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Not Like Us - Kendrick Lamar: Some songs peak on launch week and vanish, but this song got bigger as the months went on.
Released in May 2024 as a direct shot at Drake, the track ended up becoming the most searched song of 2025, a year it wasn't even supposed to be relevant in.
What happened between those two points is a story about how music, beef, live performance, and award shows can collide into something that no algorithm could have planned.
A Song Released in 2024 That Dominated 2025
"Not Like Us" dropped on May 4, 2024 via Interscope Records, right in the middle of one of the most public rap conflicts in recent memory.
At the time, it felt like a moment — a banger with a point to prove. What nobody quite anticipated was that the song would still be leading search charts more than a year later.
The turning point came in early 2025. At the 67th Grammy Awards, the track picked up five wins — Record of the Year and Song of the Year among them — tying a record for most awarded song in Grammy history.
Then on February 9, Kendrick took the Super Bowl LIX halftime stage in New Orleans in front of 133.5 million viewers and performed it live.
That night alone sent search volumes spiking again. People who had never followed the Drake feud were suddenly typing the song's name into Google for the first time.
The Spotify Phenomenon: Months in the Global Top 50
Numbers tell part of the story. "Not Like Us" hit number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 — Lamar's fourth time reaching that spot — and held the top position on both the Hot Rap Songs and Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts longer than any other song in their history.
On Spotify, it stayed inside the Global Top 50 for several consecutive months throughout 2025, which for a diss track with zero traditional rollout is genuinely hard to explain by industry logic alone.
No album to anchor it, no radio push, no pre-release campaign. Just the song, and whatever cultural gravity it kept generating every time another milestone hit.
Two Years, One Song: How a Work of Art Dominates a News Cycle
Looking back from 2026, the pattern is clear — even if it wasn't obvious while it was happening.
"Not Like Us" kept resurfacing because the world kept handing it new stages. The Grammys. The Super Bowl. The Grand National Tour.
Each event brought a new wave of listeners who hadn't been paying attention the first time, or the second. It became a reference point — something people quoted, sampled in memes, played at parties, and searched for just to make sure they hadn't misheard a lyric. That kind of longevity isn't manufactured. A song either earns it or it doesn't.
About the Album: GNX
"Not Like Us" was released as a standalone single — no album, no rollout. But in November 2024, Kendrick surprise-dropped GNX, his sixth studio album, through pgLang and Interscope Records.
It arrived without any announcement, which felt fitting for an artist who had spent the year proving he didn't need the traditional playbook.
GNX reads like a West Coast exhale — regional, personal, and comfortable in its own skin. It didn't need to be the biggest album of the year. It just needed to be exactly what it was.
| Artist | Kendrick Lamar |
| Album | GNX |
| Country | USA |
| Released | November 22, 2024 |
| Label | pgLang / Interscope Records |
| Tracks | 12 |
| Highlight Tracks | Squabble up, Luther, Tv off |
| Line Up | • Kendrick Lamar • SZA • Roddy Ricch • Dody6 • Lefty Gunplay • Wallie the Sensei • AzChike • Hitta J3 • YoungThreat • Peysoh |
