Drake is understandably vexed about lyrics framing him as a ‘certified paedophile’ – but diss tracks are a deliberately lurid part of rap

There were people who thought Drake v Kendrick was the greatest hip-hop beef of all time, attracting a wider level of public interest and proceeding at a more dizzying velocity than any previous feud: the parties involved released 10 tracks in the space of six weeks, more if you count J Cole’s withdrawn 7 Minute Drill and producer Metro Boomin’s BBL Drizzy, released as a contest to see which member of the public could add the best insult of Drake to the instrumental beat.

On the other hand, there were high-profile naysayers, among them rapper Macklemore, who complained that the feud was distracting attention from the war in Palestine; and Roots drummer, DJ and hip-hop historian Ahmir ‘Questlove’ Thompson, who called it “wrestling match level mudslinging and takedown by any means necessary” for an “audience wanting blood [that] will soon put up RIP posts like they weren’t part of the problem”: proof, he suggested, that “hip-hop is truly dead”.