Does Kendrick Lamar's "Euphoria" Diss Include a Sly Nod to Drake's 2009 Robbery?

As longtime 6 God fans know, Drake was reportedly robbed in Toronto in May 2009 after he and a woman he was with at the time left a local restaurant. A New York Times profile the following year mentioned the incident, noting he cooperated with the police investigation:

 In May 2009 he was robbed at gunpoint in a Toronto restaurant. He cooperated with the police investigation, in what some perceived as a violation of hip-hop's no-snitching ethos. The black gossip Web site MediaTakeout.com posted a snapshot of a page of the criminal complaint under the headline "Caught Snitchin!!! Rapper Drake Testifying Against Men Who Robbed Him!!!"

Also in 2010, Drake spoke to GQ about the incident, calling it "a setup" due to the perpetrators demanding his chain. According to Drake, those responsible "banged on the car window with a gun and opened the door," then demanded a chain he had received from Young Money founder Lil Wayne.

Meanwhile, a 2010 report from Canadian publication Globe and Mail points out that those found to be responsible for the robbery ultimately spent about six months behind bars. The same report also posits that a second alleged gunman ultimately "escaped," adding that Drake was being criticized at the time for purportedly cooperating with an investigation of some sort. However, the report also speculates that Drake may not have been fully cooperative with the ensuing inquiry into the robbery itself. All of this, as seen above, is touched on in the latest fan speculation surrounding Kendrick's "Euphoria."

Fast forward a decade, and Drake appeared to reference the robbery on his Dark Lane Demo Tapes cut "From Florida With Love," rapping:

Weezy played that shit for me and Kobe on the bus

Went and got a chain for me, I had to give it up

N***as had they pistols loaded pointed at my truck

And you know that lesson stuck

If Kendrick was indeed referring to this incident with his New Ho King line, it might help explain another lyric on the track where Gunna catches a stray. "I know some shit about n***as that make Gunna Wunna look like a saint," raps Kendrick.

To be clear, with regards to Gunna, it's been repeatedly confirmed by him and his team that no cooperation took place. Instead, Gunna took an Alford plea in the widely criticized YSL RICO case, which means, as Gunna himself explained in a statement in December 2022, that he entered "a guilty plea to the one charge against me, which is in my best interest, while at the same time maintaining my innocence toward the same charge."

In the full statement, Gunna also said he was not cooperating with the case, nor would he be further involved.

As for Drake, the above speculations are merely a fan-fueled interpertation on what Kendrick could have meant by his lyrics, though the robbery incident was reported at the time and confirmed by Drake. There's a chance we might get some confirmation as this battle continues to unfold.