar as a sleeper agent activation phrase and went wild making stylish AMVs centering either of the three anime as the one that was “really like that” while their contemporaries' best work was “a light pack.” 

While the rap trio's beef was settled through their ability to craft scathing disses at each other's character, the anime big three TikTok beef was resolved by determining which fandom excelled in creating AMVs with their show as the superior series. The discourse evolved into the rappers being aptly personified as the three anime shows. Kendrick's anime persona was One Piece, as he has garnered an almost religious following of listeners who dedicate their lives to converting others to his fanbase despite the breadth of his discography being more politically charged and intimidatingly dense than his peers. (It also doesn't hurt that Luffy reps Lamar's Los Angeles Lakers.) Drake's anime persona was Naruto because he is the most popular of the three, garnering an all-encompassing reach thanks to the mass appeal of his songs servicing beginner rap listeners. This left Bleach as J. Cole’s anime persona, which was so uncannily appropriate one could almost call it fate. Like Bleach, J. Cole suffers from middle-child syndrome, often being left out of the conversation as the forerunner of the big three despite having a stylish flow of his own, even if he has not delivered a new flow or cadence in his rap performances since the trio broke into the rap scene over a decade ago.

Aside from stray anime AMVs, such as those featuring JJK and Dragon Ball Super, TikTok video editors engaged in widespread friendly competition. My favorite AMVs had its heroes quip catchphrases after K Dot's “big three” bar, such as Naruto saying “baka,” Ichigo saying “bankai,” and Luffy giggling while hitting his Gear 5 pose. Like the Kendrick-Drake rivalry, TikTok AMVs quickly escalated, with Naruto fans readily admitting they were getting their generous ramen-eating asses beaten by the video editors behind Bleach and One Piece’s “Like That” edits outperforming their creative efforts. 

If you’re wondering who won the Anime Big Three contest of 2024, it was definitively One Piece. Not only did the anime’s supporters work harder on the video editing front, but they also provided empirical data, such as One Piece selling more volumes worldwide than the other series, as further proof of its superiority. They also cleverly utilized K Dot’s “Prince outlived Mike Jack” bar — comparing his influence to Drake’s comparing himself to Michael Jackson — to emphasize the ongoing series outliving Bleach and Naruto.

Did Kendrick Lamar know his “throw away” big three bar would reignite an age-old anime beef through dueling AMVs at the same time as he was systematically dismantling his lesser? Probably not. But given his Goku-inspired scream in his victory lap GNX track “TV Off,” I’d like to believe the reclusive rapper committed Taylor Swift levels of double entendres and deep-cut bars with his lyrics just to feed the anime fans. I thank him for bringing out the competitive edge of AMV-makers for a new generation to pop out for their favorite series.