Why Did Kendrick Lamar Call Out Drake For Tupac’s Ring At ‘The Pop Out’?

Kendrick Lamar’s The Pop Out — Ken & Friends Juneteenth concert — at Kia Forum in Inglewood, California on Wednesday night, June 19 — was bookended by Lamar reasserting his deep hatred for Drake. Lamar began his set with “Euphoria,” and his instantly iconic finale involved running through “Not Like Us” five times (six, if you count the instrumental as he left the stage) — both live debuts of his Drake diss tracks.

Fans noticed something different about “Euphoria,” as explained below.

Why Did Kendrick Lamar Call Out Drake For Tupac’s Ring At The Pop Out?

While performing “Euphoria” live for the first time, Lamar added a bar: “Give me Tupac’s ring back, and I might give you a lil respect.”

Last July, Drake bought a custom ring formerly belonging to the late Tupac Shakur at an auction. USA Today reported at the time that Drake dropped more than $1 million for the ring, which Sotheby’s described in a press release as “an exceedingly rare piece of Tupac’s signature aesthetic and a slice of hip-hop history” while confirming that Drake was the purchaser “after Shakur’s grandmother and lifelong supporter, Yaasmyn Fula, put it up for auction.”

Seeing as Tupac was a cornerstone for West Coast rap — Lamar has since taken on the mantle — and Drake has absolutely no allies within Los Angeles rap, it makes sense that Drake owning anything related to Tupac doesn’t sit well with Lamar.

Tangentially related, Lamar name-checked Tupac twice (“You think the Bay gon’ let you disrespect ‘Pac, n****?” & “Yeah, it’s all eyes on me, and I’ma send it up to ‘Pac”) in “Not Like Us” after Drake used AI-generated voices of Tupac and Snoop Dogg on “Taylor Made Freestyle,” one of his Kendrick diss tracks from April. Drake took a massive L on that — deleting it from social media after Tupac’s estate threatened legal action.