Over the course of the half-dozen or so diss tracks exchanged by Drake and Kendrick Lamar over the past week(end), one person’s name has been tossed around almost as much as either of those involved, and that’s Whitney Alford. Drake used the mother of Kendrick’s children as a point of attack on two different tracks, “Family Matters” and “The Heart Part 6,” accusing the other rapper of abuse and neglect. He also suggests that at least one of Kendrick’s kids might be the result of infidelity between Alford and Kendrick’s business partner, Dave Free. So, who is Whitney Alford?
Alford is Kendrick Lamar’s high-school sweetheart, with whom he has shared a long-running, on-and-off-again romance. She is a makeup artist by trade, but has appeared on several of Kendrick’s songs, contributing background vocals to “King Kunta” and “Wesley’s Theory” from To Pimp A Butterfly, as well as appearing on the Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers cover with the couple’s children and narrating the tracks “United In Grief” and “Father Time.” She isn’t active on social media, but around the time Kendrick’s last album came out, she posted repeatedly — presumably to help promote the album — and Drake fans have used a May 2022 post as evidence that she and Kendrick have been on the outs for some time, as Drake asserts in his diss tracks.