2018 has been home to two of the biggest rap beefs in quite some time. In an era where it feels like rap beef is just rainbow-haired kids on Instagram making semi-threatening videos towards each other, some longtime rappers have resorted to doing things the honorable way: by going at it, bar-for-bar, spitting some lyrical at one another. Today, I’m going to retrospectively discuss the first of the two big rap beefs from this year: you’ve heard all about it, but let’s talk about Drake vs. Pusha T.
For this “THINK PIECE,” I’m gonna talk about some background, as well as how the beef started, discuss the first diss track, the second artist’s reaction to said diss, the second’s artists response track, the first artist’s response to that, a summary of who won/lost, and whether more can be expected in the future out of the beef. So sit back, grab some popcorn, and get ready to learn it all about Drake and Pusha T.
HOW DID IT START?: Drake and Pusha T’s beef stretches far back. As Pusha has been beefing with Drake’s labelmates Birdman and Lil Wayne almost endlessly, Drake seems to have simply been caught up in the whirlwind of it, and his beef with Pusha appeared to be a byproduct of Pusha’s beef with Drake’s label. They’ve beefed for several years with subtle disses from 2012 to 2017, but the beef was rekindled in May of 2018 when Pusha T released his latest album “DAYTONA.” On the album’s closing track “Infrared,” Pusha reminded us of the accusations that Meek Mill brought up in 2015, where Drake was alleged of using ghostwriters for his music. With lyrics like “it was written like Nas but it came from Quentin” and “how could you ever right these wrongs / when you don’t even write your songs,” Pusha made it clear that his rivalry with Drake was still as hot as ever.
DRAKE’S DISS TRACK REVIEW/RATING: To the surprise of many, Drake wasted no time dropping his response to Pusha. In fact, the man released a diss track, titled “Duppy Freestyle,” on the same day as “DAYTONA.” He had to have been hurting with such a quick response, but at least he did it fast. Though the cover art of an OVO gold ring with generic “Duppy Freestyle” text didn’t do much hard-hitting going into the track, Drake made it clear that he wasn’t playing around. Over some very chilly production and a cutthroat beat, Drake flows somewhat unconsciously and his performance oozes confidence and braggadocio. Right from the jump when Drake lets out a big sigh as he has to keep dealing with the ghostwriting rumors, we see that this is gonna be a quick, but nonetheless painful, burn. And Drake holds little back on the song, reprimanding Pusha for calling out Drake on working with Quentin Miller (alleged as his ghostwriter, even though Quentin himself has even said he’s not Drake’s ghostwriter), but not reprimanding his producer, Kanye West, for needing Drake’s help writing songs like “30 Hours” and “Father Stretch My Hands, Pt. 1” from his album “The Life of Pablo” (the latter of which he wasn’t credited for, thus making HIM a “ghostwriter”), while also confirming that he also helped Kanye write new music in Wyoming that was set to be on his then-upcoming album “ye” (which ended up being confirmed when it was revealed that Drake wrote the hook for the album’s big single “Yikes,” and wasn’t initially given credit for it). He also addressed the ghostwriting rumors again by noting that he was simply trying to help Quentin Miller escape from working double shifts in retail by collaborating with him on tracks (Quentin pointed out that Drake’s reference about working at a Kroger was incorrect and that Quentin actually worked at a Publix, but it doesn’t change the line’s meaning at all). He also dissed Kanye for being jealous of Virgil Abloh, who went from helping Kanye with album covers and stage design to becoming a head of Louis Vuitton, and he went even further to diss Pusha by claiming that he wasn’t even one of the Top 5 artists in his label, G.O.O.D. Music (I’m gonna hard disagree on that one, but I get it, they’re rivals, they’re supposed to throw hard lines like that at each other). He went even harder with his subsequent disses of Pusha, where he called out the man’s drug-dealing hustle that he raps so much about by claiming that he “might’ve sold to college kids for Nike and Mercedes / but [he] act[s] like he sold drugs to Escobar in the ‘80s.” He also said that the faded Pusha T signature on the Clipse microphone he owned resembled Pusha’s fading career, and he went on to point out that Pusha was aging (even faster than Kanye) and that he wasn’t even a multi-millionaire rapper. And not only did Drake tell Pusha that he would “let it ring on [him] like Virginia Williams” (Pusha T’s then-fiancée and now wife), but he decided to get a little extra petty and tell Pusha that he would send him and Kanye an invoice for $100,000 on the grounds that Drake’s diss caused Pusha to sell 20,000 more albums. All in all, a still-vicious track that rings off even now. If I had to give it a rating, it would most certainly get an “Excellent” from this critic.
PUSHA’S RESPONSE BEFORE RELEASING HIS TRACK: Now I’ve only really studied rap beefs this year (since I only really got into hip-hop/rap music seriously last year), so I’m not sure what tends to happen very often during the grace period between “initial diss track” vs “response diss track,” but some artists may not respond too heavily to a track before dropping their response. It allows them to focus more of their attention on making the song. Pusha mostly seemed to do that here, with his only real response to Drake being a tweet where he said “Send the invoice for the extra 20,” alluding to that final line from “Duppy.” Drake would respond to this with an Instagram picture of the invoice (which he sent on the grounds of “promotional assistance and career reviving”) along with a caption of “You’re welcome.” Extremely petty and really funny, but little did Drake know what Pusha had in store for him.
