Drake is in his feelings. He would have you believe that his mind is on pu**y and millions, as he rapped about last November. But is it? Or is he still thinking about Pusha T…
Who is Drake?
Aubrey “Drake” Graham is a pretty prominent pop star, who got his start as an actor on Degrassi. He played Jimmy. He also threatened legal action and nearly quit the show because his character was paralyzed and in a wheelchair after season 4. But that’s a topic for another day. (link)
Drake has broken a bunch album sales records during the streaming era. His fans and adamant defenders would have you believe that this means he is the best rapper of all time, because all they can understand is numbers. These are generally the same people who think Elon Musk is really smart. The hip-hop community has regularly bashed him for his relentless borrowing of other artists’ sounds, most notably when he was stealing Carribean Dancehall sounds, or copying British rappers’ accents, in order to broaden his appeal worldwide.
Editor’s note: I’m okay with people saying Drake is one of the best pop artists, not one of the best rappers.
Culture Vulture Allegations
Calling Drake a culture vulture is a bit reductionist, though. He has done a lot through his career to bring more attention to other artists, frequently collaborating with up-and-comers from LA to Houston to Atlanta to London.
Is it also beneficial for Drake to attach his own name to these up-and-coming artists? Absolutely! But I can only be so mad at a win-win. If anything, this is one of the more admirable things about Drake.
Number One Woman Hater
My biggest issue with Drake, though, is the way he veils misogynistic message with backhanded compliments and advice, acting like he is a world-class playboy even though his early music reflects his true emotions.
Maybe he has been hardened by fame and fortune, but I could see through the congratulation video he made for LeBron. That’s a sad man, still. And that’s okay, Drake. But he isn’t owning the sadness anymore, he wants to look as though he is the heartless, cool guy. He’s not hurt that you’d leave, in fact he’s surprised you stayed so long, and now that you’re leaving, you’re a bad girl and always have been. And he has an army of men who do the same damn thing behind him. On top of that, he does the weird thing guys like this do where they act like anyone who isn’t ideologically aligned must not understand what having women be into you is like.
Here’s a weird pre-emptive straw man argument in his early work, saying:
Know that I don’t make music for n****s who don’t get pussy // So those are the ones I count on to diss me or overlook me
Drake on Lord Knows, from 2011’s Take Care
No one was asking? Weird, buuuut okay.
Anyway, Drake is constantly worried about what other people think about him. He is freaking out about it right now. And he really really wants you to be thinking about Pusha T, for some reason.
Beef with Pusha T
The rivalry between Drake and Pusha T stems from the broader rivalry between Drake and Kanye, but it escalated when Pusha T released Infrared, where he alleged that Drake was using ghost writers to achieve his monstrous streaming numbers. After that, Drake released Duppy Freestyle, which was a fairly well crafted response to Push’s diss track. Pusha T responded with what essentially ended the battle, The Story of Addidon, in which Pusha T revealed that Drake had secretly had a child with an adult film actress, and he didn’t want the world to know until his Adidas line was out.
To paraphrase the rest of the song, not only is Drake a bad partner, but he is repeating the mistakes his own dad made when he left Aubrey’s mother. Also, Pusha T used a picture of Drake dressed in blackface and minstrel wear, from an actual photoshoot that Aubrey Drake Graham actually participated in. To be fair, he has claimed that this was in order to bring awareness to stereotypes of how black actors are portrayed.
Cut to July 2023
Five years pass, and Drake has been desperately trying to rebrand himself as the bad boy. His lyrics have gone from backhandedly misogynistic to straight-up anti-woman. You can also read about his self-righteousness in a poetry book he recently released, called Titles Ruin Everything. An incredible vanity project that uses about one line of text per page. I tried to find a link with customer reviews, but unfortunately it is not for sale anywhere with that feature. Wonder why?
(Side note, critics have reviewed it, and have the same question I do. Is he in on the joke? Because his persona is the joke, no matter if he knows it or not)
He has a new album on the way, titled For All the Dogs, making sure to grab onto the cultural moment when people were saying “he got that dog in him”, but not quite grasping the speed at which trends die off in the current climate. The poetry book includes a QR code to pre-save the album, another cheap streaming trick to increase his first week album sales.
Additionally, and most weirdly, he seems to be employing a bot net to attack Pusha T on Twitter (or is it officially X, now?).
Quick flash back to the fact that a lot of Drake fans are also Elon fanboys, and Elon himself said bots were defeated. Welp.
Weird Stuff Here
Someone, could be Drake, could be someone on his team, has incited a mass of users who “quote tweet” viral content with bizarre accusations about Pusha T. Things that are clearly satirical, but nonetheless weird. Why is he doing this? It’s anyone’s guess. but for some reason, Drake is bringing attention back to his beef. Maybe we can expect a few shots across the bow on For All the Dogs.
Here are a few examples:
If you care to, you can click through the users who make these tweets. I have, and I’ve found the same thing over and over. Anyone who was on twitter through the 2020 election knows how to spot bots. Low follower count, made within the last two months.
What’s going on? Y’all let me know if you have more info.
Anti-Standom
(Noun) Resistance to becoming overwhelmingly enamored or obsessed with a person or thing.
Anti-Standom 