Zeus32
A detailed sit-down conversation between Drizz, Bron, and Maverick Carter.
Summer 2018 has come and went, leaving behind memories, extinguished campfires, and perhaps one of the greatest release periods in hip-hop. For the most part, save for Frank Ocean, everyone who’s worth mentioning dropped a project: Kanye produced five albums, including the masterful Daytona from Pusha T; Travis Scott finally unearthed the long-teased Astroworld; Drake controlled the charts with his two-disc album, Scorpion.
Perhaps, however, even more entertaining than the music itself were the tangential plotlines that developed in the wake of these ample releases. By now, if you call yourself a hip-hop fan or even a casual observer, you’re aware that Drake and Pusha T were lyrically sparring, resulting in a no holds-barred slugfest, ultimately finding King Push the victor–although his path to triumph wasn’t unanimously revered or celebrated.
Revealing Drake’s child out of wedlock to the world was the first questionable chess move; humorizing Drizzy’s longtime friend and producer’s, 40, battle with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) was suspect.
“OVO 40, hunched over like he 80—tick, tick, tick / How much time he got? That man is sick, sick, sick,” Push says in his staple snarl on the closing lines of his last verse on “The Story of Adidon”.
For Drake, responding to this wasn’t worth it–a response would simply continue the beef, contributing to Push’s name proliferation. In the business of marketing himself and not his foe, Drake took the high road by effectively ending the beef through silence. But silence is sometimes just a mask to cover-up dormant anger–anger that eventually needs to rear its head in some way, shape, or form.
Lebron James is of course regarded as one of the best basketball players of all time, but, in his words, he is more than just an athlete. Teaming-up with friend and business partner Maverick Carter, James owns and operates the sports content platform, Uninterrupted–home to a variety of athlete-themed documentaries and content offerings. One of the production company’s hottest properties, The Shop, congregates various influential celebrities–from Odell Beckham Jr. to Jerrod Carmichael–to discuss a range of current events and topics, to give a voice to the names typically reserved for headlines and box scores. On the series’ second episode, a special guest came to sit down with Lebron and Mav, and to clear the air on things weighing on his psyche.
Making the first public comments about “The Story of Adidon” since releasing a brief written explanation regarding his use of black face (the track’s cover art featured an old picture of drake wearing defamatory makeup), Drake opened-up on The Shop to talk about the iceberg of a diss track. Although Drake was clearly emotionally distraught about Push’s cavalier mentality towards his friend’s debilitating disease, Drizz seemed more upset with the man behind the man, Kanye West.
Drake explained how Kanye effectively played him by inviting him out to his Wyoming musical refuge on the promise of collaborating on Drake’s music, but wound up working on Kanye’s instead. Additionally, Drake confided in Kanye, telling him about his summer 2018 release strategy, his child, Adonis, among other personal details that Kanye in turn used as fuel against him.
There’s no doubt in Drake’s mind that Kanye informed Push about his illegitimate child; there’s even less doubt that Kanye hijacked Drake’s planned Scorpion release date to push his own onslaught of music. When Drake spoke with Bron and Mav on this past Friday’s The Shop episode, there was a palpable feeling of hurt and sorrow emanating from his voice. As a genuine Kanye fan and former frequent collaborator, Drake seemed hurt that this man would leverage his personal detail divulgence as fodder. I guess Kanye subscribes to the adage of keeping your friends close and your enemies closer.
After hearing Drake’s tell all, it’s difficult to believe that Kanye’s solo-signed peace treaty denouncing the beef between Push and Drake was genuine; rather, it more seemed like a ploy: Kanye knows that Drake is the most popular artist in the game, and that bad blood between the two could potentially harm Kanye’s stock.
The jury is, and probably will remain, out on whether or not Drake and Ye will patch things up. But given the animosity and resentment harbored by Drizz, it’s difficult to foresee any collaborations–or even civility–materializing in the near future. For the sake of continuing this past summer’s heat, we can only hope that they do settle this, but there’s only so far that a man can be pushed. It seems like Drake has reached his limit.
