Drake ; The Culture Vulture

June 12, 2026June 12, 2026 ~ uripowell ~ Leave a comment

By Uri Powell
Alpharetta High School

Hip-Hop. One of the most respected and recognized genres of music. Hip-Hop is a huge makeshift of culture, authenticity, and history. Hip-Hop has many notable and remarkable artists including DJ Kool Herc, Tupac Shakur, Biggie Smalls, Jay-Z, and more. Even though the story of hip-hop is changing over time, there are many modern artists who continue to shape the genre like Eminem, Drake, and Kendrick Lamar. Especially Drake and Kendrick Lamar.

The whole feud began in 2013, When Kendrick Lamar was featured on a song by Big Sean named “Control”. In the song, Kendrick Lamar mentioned various names of other notable rappers such as J. Cole, ASAP Rocky, Pusha T, Jay Electronica, and even Drake multiple times along with six other artists. Drake specifically did not love how he was called out and dissed in the song. Over the next few weeks, Drake stated that he took it personally, lost respect for the song and was uncertain about working with Kendrick Lamar.

For the next decade, Drake refused to work with Kendrick Lamar under any circumstances. Over time, the two developed the habit of underlying disses and insults about each other in songs. If you forward this timeline to oct. 2023, J. Cole released a song named “First Person Shooter” stating that himself, Drake, and Kendrick Lamar were the ultimate undisputed “Big Three” of modern hip-hop. Not too long after, Kendrick Lamar released a song titled “Like That” where Kendrick very clearly expressed that he would not like to be grouped with J. Cole and Drake and stated there is no ‘Big Three’, And that there’s only a “Big Me”. Many say this was the spark to recent rap battle between the two.

After Kendrick Lamar released “Like that”, Drake responded with a song named “Push Ups” which made fun of Kendricks height and his contract. Kendrick soon fueled the fire by releasing “Euphoria” which completely just disses Drake’s personality just after Drake released his song “Push Ups” in Apr. 2024. In May. 2024 Kendrick also released a couple more songs dissing Drake completely. One of those songs were named “Not Like Us”. The song “Not Like Us” states that Drake steals music from multiple locations in America, especially Atlanta, because he has no culture of his own. Kendrick included lyrics in the song aimed towards Drake like “How many opps you really got? I mean, it’s too many options”, “Certified boogeyman, I’m the one that upped the score with ’em”. Those lyrics reveal that Kendrick still does not associate himself with J. Cole and Drake in response to the song “First Person Shooter”.

Kendrick Lamar’s song “Not Like Us” became a historical global number-one hit. The song stayed at the top of charts, and took over social media. The song broke the all-time record for the longest running number one song in history of the hip-hop charts for 22 weeks. The day the song released, Spotify, the biggest music streaming service in the world, broke the record for the biggest single day streams with over 6.5 million streams in one day for a hip-hop song in U.S history.

In my opinion, the historical song of “Not Like Us” by Kendrick was proof he was one of the best rap/hip-hop artists of all time. Drake had his time to shine, and now it’s Kendricks time to take over. Since Drake fueled the fire, Kendrick put him out instead of the fire. Drake isn’t from America, he just utilizes it for money and fame. He invaded the hip-hop culture, he is a culture vulture and he got burned from trying to take over. Kendrick has remained popular and is considered impactful. Kendrick is such a great artist that he has 27 Grammy Awards which makes him the most recognized and awarded rap in history while Drake only has 5 Grammys, none of them are recent. We obviously can’t forget to mention that Kendrick Lamar won a Pulitzer Prize for his album “DAMN”. He is also the first rapper in history to win any kind of award so important that he is also named one of the best poets in history. Kendrick makes history, Drake watches it, he’s probably sitting in his bed right now thinking ‘How can I write like Kendrick?’…Truth is, he can’t. He never will. Kendrick is one of kind. Kendrick could ruin his whole career is he wanted to.

A couple months after the song “Not like Us”, Drake sued his record label Universal Music Group. Why didn’t he sue Kendrick? Because he knew he would lose and most likely end up as a meme truthfully. Drake accused the record label of advertising Kendrick’s music more than his. I feel the judge was right the dispose the lawsuit, it’s his fault he can’t win a rap battle. Kendrick Lamar is just better, I’m listening to him while writing this article anyways. At the end of the day, Kendrick was ultimately right, Drake might have some people wrapped around his finger but when it comes to culture and true music, he’s not like us.

How Does Mental Health Affect Athletes Off The Field?

June 11, 2026June 12, 2026 ~ uripowell ~ Leave a comment

June, 9, 2026

By Uri Powell
Alpharetta High School

Are college athletes perfect? Some assume so, some disagree.

College athletes have some of the most pressure placed on them every game. Especially college athletes who strive in football or baseball. Athletes who play football or baseball have the expectations from their teams, of the likes of a MLB (Major Baseball League) , and a NFL (National Football League) athlete over their heads. Even when they aren’t on the field, their minds are running back and forth about their performance, practice, or anything to do with their athletic scholarships.

