By Comfort Asemota
Drake has officially been crowned Apple Music’s most-streamed artist of 2025, while Kendrick Lamar’s explosive, Grammy-winning diss track continues to dominate the platform as its biggest rap song of the year—a dramatic reminder of how tightly the two rivals remain linked on the global charts.
On Tuesday, December 2, Apple Music unveiled its “’25 Replay” report, confirming Drake as the platform’s top artist of the year. His massive streaming momentum kicked off in February with the release of “Some Sexy Songs 4 U,” his collaborative project with PartyNextDoor, and continued through the rollout of his Iceman album, which kept his catalog in heavy rotation.
Despite a year defined by one of hip-hop’s most intense rivalries, Drake’s streaming strength never wavered—and neither did fans’ obsession with Kendrick Lamar’s sharp, chart-shaking diss records. While Drake dominated overall listener engagement, Kendrick’s “Not Like Us” maintained exceptional streaming numbers on Apple Music, proving its staying power.
The track—which earned Kendrick a Grammy and became the signature record of their highly publicized feud—closed out 2025 as Apple Music’s No. 1 rap song for the second consecutive year. In the previous year, it topped the platform’s overall songs chart. And although Rosé and Bruno Mars’s global hit “APT.” claimed the No. 1 overall song of 2025, Kendrick’s diss made history as the first diss track to repeat as Apple Music’s top rap song.
Their headline-making feud, which exploded one year ago and generated billions of streams across both artists’ catalogs, even pushed Kendrick Lamar into a Super Bowl halftime performance, highlighting the cultural scale of their battle.
Yet while Apple Music listeners continue to fuel both sides of the Drake–Kendrick rivalry, interest elsewhere appears to be tapering off. Elliott Wilson and Uproxx’s podcast The Bigger Picture, created to chronicle the beef, was recently canceled as the frenzy surrounding the feud began to fade.
