Drake and Pusha-T Feud
By JASPER BURNES '21
Over the past few weeks, the feud between Toronto rapper Drake, and New York rapper Pusha-T has, to say the least, blown up. Though only recently gaining popularity, the drama (or, as it is commonly known, ‘beef’) between Drake and Pusha-T has been going on for many years. It all began with a dispute in the early 2000’s between Lil Wayne and Pusha-T, and has recently escalated to Pusha-T’s exposing of Drake’s hidden son.
The ‘beef’ recently rekindled when Pusha-T released the song “Infrared”, calling out Drake multiple times throughout the song. The major callout in this song was the lyric, “It was written like Nas but it came from Quentin.” This line references Drake’s use of ghostwriters– uncredited writers of songs. In the past, Drake was highly criticized for using ghostwrites. Pusha-T was especially bothered by Drake’s use of ghostwriters because one of these writers, Quentin Miller, had previously collaborated with Pusha. Pusha then performed the song Infared at the Governor’s Ball music festival, and, while he was singing, the crowd of tens of thousands of people began to chant “F*** Drake”. After releasing the song, Pusha-T’s audience has grown enormously.
After this callout in “Infrared”, Drake took their feud to the next level by referencing Pusha’s fiance in a freestyle entitled “Duppy”. Pusha considered it unreasonable for Drake to bring in Pusha’s fiance, so, in retaliation, Pusha found an old photograph of Drake in black face and posted it to Twitter, saying, “I’m not an internet baby, I don’t edit images…this is a real picture.”
To those following the drama between the two rappers, the photo of Drake in blackface brought attention to the artist’s seeming lack of interest about racial issues and his lack of effort to speak up about race. Pusha-T believes that, as an African-American rapper, Drake should use his popularity, as well as his fortune, to make a difference in social issues. In the same freestyle “The Story of Adidon,” Pusha-T raps about Drake’s son, who has been hidden from the public eye. The most obvious reference to Drake’s son is in the title, “The Story of Adidon”, as the name of Drake’s hidden child is supposedly named Adonis. There is a rumor that Drake was preparing to release news about his son to the media using a new Adidas line, which is to be named “Adidon.”
A common belief is that neither of the rappers have any real argument, and are instead fighting for the attention on social media. However, the fact that the rappers brought in racial issues leads some to believe that the fight is real, because many consider these topics far too important to be used as a marketing ploy.
These two rappers capture the attention of quite different audiences. Drake always has the more relatable content, reaching out to millions of people no matter what the music is. His pastel video for “Hotline Bling,” his catchy “Only love my bed and my mama I’m sorry” line in his latest hit, and a plethora of other examples from his content are clearly made to be easy to listen to and relatable to all listeners. Pusha has led his side of the argument hoping for Drake to use his popularity for a good cause instead of for personal gain and perhaps find ways to use his platform to advocate for social change.