Kendrick Lamar warned Drake that he’d go “back to back” on “Euphoria” earlier this week, and now he made good on that promise with “6:16 in LA.”
Dot spends much of the song surgically picking apart Drake’s OVO crew, planting seeds that there is a rat among them. This angle is especially effective given how paranoid Drake already was before all of this (on songs like “Champagne Poetry,” he raps about how his “cleaning staff’s plotting extortion” on him).
The smooth flip of Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” makes the track sound amazing even without the shots, but of course, Kendrick even found a way to hide a deeper meaning behind the sample itself, which has ties into Drake’s family (more on that below).
“6:16 in LA” is full of layered references and even more “quintuple entendres,” so here’s a breakdown of all of the deeper meanings behind the track.
Kendrick Lamar warned Drake that he’d go “back to back” on “Euphoria” earlier this week, and now he made good on that promise with “6:16 in LA.”
Dot spends much of the song surgically picking apart Drake’s OVO crew, planting seeds that there is a rat among them. This angle is especially effective given how paranoid Drake already was before all of this (on songs like “Champagne Poetry,” he raps about how his “cleaning staff’s plotting extortion” on him).
The smooth flip of Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” makes the track sound amazing even without the shots, but of course, Kendrick even found a way to hide a deeper meaning behind the sample itself, which has ties into Drake’s family (more on that below).
“6:16 in LA” is full of layered references and even more “quintuple entendres,” so here’s a breakdown of all of the deeper meanings behind the track.
The title
The title “6:16 in LA” has a lot of symbolism behind it. The most obvious interpretation is that Kendrick is using Drake’s long history of releasing songs with timestamp titles against him. But there’s more. Dot dropped the track at 6:16 a.m., and the numerology in “6:16” could represent at least five other meanings.
June 16 (6/16) is the date that Father's Day is celebrated in many countries, including the US and Canada. This might be Kendrick’s way of doubling down on bars he had on “Euphoria” about Drake being a deadbeat dad (“I got a son to raise, but I can see you don't know nothin' 'bout that”) as well as a possible reference to Drake having an absent father during his childhood.
June 16 is also Tupac’s birthday. Kendrick has a deep affinity for Pac and revealed that he took offense to Drake buying his million-dollar ring on “Euphoria.” And of course, Drake tried coming after Kendrick last month by using artificial intelligence to create a Tupac diss verse on “Taylor Made Freestyle.”
HBO’s Euphoria, executive-produced by Drake, aired its first episode on June 16, 2019. The show has been criticized for sexualizing teenaged female characters, and after naming his last song “Euphoria,” this could be Kendrick’s way of subtly commenting on the rumors of Drake’s odd history with underaged women.
OJ Simpson’s murder case began on June 16, 1995, and this reference could tie into the black leather glove on the song’s cover artwork (more on that below), which might be Kendrick’s way of implying that some of Drake’s own crimes will soon come to light.
Fans are also pointing to the Bible verse, Corinthians 6:16, which reads, “Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, ‘The two will become one flesh.’” This could be yet another jab at Drake’s tastes in women.
The cover art
The cover artwork features a black leather Maybach equestrian glove. The image immediately evokes the memory of the notorious black leather gloves that were used as evidence in OJ Simpson’s 1995 murder case. Under this interpretation, Dot could be implying that members of Drake’s team, like his right-hand man Chubbs (who Kendrick previously mentioned on “Euphoria”), have committed crimes and gotten away with it. The actual glove on the cover art is used for horse-riding, though, so it also could be a callback to Drake’s bar on “In The Morning” where he rapped, “I love thick women because my aunt, she rode equestrian.” To this day, nobody really knows what the hell he meant by that, and this image could be Kendrick’s way of calling back that unusual bar and making fun of Drake’s history with women.
The music
The song is built around a sample of Al Green’s “What a Wonderful Thing Love Is,” which has direct ties to Drake’s family. Drake’s father’s cousin, Mabon “Teenie” Hodges, was a guitarist and songwriter for Al Green, and he’s credited for playing on this specific song. The track is also rumored to be co-produced by Taylor Swift’s frequent collaborator Jack Antonoff. If that’s true, then “6:16 in LA” would literally be a “Taylor made” song. Antonoff produces a lot of Swift’s music, so this could act as a response to Drake’s AI “Taylor Made Freestyle,” where he insinuated that Kendrick has to take orders from the pop singer. Because of all this, it’s uncertain whether the song will ever hit streaming services. Clearing an Al Green sample is difficult, especially when it’s attached to a family member of the guy you’re dissing. And it’s doubtful that Antonoff wants to officially throw himself in the middle of this rap war, especially since he more than likely produced this song for Kendrick before the beef broke out and didn’t know it would be used for a diss record. Still, this was a brilliant maneuver on Kendrick’s part.
