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Rb Hip Hop

Kendrick Lamar Gets Former Toronto Raptor DeMar DeRozan For 'Not Like Us' Music Video

Drake is the global ambassador of Canada's lone NBA team, and one of its most beloved former players makes a cameo in the diss track targeted at him.

DeMar Derozan in Kendrick Lamar's 'Not Like Us' Music Video

DeMar Derozan in Kendrick Lamar's 'Not Like Us' Music Video

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On America's Independence Day, Kendrick Lamar just made things personal for Canadian basketball fans.

The rapper dropped his much-anticipated music video for "Not Like Us" tonight (July 4), which is filled with thinly veiled visual shots at Drake. The diss track's video was filmed in Compton, and it feels like the whole city came out to celebrate at Drake's expense.


For fans in Toronto, though, there's one cameo that cuts especially deep: DeMar DeRozan.

The NBA player appears at the 2:43 mark during this line: "I'm glad DeRoz' came home, y'all didn't deserve him neither."

For those who didn't catch the reference initially, or who thought he was somehow referring to D-Rose (another NBA player, Derrick Rose), it's now painfully obvious who it's about.

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The Compton-born professional basketball player is now a member of the Chicago Bulls, but was drafted by the Toronto Raptors — Canada's lone NBA team, for which Drake serves as the global ambassador.

He was traded in 2018 for Kawhi Leonard, who then led the Raptors to their first NBA championship that season. In multiple interviews since then, DeRozan has talked about how he felt betrayed by the trade and had wanted to play his whole career in Toronto. But he never had a bad word for the city or the fans, who continue to treat him like a hometown hero every time he returns.

DeRozan was once close enough to Drake that he accidentally spilled the beans on an upcoming mixtape, so it's hard not to interpret this as him picking his hometown rapper Kendrick Lamar's side.

DeRozan also appeared onstage at Kendrick's Juneteenth "Pop Out" concert in Los Angeles, so this doesn't come fully out of nowhere. But his brief cameo looking into the camera in the "Not Like Us" video feels another direct hit.

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Drake performs live at Wireless Festival at Finsbury Park on July 11, 2025 in London, England.
Simone Joyner/Getty Images for ABA

Drake performs live at Wireless Festival at Finsbury Park on July 11, 2025 in London, England.

Rb Hip Hop

7 Best Moments From Drake’s 2025 Wireless Festival Night 2 Performance: ‘Nobody Can Out-Rap London’

Drake's Saturday performance served as a love letter to the U.K., which he considers to be the preeminent hip-hop country.

Drake‘s love letter to London reached its climax Saturday night (July 12) when he performed night 2 of his Wireless Festival 2025 takeover. His second outing of the weekend had a grittier tone as he sought to abandon the melodies that had fans swaying Friday night and return to his punishing ways.

“London, tonight is different,” Drake warned. “All that sweetheart, singing s—? That s— is over tonight. This is for my motherf—ing dogs. I see my dogs came out tonight.”

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