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If you had any doubts that the friendship between former Toronto Raptors great DeMar DeRozan and Drake was over, you can pretty much put those aside now.
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After appearing last month onstage when rapper Kendrick Lamar performed Not Like Us — a diss number that Lamar wrote aimed at Drake — the Raptors legend has popped up with a cameo in a new music video for the song.
On the track, which the Compton emcee dropped in May, Lamar raps, “Say Drake, I hear you like ’em young / You better not ever go to cell block one / To any bitch that talk to him and they in love / Just make sure you hide your little sister from him.”
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The lines alluded to a 2010 concert video that resurfaced nearly a decade later in which the Canadian hitmaker invited a teenage fan onto the stage at a Denver show where he proceeded to dance and fondle her.
The tune also makes reference to DeRozan returning “home” to the United States after the Raptors dealt the all-star to the San Antonio Spurs back in 2018 as part of a trade package for Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green.
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“I’m glad DeRoz’ came home, ya’ll didn’t deserve him neither,” Lamar raps on the single. The video also contains other subtle digs at T.O., with one background player spotted in a Toronto Blue Jays cap.
After Deebo’s concert walk-on, some fans of Lamar mocked Drake for not having DeRozan in his corner, with one person writing: “This is murder. Drake can’t come back from this.”
But after the music video dropped, and DeRozan firmly aligned himself with Lamar in the pair’s ongoing war-of-words, Raptors fans roasted the six-time All Star for his treachery.
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“No one in Toronto is the least bit affected by this,” one person wrote on X. “We all got over DeMar very very quickly.”
“Raptors won as soon as he left,” another swiped, with a third adding, “Raptors got Kawhi (Leonard) and a championship. The better choice was made.”
“Didn’t he get traded and they won the finals the very next year?” a fourth person asked. “Oh yeah, he’s still hurt over it.”
Another Raptors fan said it must have hurt DeRozan watching Toronto hoist the Larry O’Brien Trophy less than 12 months after he had been sent packing by the team.
“I mean the year DeRozan was gone from the Toronto Raptors they won it all. I bet he was going crazy watching Drake cheer on the sidelines during that championship run.”
The war of words between the two has played out in recent months after Lamar responded to a line in Drake and J. Cole’s 2023 song First Person Shooter, in which Cole referred to the three of them as the industry’s three greatest hip-hop artists.
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“We the big three like we started a league,” Cole rapped.
Lamar dismissed that declaration on Future and Metro Boomin’s Like That, spitting back, “It’s just big me.” He also hit out at Drake on back-to-back diss tracks Euphoria and 6:16 in LA in which he called the lyricist “a terrible person.”
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During his nine seasons as a Raptor, DeRozan formed a close bond with Drake, a global ambassador for the team and fixture at many home games at Scotiabank Arena.
On 2021’s Lemon Pepper Freestyle, Drake paid tribute to DeRozan, rapping, “My city love me like DeMar DeRozan.”
In 2016, the two appeared alongside Kyle Lowry on the cover of Slam with DeRozan telling the magazine the trio had a group chat.
“I mean for me, my first year here, that’s when Drake first started coming out. To see him grow and evolve into the megastar he is, and always supporting the city, the country, us, to be our team ambassador—this man got his own team jersey that we wear. To have that, it’s definitely incredible. He’s really our man. He texts me and Kyle in our group chat after games and all that. He’s really supportive of what we’re doing, and vice versa,” DeRozan said.
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And after he was shipped out of Toronto in 2018, DeRozan said he went over to Drake’s house where the five-time Grammy winner consoled him.
“Yeah, day it came out, I went to Drake’s house,” DeRozan told ESPN’s Chris Haynes. “Me and him sat and talked for a couple of hours. Not even on some hoops stuff. Just to hear the words that come from him being the person that he is in this world, especially in Toronto. What I meant to this city. It was what I needed.”
After three seasons with the Chicago Bulls, DeRozan is still looking for a new NBA team. No doubt when he returns to Scotiabank those cheers he’s been used to hearing, even as a visitor, will turn to jeers.
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