Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” is now a video game.
The song, which some may call a diss track, others a West Coast anthem, was released on May 4, 2024 and debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. In the U.S., it logged 70.9 million official streams, made 5 million radio airplay impressions, and sold 15,000 copies by May 9.
Exactly two months later, Lamar dropped the highly anticipated music video, which has gained 69.9 million views (at the time of this writing).
Now, the hit song has made its way to the gaming world. According to Rolling Stone, “Not Like Us: The Game” gives players the ability to play the web-based game as Kendrick Lamar, and with a baseball bat they must hit an owl piñata until candy pours out. Each time users hit the owl piñata, they will hear the word “wop” played.
The concept was developed by Richie Branson, whose real name is Marcus Brown II.
“I did this for the people,” Branson told Rolling Stone. “I did it as a love letter to hip-hop and music, and because of that I wanted to make sure people would enjoy it. This particular game and the way it was set up, [with] Kendrick smacking owls around — I thought that would be the most enjoyable way of expressing my love of hip-hop music.”
Branson, who has worked for Def Jam and Adult Swim, also produced his own chiptune version of the song in under a few hours, notes the outlet.
“I didn’t want to put the actual music in there,” he mentioned. “As a musician, I understand you just can’t rip somebody’s song. Since I’m a music producer, I was like, ‘Let me just remake the beat.’ At the 11th hour, I felt like the recipe was there. The beat was the sugar on top of what was already gonna be a great sundae.”
The game seems to be a success, garnering 1.2M plays in 36 hours, Branson revealed on X, formerly Twitter.
Not Like Us game had 1.2 million players in the first 36 hours. 🙏🏾💎
— Richie Branson (@richiebranson) July 18, 2024