PUSHA’S DISS TRACK REVIEW/RATING: Pusha wasn’t gonna go down that easily, and so he dropped his own track, “The Story of Adidon.” The song was released four days later, thus he was definitely in the “3-5 business day” period. So, on the timing front, Pusha definitely didn’t waste that. On the cover art front, though, Pusha definitely hit the hardest with his song: one look at the 2007 picture of Drake wearing blackface, clown lipstick, and Jim Crow clothing (a t-shirt and hoodie, mind you), and you’d immediately question just what Drake was thinking when doing this (and you might also think of Pusha’s one lyric he spat in “Infrared,” where he said that he didn’t “tap dance for the crackers and sing Mammy”). And if that wasn’t a telling indicator that this was gonna be a discussion of racial identity for Drake, well then look no further than the sample Pusha used on this one: hiding nothing and providing zero subtlety with his production, Pusha raps over the excellent beat from Jay-Z’s “The Story of O.J.,” another song that revolves entirely around racial identity. And while Pusha’s flow on here is a bit more structured than Drake’s rather interesting flow on “Duppy,” Pusha’s lyrics are without a doubt more scathing. While his intro goes on a bit long and simply sees Pusha let us know that it’s going to be a “Surgical Summer” while also spitting a few Spanish lyrics, it says something that Pusha is willing to waste so much time early in the track spouting less hard-hitting lyrics because there’s so much in store later on. And ohhhh boy, does he have stuff in store: right from the jump, Pusha sets aside the ghostwriting accusations and the drug-dealing talk to discuss Drake’s pride, both as a man himself and in his family. Fueled by pettiness after Drake’s “let it ring on you like Virginia Williams” line discussing Pusha’s fiancée, Pusha talks about how Drake’s father, Dennis, walked away from his mother, Sandi, when Drake was 5. Right off the bat, burn. And he doesn’t stop there: beyond talking about how Drake’s mother “keep[s] coming in last place” for her lack of a marriage, he talks about how Drake, confused and feeling like he “wasn’t black enough,” parades his father around in unfashionable suits as a point to emphasize his black identity. Blackface cover, “The Story of O.J.” sample, lyrics discussing black identity…it all comes full-circle. But wait, Pusha only gets more vicious from there! Pusha demolishes Drake for, despite preaching about family and togetherness, having a baby with a former pornstar and hiding said child from the world, even going so far as to call him a “deadbeat mothafucka playin’ border patrol.” In Pusha’s own words, “ooh!” And even though said rumor circulated long before, Pusha wasn’t just scrubbing TMZ for rumors: he knew that the child’s name was Adonis and that Drake was allegedly planning to introduce the child to the world with an Adidas press run known as “AdiDon.” Boy, this guy did his research. He goes on to say that he is “pre-booking the churches” against his three “hearses” (Drake, Lil Wayne, and Birdman), and he responds to Drake’s “old age” and “faded career” lines by noting that he still releases classics, is aligned with the greats and is only chasing two ghosts (2Pac and Biggie). In arguably the harshest line of them all (one that I’d even argue oversteps a few bounds), Pusha makes light of Drake’s producer, 40, claiming that his multiple sclerosis has him “hunched over like he’s 80” and indicating that he will die soon (40 notably tweeted that the track was released the day before World MS Day, so points to Drake’s team on that). And as if THAT wasn’t all scathing, Pusha T labeled the song as “Surgical Summer, Volume 1,” indicating that he had even more dirt on Drake that he could reveal if the opportunity presents itself, and that he could just “peel it back layer by layer.” Yeesh, must be a good thing the beef was stopped where it was because, with all he revealed here, I’m terrified of the other shit he has on Drake. Either way, Pusha's track, outside of the OVO 40 line, also gets an "Excellent" from me, I love this song as well.
