A brass band switched up Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Not Like Us’ into a Donald Trump diss outside his appearance at the NABJ conference this week.
The former president was speaking at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Chicago on Wednesday (July 31), and a brass band took the chance to mount a mini-protest.
The group played the Drake diss, but co-opted its message to direct it at the 2024 Republican nominee for president instead. Where Kendrick sang “They not like us”, this band sang, “Trump’s not like us”.
Watch the clip below:
Not the White men outside the convention having more sense than the National Association of Black Journalists.
They changed the lyrics to ‘They Not Like Us’ to ‘Trump’s Not Like Us.’#NABJ #NABJ24 #NABJ2024 pic.twitter.com/2hNZ43cS0O
— Dana Abercrombie (@sagesurge) July 31, 2024
“Not the White men outside the convention having more sense than the National Association of Black Journalists,” wrote the X user who posted the original clip.
Drake himself recently quoted the song, which became a US BIllboard Hot 100 chart-topper and became the most streamed hip-hop song in one day, in response to an impersonator dancing along to ‘Hotline Bling’. “Sometimes you gotta pop out,” the Canadian rapper wrote while referencing the video.
The song has also now been turned into an 8-bit video game for desktops and smart phones (play it here), and its long-awaited music video finally arrived last month too.
At his Juneteenth concert special held in Los Angeles, Lamar performed the diss track five consecutive times, bringing out Dr. Dre as a special guest to deliver the track’s opening line: “Pssst, I see dead people”.
During the show, the rapper also included a new verse that called for Drake to return the ring Tupac wore at the 1996 MTV Video Music Awards, which the Canadian artist seemingly purchased at an auction.
The CEO of the Recording Academy, Harvey Mason Jr., has said ‘Not Like Us’ would be eligible for the Grammy Awards, explaining that while diss tracks were not commonly nominated, Kendrick Lamar’s huge success with the awards in the past makes the inclusion likely. The rapper has won 17 Grammys so far.