DJ Akademiks Attempts To Explain Why Kendrick Lamar Landed On His Spotify Wrapped

DJ Akademiks has provided an explanation as to why Kendrick Lamar landed at No. 2 as the most-streamed artist on his Spotify Wrapped. “Normally Kendrick Lamar wouldn’t sniff my spotify wrapped.. but he’s #2 on mine,” Ak wrote on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday morning. “The explanation for that is thats what happens when u beef with every1 favorite rapper.. we gotta listen to ur sh*t too cuz of the beef. Beefing when its just musical competition helps both artists.”

Fans on social media haven’t been buying the explanation. “N***a convincing us why he got kendrick in his playlist. no one asked for an explanation bro,” one user replied. Another remarked: “A whole paragraph on why Kendrick Lamar is #2 on your wrapped is crazy.” One more fan wrote: “You can’t explain number 2 on Spotify Wrapped off of listening to beef responses alone. You need thousands of minutes to land top 2.” In a follow-up post, Ak later added: “Just proof that beefing with a bigger artist is the ultimate stimulus package u can get.”

Lamar landing on Ak’s Spotify Wrapped comes after the release of his new album, GNX. The project debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart after selling over 300k equivalent album units. The figure left even Akademiks impressed. “I think it’s a decent number,” he said on a recent stream. “It’s definitely a good number for Kendrick. And I understand that there’s a bunch of Drake fans here and Kendrick fans here who want to compete and compare these two. There is no comparison. I keep trying to tell you: Kendrick could die 15 deaths, he doesn’t compete with Drake overall for streaming.” He also described GNX as a “stellar” release for him.

Drake dominated streaming overall, finishing as one of the top global artists on Spotify overall, despite not putting out a new album. Check out DJ Akademiks’ full explanation of his Spotify Wrapped below.