Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Not Like Us’ Hits New High Amid HBCU Love

Kendrick Lamar‘s ‘Not Like Us’ has officially made its way into the repertoire of HBCU marching bands, just as the ubiquitous single hit another streaming milestone.

In a video shared by a K.Dot fan account on X (formerly Twitter) on Sunday (August 25), Florida A&M University’s Band, the Marching 100, can be seen performing a small portion of the track at halftime during the school’s faceoff against Norfolk State University.

The band’s members even seem to include the “O-V-Hoe” call-out from the song, before transitioning to what sounds like Kehlani‘s “After Hours.”

Shortly after sharing the highlight from the 2024 MEAC/SEAC Challenge, which took place in Atlanta on Saturday (August 24), the same Kendrick Lamar fan account shared a video of Alcorn State University’s Band, Sounds of Dyn-O-Mite & Golden Girls, performing “Not Like Us” during a preview of their planned performances for this school year.

https://t.co/ZfRd20g8GQ

— Kendrick Lamar Updates (@KendrickChart) August 25, 2024

Saturday also reportedly saw Kendrick reach another milestone with “Not Like Us,” which also allowed him to surpass a benchmark previously set by Drake.

According to Hip Hop All Day, the song has now amassed over 700 million streams on Spotify, becoming the fastest song to achieve that total on the platform. That record was previously held by Drizzy’s 2018 hit, “God’s Plan.”

Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Not Like Us’ has now surpassed 700 million streams on Spotify

It becomes the fastest rap song EVER to achieve this milestone surpassing ‘Gods Plan’. pic.twitter.com/wcKzPvTAf2

— Hip Hop All Day (@HipHopAllDayy) August 24, 2024

Meanwhile, Drake released three songs out of the blue that just might spark round two of his battle with Kendrick Lamar.

The Canadian hitmaker shared the trio of tracks on Friday (August 23) via his burner Instagram account, through which he dropped a similar batch of previously unreleased songs earlier this month in a bid bounce back from his perceived defeat in the beef.

Included in the new releases are “SOD,” his recently leaked collaboration with Lil Yachty that no longer features the Atlanta rapper, “Circadian Rhythm” and “No Face,” which features guest vocals from Playboi Carti.

The latter has quickly generated the most chatter among fans thanks to some choice words from Drake seemingly aimed at Kendrick Lamar and the other rappers he sparred with in April and May.

“N-ggas got lit off the features I skated on / I gotta know, I gotta know / How you get lit off the n-gga you hatin’ on? / Numbers untouchable, they got the data wrong,” he raps, appearing to reference his guest verses for the likes of A$AP Rocky, The Weeknd and Future while casting doubt on Kendrick eclipsing many of his streaming records with “Not Like Us”.

“This is the moment I know they been prayin’ on / What? Aye, what? Aye / Try knock The Boy off, but fuck it, I’m stayin’ on / O’ keep on sendin’ me slaps to go crazy on / 40 keep sayin’ it’s time to be patient / It’s so many people we turnin’ the tables on.”

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“Circadian Rhythm,” meanwhile, continues the Kendrick taunts as its title seemingly references a line from the Compton rapper’s “6:16 in LA” diss song where he rapped: “I know this type of power is gon’ cost / But I live in circadian rhythms of a shooting star.”

Drake also dubbed the song “The Language 2,” implying it’s a sequel to his 2013 Nothing Was the Same cut on which he subliminally responded to Kendrick’s earth-shaking “Control” verse.

“SOD,” “Circadian Rhythm” and “No Face” are currently only available to stream on Instagram, but they may soon land on streaming services like Drake’s aforementioned 100 GIGS loosies “It’s Up,” “Blue Green Red” and “Housekeeping Knows.”