It was the summer of 2024 when Kendrick Lamar dropped the atom bomb, “Not Like Us,” on Drake’s career and the Hip-Hop industry at large. At this point, with Kendrick dropping his diss anthem, the culture was already slowing to a crawl in terms of fresh blood to sustain the creativity and growth of the genre. Things had begun to get a bit boring, to say the least, and the Drake and Kendrick beef was a way to hopefully breathe some life back into a once again dying genre.  Unfortunately, it seems clear that the opposite effect has taken place.

Instead of breathing life into the dying genre that is Hip Hop, seemingly, in an effort to solidify Nas’s long past declaration of Hip-Hop being dead, Kendrick’s anthem paid homage by inadvertently pulling the plug.  Afrobeats and other genres began to garner more attention at the forefront, and even though the underground will consistently find ways to stay active with new creativity, the mainstream flow seemed to dry to a drip.  To elucidate the problem, last year, for the week of October 29, 2025, it was the first time in 35 years that the Billboard Hot 100’s Top 40 did not feature any rap songs.

To take a look at some headlining artists within the industry that came to rise in the same class as Drake and Kendrick, J. Cole, who had his own involvement in the beef initially before falling back, announced his own “retirement” with The Fall-Off.  Despite how trivial this “retirement” may really be, it does make it clear regarding the current trend of the decline of Hip Hop as an industry and culture.

Drake, who at one point was definitely to many the top rapper in the industry, was already seeing his notoriety and dominance decline for years before Kendrick seemed to deliver the “death blow” that knocked Drake out into obscurity.  Now close to two years removed from the prior beef that led to Drake taking a hiatus from the limelight, he is set to return to the scene with his very fittingly titled “Iceman” project set for release May 15th.

The Toronto MC, exiting his media hibernation, began his promo for his next solo project release by having the official release date for his project hidden inside a giant stack of ice blocks in his hometown.  This brilliant guerrilla marketing tactic led to many of his fans, who are fiending for their next fix, to take matters into their own hands. Devout followers of the church of Drake can be seen on video attempting to expedite the reveal of the project’s release date by chipping away at the ice and attempting to speed its melt-up with various melee tools.

The official tracklist for Drake’s Iceman has not been released as of yet, but there have been a handful of tracks that were released in 2025 that are expected to be on the project, such as “What Did I Miss?,” “Which One” featuring Central Cee, and “Dog House” featuring Yeat and Julia Wolf.  Features that are suspected but may not be confirmed include 21 Savage, Young Thug, Cash Cobain, PARTYNEXTDOOR, and Sexyy Red, among others.

Drake has already done the work to solidify himself as a legend in the game, but a significant chapter in his career’s legacy and the trajectory of Hip Hop in the future may ironically depend on his capacity to breathe life back into the culture with his Iceman project. Only time will tell. Stay tuned.