The lyrics
The bars on “6:16 in LA” seem to have one central goal: make Drake question everything. Throughout the song, Dot implies that there are snakes in Drake’s OVO camp, and he keeps the lyrics vague enough to leave the rapper suspicious of everyone around him, with bars like:
“Off-white Sunseeker at the marina/ Fuck a Phantom, I like to buy yachts when I get the fever/ Wine cooler spill on my white t-shirt, the sightseer/ Trifecta, money, morals, and culture, that's my leisure/ My visa, passport tatted, I show up in Ibiza”
In the song’s opening bars, Kendrick seemingly mocks Drake for constantly rapping about rich shit that normal people can’t relate to (like going “from the Vava to Cinquante-Cinq, then back to the Vava”), but there could also be some hidden layers behind them. Drake recently purchased a new Rolls Royce Phantom, and this could be a double entendre, with Dot implying that he doesn’t have to move silently like a ghost (or in the same vehicle as Drake) and he’d rather make it very loud and clear that he’s pulling up on people. Cole and Drake also reunited in a Rolls Royce Ghost in 2019, which might have pissed Kendrick off. Drake also recently bought a yacht, so in the next line, Dot raps that he doesn’t need glamorous items because “money, morals, and culture” are enough to satisfy him, implying that Drake is filling these holes in his life with material possessions. Finally, Drake frequents Ibiza as a vacation spot, so Dot appears to be saying he’s not afraid to pull up on him anywhere.
"Conspiracies about Cash, dog? That's not even the leak/ Find the jewels like Kash Doll, I just need you to think/ Are you finally ready to play have-you-ever? Let's see/ Have you ever thought that OVO is workin' for me? Fake bully, I hate bullies, you must be a terrible person/ Everyone inside your team is whispering that you deserve it”
Drake is already a very paranoid guy, with a habit of rapping about how he doesn’t trust people, so Kendrick instills even more distrust in him by insinuating that members of the OVO camp have been leaking information to him. This narrative was already established by The Weeknd on “All to Myself” when he sang about Drake having “leaks in his operation.” And on “6:16 in LA,” the “conspiracies about Cash” line might be Kendrick’s way of saying that Drake thought The Weeknd’s manager (Amir “Cash” Esmalian) was the one leaking information about him, which is why he sent shots at him on “Push Ups.” The “find the jewels like Kash Doll” line left everyone confused at first (even Kash Doll herself), but Dot might be referencing the time she was robbed of $500,000 worth of jewelry last year. Separately, there were also rumors that Kash Doll and Drake were dating a few years ago.
“It was fun until you started to put money in the streets/ Then lost money 'cause they came back with no receipts/ I'm sorry that I live a boring life, I love peace/ But war-ready if the world is ready to see you bleed”
Back in 2018, Pusha-T alluded to the fact that Drake offered $100,000 to whoever could give him ammunition to use against the Virginia rapper when they were beefing, and now Kendrick is implying that he’s trying to do the same thing this time. On “Euphoria,” Kendrick already made it clear that he won’t use these shady tactics in his own beefs, rapping, “Why would I call around tryna get dirt on niggas? Y'all think all my life is rap?” Now, Kendrick is using these bars to convince people that Drake is actually the one fighting on his back foot, desperately paying the streets to get dirt on his opponent.
“A hundred niggas that you got on salary/ And twenty of 'em want you as a casualty/ And one of them is actually next to you/ And two of them is practically tired of your lifestyle/ Just don't got the audacity to tell you”
Kendrick goes on to say that some members of Drake’s OVO crew have a deep disdain for him and that they’re actually closer to Dot than he might realize. Pusha-T already revealed that he found out Drake had a child through a woman who was pillow-talking with OVO producer Noah “40” Shebib, so it wouldn’t be that shocking if there were more leaks in the camp. The person “next to” Drake that Kendrick is referring to could be his right-hand man Chubbs, but there’s no way of telling for sure.
“You're playin' nerdy with Zack Bia and Twitter bots/ But your reality can't hide behind wifi/ Your lil' memes is losin' steam, they figured you out/ The forced opinions is not convincin', y'all need a new route/ It's time that you look around on who's around you/Before you figure that you're not alone, ask what Mike would do”
First, Kendrick makes fun of Drake for aligning so closely with Zack Bia, a DJ and record executive who just opened up on the It's All A Blur Tour (here’s a full deep dive on Bia if you’re interested). Then Kendrick brings up the rumors that Drake uses Twitter bots to troll his opposition online, something that was happening to Pusha-T last year. Kendrick hints that the memes Drake has been posting over the last few weeks aren’t working, before imploring The Boy to start investigating his own crew and find out who’s betraying him. Dot closes the diss by playing on Drake’s affinity for Michael Jackson, weaving his song “You Are Not Alone” into the bar and sarcastically telling Drake to put himself in the singer’s shoes now, since he thinks he’s “actually Michael Jackson.”