‘Like That’: How Kendrick Lamar, Future and Metro Boomin’s Brutal Opening Salvo Against Drake Launched the Beef of the Year

variety.com:

Future, Metro Boomin and Kendrick Lamar — dominated the cultural conversation for weeks on end. While the chatter largely centered on Lamar’s incendiary verse and the very public beef it triggered among Drake, J.

Cole and himself, the anticipation for “Like That” had been building for the better part of a year: Metro Boomin first shared a snippet of “Like That” at an after-party in Brooklyn in 2023. “The crowd went crazy off of the beat alone – it was one of the best flips of ‘Everlasting Bass’ I’ve ever heard in my life,” says Xiarra-Diamond Nimrod of Republic Records, Metro’s label, in reference to the sample of Rodney-O and Joe Cooley’s 1986 hit.

She posted a short clip online, and the response was immediate. “Before I knew it, fan pages picked it up, blogs and publications ran with it and everyone was asking for the full song,” Nimrod remembers.

SalXCo’s Ryan Ramsey also knew it was special from the moment Metro first played him the track. “That beat is just insane,” he says, “and then you get Future to put his sauce on and let Kendrick do his thing — that’s tough to beat.” The buzz only built when Metro Boomin and Future headlined the Rolling Loud California festival just prior to the song’s release, and Travis Scott personally asked them to play it during their set. “The request wasn’t planned, but we made sure content capture was in place to document all of the key moments,” Nimrod says.