A Brief History of Taylor Swift’s Relationship With Kendrick Lamar and Drake
A brief timeline of the superstar's friendships with both hip-hop titans, which date back around a decade.
This Super Bowl Sunday, some will be watching the football game, some will watch for the ads, and others will be tuning in just to see what Taylor Swift is up to.
Not only will she be in New Orleans to support her boyfriend Travis Kelce and his team, the Kansas City Chiefs, as they go for the elusive three-peat against the Jalen Hurts-led Philadelphia Eagles. (They’d be the first NFL team to win three consecutive titles in the modern Super Bowl era.) But she’ll also get a chance to check out Kendrick Lamar’s much-anticipated Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show where he may or may not be legally allowed to perform his Drake diss track “Not Like Us.” [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]
So why would Lamar’s setlist matter to Swift? Well, only a week ago, she went viral for celebrating the track’s Record of the Year win (just one of its several new trophies) at this year’s Grammys. It wasn’t a surprise to see Swift cheering Lamar on; after all, she has been a long-time supporter of the rapper, who appeared on the 2015 remix of her 1989 track “Bad Blood.” But she’s also good friends with Drake, the object of that song’s disdain. Champagne problems indeed.
To better understand Swift’s connection to the ongoing Drake and Kendrick beef, which started in March 2024 after Lamar fired shots at Drizzy on Future’s “Like That,” we take a closer look at her relationship with the two hip-hop superstars. Let’s just say, she (and her song “Bad Blood”) probably won’t be able to exclude herself from this narrative anytime soon.
May 2015: Taylor Swift releases “Bad Blood” remix featuring Kendrick Lamar
In May 2015, Swift enlisted Kendrick Lamar to appear on the remix of “Bad Blood,” the 1989 clapback track that was reportedly aimed at Katy Perry. The collaboration wasn’t a surprise to those who had been paying attention. For months, the two had been very publicly sharing their admiration for one another.
The love fest officially started with Swift rocking out to Lamar’s 2014 Grammy performance of “m.A.A.d. city” featuring Imagine Dragons. A few months later, she told Rolling Stone that her go-to anthem was Lamar’s “Backseat Freestyle.” “I know every word,” she bragged. A claim she would confirm the following year when she posted a video of her lip-synching along to the track.
For his part, Lamar frequently made it clear that he appreciated her dedication to her craft, and loved her song “Shake It Off,” going so far as to freestyle over the 1989 hit.
Lamar and Swift’s first team-up being a diss track may now feel like foreshadowing, but the rapper wasn’t aware of that song’s underlying meaning at the time. Two years after the release of “Bad Blood,” Rolling Stone asked Lamar if his appearance on the song meant that he had taken sides in the Swift-Perry beef. “No, I wasn’t aware of that, bro. That’s a great question. No! On the record, no,” he said. “Which makes it even more funny now, for sure. That’s far beyond my concern. I have to stay away from that, for sure. That’s some real beef.”
October 2016: Drake and Taylor Swift hard launch their friendship
Three years after Drake and Taylor Swift officially met at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards, the rapper made their friendship Instagram official. In 2016, Drake posted a photo of them from his star-studded 30th birthday party where guests included Swift’s friend-briefly turned enemy-now turned friend again Katy Perry and her former boyfriend John Mayer, who had inspired her 2010 track “Dear John.”
The image of the two, shot from behind, led many to wonder about what it could all mean. Were they working on music together? Were the dating rumors actually true? The answer was no to both. It seems that Drake hard launched his friendship with Swift to tease an Apple commercial that featured him singing along to “Bad Blood.”
November 2016: Drake & Taylor Swift work out to each other’s music
The first (and, as of now, only) musical collaboration between Drake and Taylor Swift was actually a pair of Apple Music commercials released in 2016. In April of that year, Swift dropped an ad that featured her running on a treadmill while rapping along to Drake and Future’s 2015 hype track “Jumpman.” Unfortunately, she gets so distracted by the song that she ends up face planting mid-verse. Though, to her credit, she keeps right on singing, which is exactly what you would expect from the artist behind “I Can Do it With a Broken Heart.”
Seven months later, Drake returned the favor by starring in an Apple Music commercial of his own. In it, he lip-syncs along to what we’ll now assume was the Kendrick-less version of “Bad Blood.” Like Swift, he gets so into the song that he commits an epic gym fail by falling off the bench press.
August 2019: Taylor Swift name-drops Drake on “I Forgot That You Existed”
On the opening track of her 2019 record, Lover, a kiss-off track allegedly aimed at her ex Calvin Harris, Swift sings, “I couldn’t get away from ya/ In my feelings more than Drake, so yeah.” That same year, she appeared on the cover of Entertainment Weekly wearing a Drake pin, explaining on her Tumblr that she “wanted to rep as many things/people I love on the jacket,” which also featured nods to her bestie Selena Gomez, Friends, and Sally Rooney. When asked what she admired most about Drake, she told EW, “I love his one-liners.”
