Kendrick Lamar "Say Drake"

About

Kendrick Lamar "Say Drake," also known as Kendrick Lamar Smiling and Say Drake, I Hear You Like 'Em Young, refers to a viral image of American rapper Kendrick Lamar grinning at the camera while rapping the line "Say Drake" from his diss track "Not Like Us" during his NFL Super Bowl performance in early February 2025. The moment was later used as an exploitable image macro meme and reaction image on social media, fueling the Kendrick vs. Drake feud and spawning a slew of memes editing Kendrick Lamar into various jokes.

Origin

On February 9th, 2025, during his Super Bowl halftime show performance, Kendrick Lamar mentioned Canadian rapper Drake and their high-profile beef from the previous year while smiling directly into the camera and saying the line, “Say Drake,” from his diss track “Not Like Us.” The full performance was uploaded to YouTube^[1] the following day, amassing over 30 million views and 1.6 million likes in two days.

Shortly after the moment during the halftime show aired on the night of February 9th, the image of Kendrick Lamar smiling began being circulated online alongside the "Say Drake" quote. One of the earliest viral examples was posted to Twitter / X^[6] that night by user @ayeejuju under the caption "Say Drake 😃," receiving over 13.4 million views, 599,000 likes and 2,100 replies in three days.

Spread

Kendrick Lamar’s smile at the camera as he said “Say Drake” during his Super Bowl LIX performance quickly gained viral attention on platforms like X / Twitter and Instagram, inspiring numerous memes and debates about the ongoing rivalry between the two rappers.

For instance, on February 10th, 2025, Redditor Buddiboi95 posted a meme using the image of Kendrick Lamar to the /r/dankmemes^[4] subreddit, receiving over 25,000 upvotes and 200 comments in two days.

On February 11th, Redditor AdamGrossmansDad posted a version to the /r/ShitPostCrusaders^[5] subreddit referencing the JoJo Approach meme, garnering over 180 upvotes in 17 hours.

On February 12th, 2025, Instagram^[2] user @long.drivers posted a still image of Kendrick, captioned “Walking to my Drive that’s 50 yards past everyone else’s in the group.” The post gained roughly 295 likes in a day.

On the same day, TikTok^[3] user @alexisroxanne posted a version of the “Say Drake” meme, which amassed roughly 2.400 plays and 188 likes in a day.

Various Examples

Template / Green Screen

Search Interest

External References