Drake recently appeared on Maverick Carter’s and Lebron James’ “The Shop” and finally opened up about the Pusha T beef, his illegitimate son and estranged mother, and a whole bunch of other stuff that he probably should have kept to himself. It was a supposedly candid interview from the Canadian actor/rapper, and somewhat helped to explain his mindset when Pusha’s “The Story of Adidon” showed that he’s not bulletproof. Or at least that’s what he wanted you to think.
In reality, it more closely resembled a calculated piece of PR. A way for him to save face after a truly embarrassing rap beef proved that he should not be engaging with real street rappers. The Meek Mill beef inflated Drake’s confidence a bit too much and made him think he was a talented battle rapper and savage street dude when he was neither. He’s a Canadian actor and incredibly gifted singer/rapper but he got carried away with his tough guy persona. He’s always carried himself as the perfect gentleman, and he got (rightfully) called out for his bullshit. But I digress, before we get into the new details here’s a quick recap in case you forgot what happened:
- Pusha T disses Drake on Infrared
- Drake responds to Pusha and brings Kanye on Duppy Freestyle
- Pusha T responds with The Story of Adidon
- Drake goes silent, cancels his Adidas line, and releases Scorpion
- Drake goes on the “Aubrey and the 3 Migos” tour with former enemies trying to spread positivity and end ALL the beef
- Drake appears on The Shop and explains why he didn’t respond – insinuates that Kanye was the one who gave Pusha the information.
If Drake had let it lie, everybody would have moved on. I give him some credit for (mostly) being a good sport about it and praising Pusha’s “chess move” and strategy in “The Shop” interview, even though he still deflected most of it by going after Kanye.
What I take the most issue with is his insistence that making fun of Noah “40” Shebib was going “too far” because he had a “disease” and that Pusha is going to get “punched in the fucking face” (by who? Drake’s bodyguards? lol) for saying that. First off, he mentioned Pusha’s wife in Duppy Freestyle so he’s a hypocrite for saying only the rules apply to Pusha. Second, don’t engage in War and expect there to be any rules, ever. Styles P and Dave East explained this perfectly in an interview in Hot 97.
You can’t start a fight then start making up rules of engagement. Street fights have no rules, war has no rules, rap battles have no rules. The goal is to disrespect your opponent as succinctly and completely as possible. That includes family, friends, lifestyle, all of it. If you have insider information, even better! That is the game you’ve chosen to play, the goal is to win at all costs. Drake claims he “studies battle rap for a living”, but if he did, he would know all of this. I think what he meant is he watched some battle raps on YouTube. That’s my best guess because I can’t think of one rap battle I’ve seen where insults don’t get overly disrespectful and out of line. He’s like the one whiny kid you played basketball with growing up who would start calling fouls on every shot the second he started losing.
The big revelation from Drake’s meandering justification was that he confided in Kanye about his baby mama drama while he was helping ‘ye finish ye. The way he tells it, Kanye implored him to open up about his life and Drake did. Telling Kanye about the problems he was having with the mother of his child, being unable to see his son, and playing him the track March 14 off Scorpion. The interview makes Kanye look like a backstabbing dick. Or genius asshole depending on how much you hate Drake. While Drake shouldn’t have confided in a genuinely insane person, he didn’t know Pusha-T was planning on dissing him. If you believe Drake: Kanye knew and prodded Drake to spill his guts with the intention of giving that information to Pusha.
But something didn’t make sense, why would ye’ burn a bridge with one of his most talented collaborators? As Drake mentioned and Kanye has confirmed, Drake helped him with TLOP and ye a significant amount. Even if Kanye was loyal to Pusha, it wouldn’t make business sense to throw away a lucrative partnership with the most famous rapper on Earth just for a few petty insults. Ye is petty, but he’s also business savvy.
Cue Pusha T appearing on Joe Budden’s podcast.
Oh, Aubrey. Why can’t you let sleeping dogs lie? Pusha says that it wasn’t Kanye who leaked the information, but Drake executive producer/disgruntled employee Noah “40” Shebib. Well, he didn’t tell Pusha, but he confided in the woman he was sleeping with and, according to Pusha, spends “5-6 hours on the phone with daily”. That’s some middle school level phone time. During these hilariously lengthy conversations, 40 would complain about work, about Drake, his career, his M.S. (probably) and eventually Drake’s deadbeat dad situation. 40’s fuck buddy is also G.O.O.D friends with Pusha, and relayed all of this information to him, leading to the diss track and image of Drake in Blackface.
Never Forget
This alone would be bad enough, and may even cause discontent within the OVO camp, but then Pusha goes a step further and plays a phone call of Drake’s people actively looking for damaging information on him. The man is just ruthless. He will not allow Drake to crawl back out of the grave he dug for him this past summer in any way, shape, or form. All of the drama had blown over, Drake stans acted like it didn’t even happen, and Drake took an L while being unbelievably unaffected except for a few great memes on Twitter.
My Favorite
Aubrey, please stop it. You made the right move before this interview. Keep silent, preach positivity, end the beef with all of your former enemies, be unapologetically YOU. The more you try to justify your losses or claim they weren’t losses or try to blame somebody else will only make you look worse. Plus, it reminds people of the diss track and the black face photo every time you mention it. You will not save face on this one, it’s time to move on to the next. Don’t try to exude this tough guy persona that you picked up in 2016 when you won a single, one-sided battle against an opponent who barely tried to respond. You lost this one, there’s no need to justify your lack of response or questionable family decisions. Your fans have already forgotten about what happened, and they support you regardless. It’s a luxury comes with your astronomical level of fame that you’ve maintained for almost a decade.
The only person that can hurt your reputation is YOU. You are your own worst enemy in this situation. If you play in the dirt, you’re going to get dirty. Be the megastar you were born to be and leave the mudslinging to the rappers that are actually from the mud. Choose your battles wisely and don’t let your ego get the best of you because it’ll end up making you look much worse.