Kendrick Lamar vs Drake | Power Games: The Politics of Popularity, An Astrological Perspective, pt 1
Introduction
The reason I decided to do this analysis is because I am curious about why Kendrick and Drake had a falling out. The first time I heard of Kendrick was on Drake’s album, with the song Buried Alive, and that was over a decade ago. Now admittedly, I haven’t been following their careers intently, but I’m a bigger fan of Kendrick’s music than Drake’s music, but Drake has garnered an immense amount of success with little to no hiccups. I mean he’s had issues with Pusha T and Meek Mill in the past, but he’s pretty much survived unscathed. So what’s going on now, what’s changed?
Before I get started with the analysis, it is important to note that Drake’s chart ruler, which is the Sun, is in the house of Gemini and Kendrick’s chart ruler, Venus is in the house of Scorpio. Kendrick has Pluto in Scorpio in the 1st house. Both Drake and Kendrick have Jupiter in the 7th house which means they both thrive on competition and they have a gift for facilitating relationships that help them accomplish their professional goals. These two men are almost mirror images of each other which makes me think there’s a mystical or cosmic element to this conflict.
Chart Information
Kendrick Lamar: June 17, 1987 | Compton, CA
Drake: October 24, 1986 | Toronto, CA
3rd House + Mercury: Rapping Styles
So Drake’s Sun is in Scorpio and Kendrick’s Sun is in Gemini, and on the surface, these signs do not have a lot in common. Drake’s Sun is fixed, water, and ruled by the planet of Mars/Pluto and Kendricks Sun is mutable air, ruled by the planet of Mercury. Yet somehow these two men have managed to be very successful rappers, which requires exceptional communication, and creative writing skills.
Communication and creative writing are ruled by the planets of Mercury and primarily the 3rd house. In fact, all air houses are relationship houses, the 3rd involves communication with siblings and neighbors, the 7th house involves communication with relationship and business partners, and the 11th house involves communication with friends and social networks. But we focus on Mercury and the 3rd house to evaluate aptitudes for receiving and disseminating information
Drake
Unsurprisingly, both Drake and Kendrick have healthy, robust, 3rd houses. But we’ll get into Drake first. Based on the Drake’s 29deg Leo rising, he has a stellium of planets in his 3rd house including his Sun at 0 degrees, which is conjunct his Pluto at 7 degrees, Venus at 18 degrees of Scorpio and Mercury at home, but in the sign of Scorpio. So although Drake is a Scorpio, he has a very strong Gemini signature in his chart with all of these powerful planets, including Mercury in his 3rd house. With Pluto conjunct the Sun, Drake is someone who commands power and respect and he may be ruthless or very determined to accomplish his goals. Pluto in the 3rd is a very powerful communicator with the ability to influence the way people think in order to get them to do what he wants. Drake’s Mercury is in accidental dignity in the 3rd house where it naturally resides, and Drake’s Pluto is in domicile; he has a hypnotizing effect on the people around him and he can use these gifts for positive or negative reasons; which brings me to this Mars in Aquarius 6th house square.
Mars: The Disrupter
People with Mars square Pluto are determined to be powerful or influential people; and with the square aspect, they may become abusive, underhanded, cunning, or ruthless to achieve their objectives. People with Mars in Aquarius have lots of powerful and even violent friends that can do their dirty work for them; with Drake, Mars in Aquarius square Pluto in Scorpio he falls out with his friends quite often when they find out he’s trying to manipulate them behind the scenes. He may be someone who uses friends to get to a certain position of power and then discards them because he doesn’t want someone who’s helped him to have the power to hurt him. He may also help people for the sake of owning them, or he wants them to be indebted to him in some way. For example, this is like Diddy, another Scorpio, who would commit criminal activities, but people looked the other way because he helped them professionally. As I mentioned earlier, the first time I heard about Kendrick Lamar was on Drake’s album; this may have been a genuine act of kindness on Drake’s part, but with the Pluto/Mars square, there may have been more insidious motives for this initial show of support.
Scorpio in 3rd House
Also with the stellium in Scorpio in the 3rd house, including a debilitated Venus, Drake thinks about sex alot, it’s almost compulsive for him, he may use money to control women sexually because Venus the planet of money is conjunct Mercury the planet of transactions and exchanges, making a tense aspect to Mars in Aquarius in the 6th house of work. He may get into fights over women/including working women aka sex workers, he may use women to control men, or he uses his co-workers as tools to assert his dominance in his working environment; Venus/Mars squares are very competitive against the opposite sex, and with Scorpio involved, this person may have sex with women in their friend circle, or they may have secret sexual affairs with their friend’s partners, especially people they work with. Mars in Aquarius in the 6th square Venus may also use their friends to get women for them. Now I’m not saying this is true for Drake, I don’t know, but with Venus/Mars square aspecting Pluto, Drake gets a kick out of using his money, power and influence to control women.
