Did Kendrick write his Drake diss in an Oasis t-shirt? An investigation

On Sunday, the Twitter account @Alchemist_Fan posted a photo of Lamar in the studio alongside producers Budgie and The Alchemist. In the blurry studio shot, Kendrick has swapped out his high-fashion stage style for a very casual fit. Gone are the Martine Rose shell suits and gilded crowns of thorns, instead replaced by a pair of patterned trousers and an Oasis band tee. After doing some exhaustive investigative reporting (a Google reverse image search), there doesn’t seem to be any earlier instances of the photo online, which suggests it could be a recent photo, maybe even from the Drake Diss Sessions. The picture is taken in The Alchemist’s home studio, who’s the sole producer on “Meet the Grahams”, so it checks out so far.

If the photo is recent, then it’s a savvy fashion choice from Lamar. The Gallagher brothers – otherwise known as Liam and Noel – are without a doubt two of the biggest haters of all time, and have been locked in their own eternal beef for basically as long as they’ve been alive. Over the years they’ve said things like “he’s a man with a fork in a world of soup” (Noel to Liam), “I don’t miss him because he’s a fucking tool” (Liam to Noel) and “I don’t listen to his music because I can’t stand the sound of his voice” (Noel to Liam). Writing a diss track while channelling the atrocious levels of petty spewed by the Gallaghers would probably make anyone come out with a song as blistering as “Meet the Grahams.”

On slightly closer inspection, a few things stand out in the original photo that may blow my theory out the water. On the side, there’s an iPhone resting face-up and it’s got a home button, a feature Apple started to phase out in 2017; there’s also a Patta hoodie thrown over one of the chairs, one that came from a Dekmantel collab released in 2018 (it’s not looking good for me). Despite this mounting evidence to the contrary, I have decided to remain resolute in my beliefs: Kendrick Lamar did wear an Oasis t-shirt to write his Drake diss. This may not be a document of the exact moment, but it makes so much sense it would be crazy not to believe it at this point. This photo has resurfaced at the exact moment we needed it the most, and I know that the #1 hater Liam Gallagher would be on board. “What a fucking dude”, he to Q mag in 2019 about Lamar’s band tees. “I don’t know much about him, but fair play. He wears more Oasis t-shirts than one? Well, he’s got more than I have then.”

But though K.Dot and the Gallaghers may seem an unlikely pairing, this isn’t the first time he’s pledged allegiance to the Manchester band, and, like Liam points out, we know that the rapper owns at least two different Oasis tees. In 2018, Lamar played Grandoozy festival in Colorado wearing a ‘Supersonic’ version of the shirt, and in the same year posted an IG photo dump wearing one that said ‘Live forever’, which he also wore on a trip to Tokyo around the same time. While these dates suggest Lamar’s Oasis t-shirt era was actually around 2018 and 2019, I have chosen to believe that the studio pic is recent, and the rapper just needed to summon the spirit of Liam Gallagher to write the line “I hate the way that you walk/the way that you talk/I hate the way that you dress.” The pettiness lives on forever.