Apple Music unveiled its annual “’25 Replay” data on Tuesday, December 2, confirming that Drake finished the year as the most popular artist across all genres on the platform. His commanding lead was built on an unbroken string of high-performing releases that kept him in constant rotation. The momentum began in February with the surprise drop of Some Sexy Songs 4 U, his lush, late-night collaborative album with longtime friend and frequent partner PartyNextDoor. That project alone generated hundreds of millions of streams in its opening weeks and introduced a string of radio staples that carried Drake through the spring and summer.
The second half of the year saw an even bigger surge when Drake launched the calculated, cinematic rollout for his seventh solo studio album, Iceman. Teased with cryptic billboards, short films, and a flurry of features, the campaign turned the project into a global event long before the first single arrived. When Iceman finally landed in late October, it shattered Apple Music’s first-day and first-week streaming records for a rap album in 2025, pushing Drake’s yearly total far beyond any other competitor. Fans old and new returned in droves, revisiting classics, debating lyrics, and keeping the Toronto superstar’s voice in heavy rotation from commute playlists to gym sessions to pre-game turn-ups.
Yet even inside Drake’s year of total domination, Kendrick Lamar cast an enormous shadow. “Not Like Us,” the Compton rapper’s scorching, West Coast–flavored takedown that many consider the knockout blow of the entire beef, refused to fade away. The song, produced by Mustard and built around an infectious, bouncy beat that somehow made repeated accusations of predatory behavior sound like the anthem of the summer, spent much of 2025 lodged near the very top of Apple Music’s daily and weekly charts. It became a fixture at sporting events, block parties, clubs, and family cookouts alike, its hook shouted word-for-word by crowds who knew every bar by heart.
When the final numbers were tallied, “Not Like Us” finished 2025 as Apple Music’s most-streamed rap song worldwide, an astonishing repeat victory after it had already claimed the No. 1 overall song spot across the entire platform in 2024. It is now the first diss track in history to hold the crown as the year’s biggest rap song two years in a row. While the platform’s overall Song of the Year honor went to Rosé and Bruno Mars for their inescapable, genre-blending smash “APT.,” Kendrick’s record stood alone atop the rap category, proof that the appetite for his surgical lyrical assault on Drake never truly waned.
The numbers tell a story of two artists who, whether they like it or not, continue to feed off each other’s energy. The feud that exploded in early 2024 sent shockwaves through hip-hop and popular culture at large, generating billions of streams as fans dissected every bar, every subliminal, every rumored response. Catalog listens for both rappers skyrocketed; deep cuts suddenly re-entered charts, and classic albums received fresh waves of attention as new listeners tried to decode years of veiled shots. Kendrick parlayed the momentum into the most coveted performance slot in American entertainment: the 2025 Super Bowl halftime show, where he delivered a medley that included an electrifying, stadium-shaking rendition of “Not Like Us” while tens of millions watched at home.
For a while, it felt as though the beef would never lose oxygen. Media outlets launched entire verticals dedicated to tracking the saga. Veteran journalist Elliott Wilson partnered with Uproxx to create The Bigger Picture, a weekly podcast that promised exhaustive, insider coverage of every development between Drake and Kendrick. At its peak, episodes regularly cracked the top ten on Apple and Spotify charts. But as 2025 wore on and neither artist offered a direct follow-up salvo, the conversation gradually cooled. Listeners moved on to new releases, new dramas, new viral moments. In November, Wilson and Uproxx quietly announced that The Bigger Picture had been canceled, citing a natural winding down of public fascination with the rivalry.
Still, the Apple Music year-end data proves that the Drake–Kendrick story is far from over in the place that arguably matters most: the streaming numbers themselves. Fans may debate who “won” the beef in comment sections and group chats, but on the platform that now defines musical success, both artists continue to reign supreme in their own lanes while remaining inextricably linked. Drake owns the crown as the platform’s biggest act overall; Kendrick owns the single most unstoppable rap record of the past two years. One feeds the algorithm with quantity and ubiquity, the other with a singular, era-defining cultural missile that simply will not stop exploding.
As 2025 comes to a close, the rivalry has settled into a strange new phase, neither fully dormant nor actively flaring, yet still powerful enough to shape the top of the charts. Listeners keep both artists in constant rotation, unwilling, or perhaps unable, to choose a side once and for all. In the end, the biggest winner might be hip-hop itself, revitalized, scrutinized, and streamed at levels rarely seen before, all because two of its greatest living practitioners decided to aim at each other with everything they had. And as long as “Not Like Us” keeps finding new dance floors and Drake keeps finding new ways to flood the market, their names will stay welded together at the very top of the global listening habits that define modern music success.