As far as Drake’s rapping style, he’s really interested sex, fantasy, escapism, and the emotional intrigues of complicated sexual relationships that are transactional in nature i.e. Venus in Scorpio conjunct Mercury in Scorpio, how can I use my music to extract sex, energy from women. Drake has a grand water trine in his air houses, he knows how to intuitively appeal to women who want the fantasy of being loved and rescued by a rich and powerful man; and because this grand water trine includes an very powerful Jupiter in Pisces in the 7th house, he has an endless supply of women he can appeal to emotionally and financially. I’m not saying he’s selling these women a dream, Venus trine Jupiter in Pisces, but he kinda is. A lot of male listeners and rappers made fun of Drake for making “simp” songs, or romantic music for strippers and sex workers; but with Venus in Scorpio, Drake likes or even prefers women who sell their bodies for money because again we have the square to Mars and conjunction with Pluto, it’s easy to control women or people in general, who are with you for your money; but can money buy loyalty? Only temporarily.
Jupiter in Pisces
Drake has Jupiter at home in Pisces in the 7th house of marriage, open enemies and business partnerships. Jupiter is the planet of luck, opportunity, expansion and increase. With Jupiter in Pisces, Drake’s biracial makeup worked in his favor, it helped to give him crossover appeal, as this Jupiter is training with the Moon in Cancer in the 11th house. Pisces and Sagittarius can be associated with being mixed-race, and I’ll discuss why in the future. Pisces also represents religion, beliefs, morals, escapism, deception, betrayal and hidden enemies.
Drake’s religious heritage as the son of a Jewish woman also worked in his favor, it garnered him more support from the music industry; this could be one of the reasons why a biracial man from Ontario became the most successful and powerful rapper in history; Drake has a lot of support from hidden powerful people in the industry. However, this support is generating jealousy and thus betrayal, because with Jupiter in the 7th, the more friends you have the more enemies you have. And with Pisces in the 7th house, hidden enemies become open enemies at some point; so the same people who have helped Drake in the past, may turn on him because of the Mars/Pluto square aspect I discussed earlier. Pisces in the 7th denotes betrayal from marriage or business partners because at some point people will see that they’re being used.
Drake has Saturn in Sagittarius square Jupiter, the opportunities that he has comes with a lot of responsibility, which he may or may not agree with. Sagittarius is the sign of our religious beliefs, the law, foreign affairs, long distance travel. There is a possibility that people of a certain religious or political affiliation are using Drake for money and power and to also shift the foundational structure of the rap industry, making it into an international business as opposed to an American brand; the pieces on the chessboard are being moved aka Diddy and Russell Simmons and the gatekeepers of American Urban music are being replaced by international players or corporate culture vultures. As we’ve seen with other entertainment fields, biracial or racially ambiguous people who do not present as too black are more widely accepted even though they are selling black culture or a black identity; Drake in their opinion is successful because he’s the best of three worlds, religion, mixed raced, and not American, and thus not a socioeconomic or political threat, which now brings me to Kendrick Lamar.
Kendrick Lamar
3rd House
Kendrick Lamar has two planets in his 3rd house, Uranus in Sagittarius and Neptune retrograde in Capricorn. At the very least, Kendrick is exceptionally psychic and intuitive, he has an artistic temperament which makes him easily agitated due to his heightened sensitivity to unseen forces. He may have prophetic visions about the past and the future which he uses to inform his creativity. He may appear to be nervous, uptight, brooding, intense, shy and mysterious in spite of his Gemini 9th house Sun. The Sun in the 9th house is very political, the cusp of Kendricks 3rd house is Sagittarius, the sign of politics, religion and philosophy; Kendrick has retrograde Saturn conjunct Uranus retrograde in the 2nd house opposing his 9th house Sun. Kendrick feels a sense of responsibility and obligation to use his platform as a rapper to elevate, educate and liberate the collective; in past lives, he may have failed to do so or was prevented from executing his plans successfully; and thus in this lifetime he feels like his talent as a prolific communicator must be used to fulfill some sort of religious or political purpose.
Sidenote, Kendrick has a very light, thin tone to his voice which is attributed to the Saturn in Sagittarius placement; in a past life he may have been attacked to silence his voice. However, Kendrick has Saturn square his Moon and Sun aspects, he may suffer from chronic depression because of this heavy responsibility, he feels like his life is not his own; he also needs to travel or get out of the house to feel free. Unfortunately with the Moon in Pisces square Saturn in Sagittarius, Kendrick may have used substances like drugs and alcohol to escape from the pressures he put on himself to show up in the world the way he thinks people want him to or to fulfill some sort of past life karmic contract. Kendrick also has Mars conjunct Mercury in Cancer; it’s rarely if ever a good idea to get into an argument or debate with someone who has this aspect because their words can be lethal, you’ll get your feelings hurt pretty badly. Kendrick has Mars conjunct Mercury square Jupiter in Aries, not only is he good at verbal sparring, he enjoys it, it allows him to let steam. As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Kendrick uses violence to regulate his emotions and to feel like he has some agency over his life. Was Kendrick a battle rapper in the past, he may have been; if he wasn’t he’d excel in that arena, but again, he would feel like doing that would be a waste of his talents. I think this conflict with Drake is cathartic for Kendrick, he’s lowkey enjoying it, especially if he’s doing this for sociopolitical reasons and not just entertainment; he can let off steam in his music without hurting anyone physically, although some people are saying that Kendrick’s versus were so disrespectful, they gotta fight, which I don’t agree, keep it on wax.