Sports can easily have a huge psychological effect on someone. Stress, Depression, Burnout, Substance Abuse, and more. Athletes usually develop these to survive under the pressure of reality and live up to the standards of fellow team mates and coaches. In Oct. 2023, Brown University held a studying discovered that around 30% of college athletes will eventually quit their sport due to physical and mental exhaustion. As many colleges across the country notice this behavior in their athletes, they try to ensure that their athletes maintain stable mental health by having equitable access to counselors and other comfort sources to improve and uphold their performance. Even though student athletes have resources to turn to if they’re struggling, they can quite easily be replaced if a coach suspects the player constantly struggling, this creates hesitation for players to reach out for help while knowing it could cost them they’re athletic career. As football players miss classes for practice, and baseball players miss so many hours of school due to sport travel and packed schedules. Academic pressure can increase on the athlete due to these rules.

If a college athlete is falling behind in academic performance, they are legally required to be benched until their grades reach standards again due to the National College Players Association. On field performance can cause exhaustion and stress which can lead to severe sleep loss from worrying. Being unable to sleep can greatly impact an athletes grades. Their grades can begin decline drastically which can lead to the legal ineligibility to play causing them become benched during games. After this process, it’s also very likely that the athletes will turn to substitutes to fill loose time which leads to substance abuse and mental exhaustion.

Although for baseball, it’s a bit different. Baseball players do need as much required academic excellence as college football does. College football usually only competes on Saturdays, baseball is a constant fast paced grind. A regular baseball season can average up to 56 games in a single semester. With this information, This can mean four to five baseball games per week with consistent travel and practices. While football must earn 9 credits during their fall semester to be considered for next years team. In baseball, they must earn only 6 credits during the fall semester to become eligible for next years team. Another challenge is that the NCAA Regionals are held in late April and early May, which are also the times colleges and universities are holding all final exams. This can cause tremendous stress among student athletes.

In Dec. 2023, the NCAA Student-Athlete Health and Wellness Study conducted a study for college athletes. It was shown that up to 45% of college athletes experience constant mental stress due to intense athletics, around 24% experience clinical depression, and over 55% participate in heavy substance abuse. This data clearly demonstrates how college athletes are affected by the industry.

College American Football, Golf and Cheerleading are a couple of the most mentally demanding sports while college baseball is one of the most strategic team sports. College football and baseball are two of the most fan hyped sports in the world. College sports are the most watched and cheered for sports in America at the moment. So maybe college athletes aren’t perfect, and they don’t always win, but they try their best.

Uriana Powell

June 9, 2026June 9, 2026 ~ uripowell ~ Leave a comment

June 8, 2026

Bonjour! I’m Uriana Powell, I am a current rising 9th grader in the state of Georgia and I have so many fun facts about myself, interests and Hobbies, it’d be impossible to list them all. Although if I had to choose a handful, I’d reveal that I actually received my Georgia medal and award of biliteracy in IB French, I have a deep interest for any Biology or Chemistry, and I love sports as I do track, swimming and diving, competitive gymnastics, sideline and competitive cheerleading, flag football and golf! Something I absolutely love is scrapbooking, I’ve been scrapbooking for almost six years now and I love decorating pages and adding my own photos. Speaking of photos, photography has also always held a place in my heart, I am an experienced and recognized Photographer and Videographer as a job, as I usually always have some type of camera on me. I early developed a love for music, I’ve played the violin for 4 years and the harp for 5 years. Even though I have the best built in biological friends in the world, I’m the youngest sibling of five…which immediately makes me the favorite!

I always enjoy having the opportunity to serve my community, I volunteer as a mentor for various programs at my church and am a part of the student council and serve in the youth ministry. My church, My school, My everything, is always so special to me so I always try my best to keep myself Included…Which leads me a while back when I decided to join my school news crew with one of my best friends. We were ecstatic to be able to try this out for the first time. Everyone could only apply for one role, so I applied for anchor.

I unfortunately did not make anchor and ended up in charge of the camera. Even though I started as the camera person, always the sidepiece, overlooked, and misjudged… I eventually managed to work my way up until I finished my 8th grade year as the producer, head anchor, planner, script writer, and the most long lasting members of my news crew as I created so many new traditions, and got so many new students and peers included in the news crew process all in three months. Now I’m continuing my journalism journey by attending this UGA journalism camp on a full scholarship- which I’m so grateful for. I’ve always wanted to attend UGA as a school since forever and so I’m so excited to be here.

I’ve always had an interest in journalism, I’ve written over four chapter books in the French language about various topics and people absolutely have loved them, I used to have a blog named “The 4 Consecutive Minutes” where I would talk about four recent important topics in exactly four minutes, I began this in 4th grade and lately took a break because it got really cringy. Yet, On another note I love writing, I write books, poems, stories, or almost any literary piece of work. I love all types of media and journalism and hope to keep working in the field.