DRAKE’S RESPONSE AFTER PUSHA’S TRACK: Once Pusha’s track came out and the ordeal was made about Drake’s child, everyone was waiting patiently for Drake to respond to Pusha. Initially, he didn’t respond to the song, only posting an Instagram story clarifying the “blackface” cover art, claiming that the picture was from a 2007 photoshoot that he did with his best friend at the time and that it came from a project he was working on about the way that black actors were being stereotyped and typecasted in films at the time. Now, in a way, Pusha’s response to that where he talked about how Drake was “silent on all black issues” despite his massive platform is true, but I do see what Drake is saying, and I don’t disagree. For one, he was most certainly in a position to make a statement such as the one he was making, but also, let’s not take the cover art at face value: said picture is often attached to another blackface picture, where Drake, sans clown lipstick, looks down in sadness while the photo itself is black-and-white. If you look at both, it does add a bit to what Drake was saying and makes it a bit more understandable. As for a response track? Well, apparently Drake had one locked and ready to go, and he even confirmed this in an interview with LeBron James. However, Drake’s track apparently had some very hurtful bars, not just for Pusha but for Kanye, who Drake would’ve apparently “ended” with the track. Apparently, even though the track was ready, J. Prince, CEO of Rap-A-Lot Records, intervened and convinced Drake not to release his response, so Drake didn’t. Instead, he threw a few subtle jabs in throughout the songs on “Scorpion,” and also admitted that the child was his. While it seemed like that was the end of it, Drake also revealed in the LeBron video that Kanye snaked him by keeping the beat for “Lift Yourself” that was apparently going to go to Drake, bringing Drake out to help out with writing only to produce an album that dissed Drake in writing (Pusha's "DAYTONA"), and most notably, Drake apparently showed Kanye a picture of his kid and played him “March 14,” which seemed to indicate that Kanye gave Pusha the intel on Drake’s alleged son. Most recently, Pusha stated that it was actually 40 who spilled the beans about Drake’s kid, so the plot thickens a bit for sure, but we’ll see if more comes soon.
WHO WON?: Oddly enough, while most people are ready to anoint Pusha as the winner, I think it’s a little tougher. I know that sounds weird, especially with how vicious those Pusha quotes were, but I’d argue that both of them won, just in different battles. Sure, Drake took a heavy L when his child was exposed to the world, but I feel like, as info came out later on, some of Pusha’s hard disses hit a little softer in my eyes. Furthermore, this was a case of two people having an argument where neither is particularly wrong, but neither one is arguing about the same thing. Yes, Pusha was correct about Drake’s family issues, the identity of his baby mother (which I left out because that poor woman’s Instagram comments section is already a mess as it is), the baby himself (which was confirmed on Scorpion), and all of that, and even if he wasn’t technically “correct” on the “AdiDon” part, it really wouldn’t be a surprise if Drake had the Adidas run planned, but backed out right after Pusha’s diss. However, though he was right on those, Drake’s recent interview with LeBron seemed to indicate that he was trying to be a better father before the diss track and that he actually showed his kid (and the “March 14” track) to Kanye during writing sessions in Wyoming. It seemed like he was actually excited to raise the child and be a good father to him. Furthermore, not only was Drake correct in claiming himself as Kanye’s “ghostwriter” for “Yikes” as I mentioned earlier, but after making a whole track talking about Pusha’s drug dealing and the ghostwriting claims that followed him, Pusha brushed them aside right at the beginning of his song, seeming to subtly admit that Drake was correct in his points. So sure, you can hand the W to Pusha if you want just for sheer viciousness, but honestly, the battle really wasn’t as one-sided as you may think, so I'm actually gonna give it a tie. I know, I'm going against the consensus, and people will hard disagree, but I just feel like it wasn't such a one-sided victory.
WHO LOST?: Again, this will be an odd answer but, I'm gonna honestly say it…Kanye West. I know that sounds weird, but more and more as time went on, it felt like he was the true loser of the battle. At first, Drake made claims that he helped Kanye do writing in Wyoming, which was confirmed with the “Yikes” hook, which Drake wrote and initially wasn’t given credit for, and Pusha couldn’t really respond back to that in his track, only halfheartedly saying “how dare you put Ye in my verses.” It's also ironic that Pusha wanted the curses to himself but put Drake’s family, child, baby mother, producer, and labelmates in verses. Either way, as time went on, we started to learn more about how Kanye had planned to give Drake a beat but never did, had the intel on Drake’s kid as potential ammunition for Pusha, and oversaw Pusha’s record and writing diss even after having Drake write material for him. So, overall, Drake and Pusha didn’t lose. Kanye did. I’m sure if it was still June, I’d probably say Drake lost with little to no hesitation, but the more info spills, the more I feel Kanye looked stupidest here, not Drake.
IS THERE MORE TO COME?: Most definitely. Obviously, with recent media like the LeBron interview and Pusha’s 40 reveal, the beef still seems to remain hot, even if it means we won’t see another track anytime soon. And look, I know Drake has been making amends with those he previously beefed with, such as Meek Mill and Chris Brown, but at this point, I feel like there’s almost no way that Drake makes up with Pusha T. Maybe when one or the other is on their literal deathbed, but given that Pusha’s beef runs deeper than Drake and into Drake’s label, I don’t know when or if we’ll be seeing any making up. And while both of them might be done spitting verses directly at each other, I can tell you we’re probably still gonna see a few small bits of pettiness and subliminal shots here and there between the two, so I’m definitely interested to see what we get out of that. It may take a while, but I’m sure we won’t hear the end of “Drake vs. Pusha T.”
Phew, so that was that. I know, a lot to cover, but I think we did a good job. Next time, I’m gonna be doing a “THINK PIECE” on a rap beef that’s a little fresher in your minds: Eminem vs. Machine Gun Kelly. Oooh, that’ll be fun.
No comments:
Post a Comment