With Uranus and Neptune in the 3rd house, Kendrick has a heightened interest in spirituality, technology, media, history, and philosophy; he wants to use these interests to educate and uplift his fans, not just entertain them; for him bubblegum pop music is a crude form of entertainment that dishonors him, his purpose and his love for his community.
Past Life Karma
Another sidenote: There is a strong possibility that in a past life, Kendrick’s life was cut short due to some sort of political conflict, and this has left an imprint on his soul consciousness. His ascendant makes a square aspect to Mars the planet of war and Jupiter the planet of politics and philosophy. Jupiter in Aries and Jupiter in Scorpio natives are natural warriors, they enjoy the art of war; these people are not afraid of gangs, guns, or death, they prefer to associate with criminal or underworld types who aren’t afraid of conflict and these people offer protection, but. With Jupiter in Aries in the 7th house which is the house of open enemies, like Drake, there’s a possibility that the people Kendrick has partnerships with or even their spouse may become an enemy in some way; I wouldn’t be surprised if Kendrick is part of a gang or a powerful organization just like Tupac, Lil Boosie, Lupe Fiasco and Drake. With Drake’s Sun being in Kendrick’s 1st house
Uranus in 3rd House
So Kendrick’s Uranus in the 3rd house creates a square with his moon and an opposition to the Sun and Chiron; it’s very easy for Kendrick to lose his temper, he’s emotionally unstable because of past life and childhood trauma, it’s difficult for him to regulate his emotions because in a past life he didn’t have the opportunity to heal before he transitioned, so he inherited karmic baggage that makes it difficult for him to relax, he always feels on edge, he feels like he’s being judged, surveilled, attacked, exposed, endangered, and he channels those feelings into his music and sometimes uses substances like drugs and alcohol to get relief from his intense feelings. Kendrick knows he has to fight, but because of the retrogrades in his chart, he can’t fight the way he did in the past, his enemies are too powerful or too numerous; and the most powerful he faces is himself, he’s tormented, and I actually have a lot of empathy for him because he’s honestly doing the best that he can but he needs to give his soul time to heal.
With Mars square the nodes, in a past life, his violent tendencies prevented him from fulfilling his life’s purpose, he intuitively knows this, which is why I think he chose to be a conscious rapper instead of a drill rapper; he’s trying to elevate and ascend, but his anger could get in the way of this. I wouldn’t be surprised if Kendricks knows how he died in a past life either, his SN is in the 12th house; he’s constantly being reminded, not to make the same mistakes, but it’s very hard; fortunately with Jupiter in the 7th and Pluto in the 1st, Kendrick has the opportunity to transform himself in a way that will allow him engage in spiritual warfare that doesn’t require overt, brute or unwarranted violence; he has a lot of support from powerful friends and even the universe to use his wisdom to accomplish what he set out to do strategically. With Saturn in the 2nd house, Kendrick wants to make money responsibly, he doesn’t want to sell death and ignorance, he wants to inspire and educate.
With Uranus conjunct Saturn opposing the Sun, Kendrick has moments where he restrains himself, and then he wilds out when the pressure gets too intense, like holding your breath for too long; he holds his breath a lot proverbially which stifles his creativity and communication, but again he may use drugs or alcohol or even anger, because emotions are an elixir also, he uses drugs, alcohol or angry emotions to break free from the self-criticism, self-restraint and self-imposed limitations; his mind is at war with himself and this manifests as external conflict; rap battles are a productive way for him to release confusing and challenging emotions.
Conclusion
So in summary, both Drake and Kendrick were destined to be rappers, but their motivations are different, which is partially what has led to this conflict. Drake’s influence is being used to shift the hip-hop industry to a more international market, where the gatekeepers of the culture are not from the culture they’re marketing, and Kendrick is focused on using his platform to uplift, inform and inspire to facilitate a revolution. Drake and Kendrick have different goals because their value systems don’t align, in fact I think Kendrick genuinely has no respect for Drake and what he represents as an artist.
But that’s it for part 1, in part 2 I will address your questions or comments about this presentation as it pertains to Kendrick and Drake’s natal chart. As soon as I get to 20 comments I’ll prepare for part two because I want to address at least 5 comments for clarification and further insight, I don’t want to do a 3 minute response. Alright guys, I’ll leave it there, I look forward to reading your feedback, please like share and subscribe, and I’ll speak to you soon.