Drake And Kanye West's Entire Feud Explained
Rap feuds are nothing new. Throughout the decades, tension within the music industry has caused some serious beefing between its main players and, quite honestly, some great rapping. There's a long lineage of rifts. Look back at Jay-Z and Nas' ongoing jabs — thankfully, things resolved in 2005 when Naz joined Jay-Z on stage and the feud was officially over, according to Complex – or 50 Cent, who has a decent list of rifts himself, including one with The Game and Ja Rule.
Drake has a decent list of beefs as well. According to Complex, there was the nasty one with Meek Mill when the latter jumped on Twitter in 2015 to say, "Stop comparing drake to me too... He don't write his own raps!" Things got sorted in 2019 when Meek Mill featured Drake on "Going Bad." Drake also had beef with Pusha T and things only got worse when Pusha T released "The Story of Adidon." The track was ruthless; Pusha T claimed that Drake wasn't acknowledging his child and featured racially driven cover art of Drake to boot.
Well, Drake's got another name to add to this list: Kanye West. In fact, their feud has been going on for some time. Here's the story.
How Drake and Kanye West's feud began
Drake and Kanye West actually started out as friends. In 2009, West praised Drake on the track "Every Girl" and Drake returned the favor by speaking highly of the veteran rapper in interviews, according to Screen Rant.
However, things took a turn in 2016 when Drake rang in the New Year by spending time with West's ex, Amber Rose, according to Page Six. Sources reported that the pair had an intimate dinner and, obviously, the sighting sparked relationship rumors. It seems like this didn't sit well with West.
And those weren't the only rumors that began circulating. Shortly after, Drake's verse was dropped from West's classic song "All of the Lights," according to Screen Rant. Drake shot back with jabs at West over the years and when Pusha T began his feud with Drake, the latter lumped West into that feud, believing that he was behind Pusha T's disses. But things have taken a more serious turn. Here's what's going on.
Kanye West and Drake's feud just reached a new level
Drake gave Kanye West a pretty decent jab while collaborating with Trippie Redd on the new track, "Betrayal." According to Yahoo! Lifestyle, Drake can be heard rapping on the song, released this August: "All these fools I'm beefin' that I barely know/ Forty-five, forty-four (burned out), let it go/ Ye ain't changin' s**t for me, it's set in stone." At the time of the song's recording, West was 44 years old and famously goes by "Ye," so it's entirely plausible that Drake's words were directed at West.
In retaliation, West shared in a now-deleted Instagram post a screenshot of a group chat between eight people. As Screen Rant noted, Pusha T was one of the recipients and many are guessing that Drake was also included in the group. In fact, many think that West's texts were directed at Drake. West sent a photo of Joaquin Phoenix as The Joker and texted, "I live for this. I've been f**ked with by nerd a** jock n****s like you my whole life. You will never recover. I promise you."
This wasn't all — West then went on to share what appeared to be Drake's address. However, he deleted the Instagram post shortly after, according to Yahoo. While this was obviously not a cool move, some fans noted that the same address West posted, the one allegedly attributed to Drake's home, is already common knowledge on the internet. Nevertheless, things are looking messy.
The beef could only escalate from here
Although Kanye West publicly doxed him, Drake seems mostly unbothered. Shortly after, he posted a video to his Instagram Story, where he is laughing and smiling while driving his convertible (via TMZ).
Drake began stirring the pot with West even earlier this year when he seemed to allude to sleeping with West's soon-to-be-ex-wife Kim Kardashian in his song "Wants and Needs." "Yeah, I probably go link to Yeezy, I need me some Jesus," Drake raps on the track, per The Sun, "But as soon as I start confessin' my sins, he wouldn't believe us." The Sun also reported that this isn't the first time Drake has made that insinuation. In his 2018 track "In My Feelings," Drake raps about several women he's had sex with, referring to them by initials or nicknames. One of the women he mentions is Kiki, which is Kardashian's family nickname. Though Kardashian denied the rumors, fans wondered: Is she lying, or is Drake just trying to get under West's skin?
If he's trying to get under West's skin, he's definitely succeeded. When West released "Donda" on August 29, the album featured several perceived shots at Drake. Then, when Drake released his own album days later, he struck back (via Yahoo!) and referenced the address controversy. Calling out an opponent's "jealousy," Drake delivers the line: "Give that address to your driver, make it your destination / 'Stead of just a post out of desperation." It doesn't sound like these two will be burying a hatchet any time soon.